watching the “no” people go through the seven stages of thinking they can do town budget better than everyone else have reached “just spend the reserves” and “just move some money around” phases

when are we going to pay teachers the same overtime wages police get

get out there and vote YES this week (in-person voting all week long at town hall!) YES for excellent public schools, public safety, public transit, and public parks! I am proud and happy to vote to increase my own taxes (modestly) to keep Brookline an incredible place to live and raise kids

Nineteen of the town’s 20 highest-paid employees in 2025 were members of the Brookline Police Department, according to payroll data obtained through a public records request. See the full list and hear from police department leaders: brookline.news/police-offic...

property taxes are not an "affordability" problem. taxes are higher because your house is worth millions of dollars. selfishly saying no to an override just means taxes keep going up anyway AND we will fire teachers and firefighters

if we’re banning e-bikes over 28mph can we talk about same other motor vehicles or just pretending those aren’t killing thousands of people a year

amidst all the local election fun, let's remember to be offended that this garbage-fire of a "restaurant" is opening in Coolidge Corner! please join me in literally never ordering anything from this local-business-killing atrocity :) www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JHF...

John VanScoyoc, “independent thinker”: “We can’t allow the dream of protected bike lanes that we’ll never have cause us to delay fixing a street” …..wait why can’t we have bike lanes? We can, should, and do have them!

here's another better way to look at it how has the tax bill paid by the median condo owner changed since 2015 in brookline vs newton? brookline is a good deal and worth investing in!

the mean property tax bill is a misleading stat: 1 - property vals in brookline are high b/c it is desirable to live here and there is not enough housing 2 - our residential exemption lowers the bill more for condos; so the mean is doubly misleading a better comp: tax bill for the median home

don't mind me just losing sleep again about whether a narcissistic venture capitalist millionaire is going to ruin the town I love by lying to people about how taxes work 😅🫠😭🙏

it's friday April 10, and John van Scoyoc has still not told voters how he will vote on the override he is running to lead our town, shouldn't voters know how he feels about funding it?

leak of latest video from the “no not for Brookline” campaign youtu.be/OZsY9-2oGV0?...

lousy smarch weather

beginning to feel this fifa queue is an April fools.. here in hour [checks watch] 4

my wife pointed out how many people apologetically jog or speed walk through crosswalks, genuflecting to our car overlords for their benevolence take back the streets! and by that I mean cross at a reasonable pace!

good luck today arlington hoping for a positive outcome!

The Select Board has officially voted to place a $23.25 million override on the May 5 ballot! Now it’s time to roll up our sleeves & make sure the override passes. Come to our kickoff this Sat., 3/28, 11:30-1:30 @ the Brookline Teen Center (40 Aspinwall Ave). Sign up to volunteer: yesbrookline.com

from our local "urban planning" pac's website, I have notes: 1. 1 of the pics is the same pic as another pic 2. 1 of the pics is a slightly different angle of the same block 3. 1 of the pics is of a forest

had to reread this line a couple times.. from paved paradise “By square footage, there is more housing for each car in the United States than there is housing for each person”

pretty rich that MA state reps, by refusing to act, are pushing towns to destroy their services and school budgets to preserve a poorly written Reagan-era law that fails when inflation occurs our children's futures should not be tethered to the whims of ill-informed NIMBYs inaction is unacceptable

Save the date! Yes for Brookline's campaign kickoff event is this Saturday at 11:30 a.m. at the Brookline Teen Center! RSVPs welcome but not required at yesbrookline.com/rsvp

excited to see more developers proposing bold residential and commercial projects in brookline's transportation districts. maybe I am developing some hope that we will actually build some of these?!

as a dad I find it increasingly hard not to respond "that's a problem statement" during community sessions about literally any change to any roadway also just .. traffic already being bad or dangerous somewhere is a reason TO change it not keep it the same act like grownups!

heading to the first @bostonlegacyfc.com game! new kids on the block is apparently still extant and performing 😮

I am hopeful Brookline's voters will do the right thing and pass the override in May The impact on the median homeowner? ~$120/month in new taxes For a condo owner? $30/month ...and existing protections for any seniors who legitimately can't afford this Literally a small price to pay

dear brookline select board (and other town leaders who feel paralyzed by "community pushback") read any book specifically recommend Street Fight by Janette Sadik-Khan

we're about to ask brookline voters to approve a property tax override because the select board (and many of those voters) is too afraid to build new buildings the answer is simple, developers are practically begging us, and it's impacting us disproportionately inaction is unacceptable!

so we DO know what happens when we build this kind of development, and it is good for businesses, neighborhoods, and schools watch the same group say to vote "no" on the override, perpetuating a fiscal death-spiral and risking those things they purport to represent brookline.news/re-developer...

it's fun to see that our neighbors in south brookline simultaneously oppose new construction AND paying for town and school services. nice! I propose that you can pick at most one :) preferably neither! [[from the 2023 override vote]]

hi @samjmintz.bsky.social for your override reporting on "the biggest ask in state history" I find some "as a percentage of tax levy" context helpful brookline is bigger than most other MA municipalities, so impact on individuals would actually be smaller

block party on Beals today — simple process via the town permits website to close the street to traffic for the afternoon come say hi! and consider one for your street!

wtf with this sign how bout cars don't hit people slow the eff down with your 8 ton Range Rover idk

another instance of small/local businesses benefitting from more pedestrian infrastructure (in this case literally an entire roadway closing) www.nytimes.com/2025/05/27/u...

in 2023 7,314 people were killed by someone driving their precious car or truck into them (preliminary numbers for 2024 show a consistent trend) an attempt to find the corresponding statistic for pedestrians killed by bicycles yields little traction but is almost certainly fewer than 5 per year

the eagerness of people to willfully ignore both reason and data when discussing bicycle infrastructure is incredibly galling.. making a dangerous street safer for bikes, pedestrians, public transit riders, and drivers is good for everyone smh brookline.news/heated-neigh...

have been using Boston and Brookline’s mostly excellent @ridebluebikes.bsky.social system lately by far the biggest issue with the network is your desired destination having no spots when you arrive why not adopt DC’s policy of a $2 fee to park at a public bike rack?

what a nice day for a picnic in the Coolidge Corner Park, you know the one behind the thea-- oh wait it's a giant parking lot very excited to reimagine this space!! www.brooklinema.gov/3895/Centre-...

wen toby sillman newsletter brookline.news/re-meet-the-...

excited for this release increasingly convinced cars are terrible in almost every way www.lifeaftercars.com

proud to endorse Michael Rubenstein for Select Board among many other reasons, he's the only candidate who voted in favor of Brookline's mbta communities act compliance (and even led the Yes! In Brookline campaign that supported it) happy voting!

town hero of the week explains why bike lanes and vision zero are good for our neighborhoods (and why disingenuous cries of foul play are just that) brookline.news/re-what-to-k...

wen betting market for whether he’s even read the declaration of independence

this is simultaneously so scary and depressing I almost can't believe they're doing it but then I remember it's them bsky.app/profile/evan...

🚨🚨town grump on the week alert🚨🚨 sir we live in a society

rationalize it however you want the reality is our FY26 plan puts the schools in financial peril while preserving nearly all town staffing and projects we can and must work together to do better for our kids, our teachers, and our schools

if Town Meeting were presented 2 budgets for FY 26 (total budget of ~$440 million) one that gave the Schools $6 million more (1.35% of the total) at the expense of non-school departments, which one would you vote for? followup question, why doesn't Town Meeting get to make such a choice?

nice read summarizing how "in study after study, in city after city" small business owners' opposition to bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure has proved misplaced www.vox.com/future-perfe...

claps for Cambridge for doing the right thing here ..so many rebuttals to choose from.. going with: should have referred this to the comprehensive planning committee

how many things in one blorp? more money for schools, more houses and apartments, more speed humps, better T stops, more bike lanes, fewer cars going slower, more buses & trains, social workers not SROs, fewer more-accountable representatives, broader reproductive rights, athletics for all