JOHN WORDEN

   FOR STATE REPRESENTATIVE

23^rd Middlesex District - Arlington – West Medford

John Worden has a long record of involvement with causes dear to the hearts of many Democrats :

*Environment – overuse of gasoline and diesel powered vehicles for commuting and shipping rather than public transportation and fuel-efficient cars or shipping by rail are major contributors to global warming and polluted air.  John Worden has commuted to work ever since graduating from law school and he drives an electric car. He will commute to the State House the same way.   He worked to start the initial study of water quality in Spy Pond when it was rapidly deteriorating setting in motion the later changes and likewise he has supported improvements and study of water quality and watersheds through his membership in the Mystic River Watershed Association and as a Director of the Metropolitan Ecology Workshop.  He encourages the adoption of LEED standards of energy efficiency in all new construction. He is a member of the Steering Committee of Vision 2020 and former President of the Arlington Conservation Association, current member of the Arlington Land Trust, Trustees of Reservations, and Conservation Law Foundation.

*Open Space – over development of scarce natural open space has been a problem which John has worked to control for many years.  He supported acquisitions of land the Town has made over the years in order to protect open space and watersheds including land on the banks of the Mystic Lakes, land at Mount Gilboa and Cooke’s Hollow and at Summer Street where land that had been planned for a housing development is now McClennen Park.  He and his wife gave Arlington its first Conservation Restriction on land which they owned to provide a small woods in an area becoming more densely developed.

*Historic Preservation – John has worked with other preservationists to establish and protect 7 beautiful historic districts.  He also was successful in obtaining federal funds to establish Arlington’s Preservation Fund which is a revolving fund used to provide low cost loans to homeowners for work on historic houses.  John is President of the Preservation Fund and a member of the Historic District Commissions.  He is past President, Director, and Trustee of the Arlington Historical Society and appointed the Building Committee for construction of the Smith Museum.

*Fiscal Responsibility – John plans to make local aid his first priority and so regain our lost millions and holding the line on taxes.  He supports removing the exemption for telecommunications firms of property taxes for use of poles to provide more income for cities and towns.

*Affordable Housing – John has encouraged inclusionary zoning and conversion of existing buildings to provide affordable housing.  He has supported the use of CDBG funds to do that.  He is concerned that many subsidized units may return to market rates and advocates longer deed restrictions so that residents of these units would not become homeless.  He is a member of the Real Estate Bar Association’s Affordable Housing Committee (a group of lawyers involved in affordable housing issues).

*Humane issues – John is Director of the Animal Rescue League of Boston (one of two major humane organizations in Massachusetts).  The ARL supports, with financial contributions and expertise, many worthy causes including elimination of  greyhound racing.

*Recycling  - When a young Town Meeting Member John worked with another conservationists to pass a deposit bottle bill in Arlington long before the state did so.  He supports expansion of the current new bottle billto include water bottles.  As Moderator he has enthusiastically encouraged presentation and discussion of recycling issues at Town Meeting.  He has expressed a desire to limit the stream of solid waste by controlling excessive packaging, wasteful paper use, etc.

*Constituent Service – For John this is one of the most important services that a State Representative should provide and is often necessary.  Recently, for example, many residents of Summer Street have been negatively affected by the street reconstruction there suffering from tardy completion - we have an incomplete road, many neighbors have sustained substantial damage to their homes, numerous fine trees have been sacrificed, the sound signals at corners can be heard as far as 400 feet away, street signs continue to be missing or obscurely placed, etc.  John has asked why should it take longer to re-build one relatively short street than it did to design and build the Lexington & West Cambridge Rail Road in 1846, or to construct the Empire State Building in 1930?  In fact why do all state projects seem to cost a fortune and take forever to complete?  As your State Representative he will try to get to the bottom of this, as well as demanding that the cost of repairing any damage caused to property in the course of such a project be paid quickly to the property owner, without the necessity of litigation.  Jon has always been interested in constituent service.  Many years ago, when he was a young Town Meeting Member, a retired member of the Arlington Police came to him for assistance.  In those days, retirees from town service had received a pension based on the salary they had received while in service.  Some of these elderly men, who’d been retired for many years, filed a warrant article to accept a state statute, providing that their pensions be adjusted to keep pace with inflation.  The article got no traction with the Selectmen or Finance Committee.  But John got up and argued for it, the article was passed, and since then, retired town employees have seen their pensions adjusted upwards – and I don’t think many remembered how that came about; they should be grateful to John for that.

*Health Care reform – John is concerned about the cost and affordability or lack thereof of healthcare and states that the role of insurers should be regulated so that patients and primary care physicians are better situated which would result in improved care, better cost control, and more primary care physicians remaining in Massachusetts.  He cites as completely inappropriate the fact that a local health insurance executive received a 16 million dollar golden parachute when the Town’s crushing health insurance costs are 14 million dollars.  John works with the Sanborn Foundation (of which he is a Director) to ease the lot of cancer victims.  He donates to CareNet, a non-profit providing free tests and counseling to impoverished women for which his son is the volunteer physician and accepts no payment for his services.

*Transportation – Local MBTA hearings at which testimony was received have been used by John to suggest improvements to the system. He commutes almost every workday to his office on the MBTA and criticizes the lack of reliability and timeliness of the system.  Escalator maintenance should be improved and bus and train shelters should be provides – for example at the West Medford station.  He also states that it is imperative for officials in situations where the T is expanding to take seriously citizen input and to avoid eminent domain takings.

*Seniors – It is essential to protect seniors and others on fixed income.  John has arranged for seniors in difficulty to receive a helping hand through the Farmer Fund of which he is the Trustee.  Making it easier for seniors and the disabled to stay in their homes by enabling them to obtain Personal Care Attendants is a reform for which he will work.

*Balanced Development – John has testified at the State House concerning development-related legislation.  He is extremely concerned about the proposed 40T initiative currently in the legislature whereby developers who would provide some affordable housing will be allowed to establish their own domains within municipalities including property of other people  and within these domains be, in effect, the government and the tax collector.  He has worked to reduce the damage done to neighborhoods and the environment by Chapter 40B (see www.worden2008.com) which he hopes to reform and he has stated that Chapter 40R removes rights from property owners in such a way that it goes against hundreds of years of legal tradition so that only the very wealthy have any chance of achieving justice.  He opposes any 40B development for the Mugar site in East Arlington and for the Belmont Uplands at Alewife and points to the increased flooding hat would result from overbuilding in these areas including wetlands.  Last year he helped defeat an attempted 40B project of Avalon Bay at Hamilton Farm (just outside Arlington in Winchester) which would have destroyed the farm and its historic buildings.  He also opposes the removal of affordable houses by tear-down activity and replacement by McMansions.  He was a founding member of two groups in Arlington which worked for responsible development.  One was Arlington Residents for Reasonable Development which worked to bring down the height of a building on the banks of the Mill Brook from 13 stories to 5 stories and after that to achieve Town-wide zoning change to establish maximum height at 5 stories.  The other group was Arlington Citizens for Responsible Development which succeeded in stopping construction of an Osco Drug drive-in store opposite the historic Jason Russell House at the failing intersection at Massachusetts Avenue and Mill Street where traffic is sometimes overwhelming.