Hello again, Surfside!

In the 2024 election, this blog was one of the signature elements of my campaign. It gave me a forum where I could communicate my ideas at greater length—and in a more nuanced way—than I am usually able to do at Commission meetings, in my printed campaign materials, or in my brief, face-to-face conversations with residents. Often during that 2024 campaign, a resident would mention to me that they had read something that I’d posted on the blog. Whenever that happened, we were able to jump right into the conversation.

So, that’s all by way of saying that I’m happy to be starting up the blog again. I plan to use it in the coming weeks to highlight some of the most important issues in our Surfside election.

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Next week, on March 5th, my fellow Commission candidates and I will be squaring off in a debate sponsored by the League of Women Voters. (Mark your calendars: 6:00 p.m. in Town Hall, and broadcast on the Web and on the Town’s cable TV channel.)

In the run-up to that debate, the LWV asked each of us to submit written answers to two questions. I want to use my first couple of blog posts to share slightly longer versions of the answers I submitted. I’ll post my answer to the first question today, and my answer to the second question tomorrow.

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In their first question, the League of Women Voters asks us,

Why are you running for office and what qualities, training, experience and skills do you bring to this position?

Here’s my reply:

The most fundamental, and truest, answer to this question is that I am running for office because I love Surfside. That love motivates me to give back to my hometown and to take an active role in shaping its future.

All of the candidates, I know, feel a strong love for Surfside. But love—whether it’s personal love, familial love, or, in this case, love of community—isn’t just a feeling. It’s also a pattern of actions. And I think that, of all of the candidates, I am uniquely well suited to turn my felt love of Surfside into actions that will improve and enrich our Town.

First, my love is bound up with my deep roots in Surfside, and with a half-century’s worth of knowledge about Surfside’s people, its history, and its government. My family moved to Surfside when I was one year old, and I know firsthand what a joy and what a gift it is to grow up here. I’ve lived through various eras in the Town’s history, and before I ran for office in 2024, I spent decades watching Surfside’s elected leaders work to address many of the issues and challenges that face us today—development, traffic, environmental protection.

Second, I have the right professional experience for the role of Commissioner. As a young adult, in my time away from Surfside, I earned a J.D. at Yale Law School, and then I taught law for 13 years at Rutgers University and New York Law School. I believe that I am the only Commission candidate with formal training in law, and that training gives me a valuable perspective on the Commission’s decision-making. In addition, my experience as a teacher and professor has taught me how to communicate about legal issues with the general public. Over the past several years, I’ve put those skills to work—first as a frequent participant at Commission meetings, and then as a Commissioner.

Third and most importantly, I have years of experience turning my love of the Town into political action. At the most basic level, I’ve voted in every Town election since I moved back here in 2020—not just the Commission elections, but all of the referendums that shape the law and policy of the Town. Many of my opponents in this election haven’t participated in the Town’s politics even at that most basic level. More significantly, though, before I ran for office, I spent two years attending Commission meetings, educating myself on the issues that mattered to me and offering the Commission my advice, by writing to them and speaking in public. By the time I ran for office, people around Town knew me, and they knew what I stood for. I had developed a reputation for being thoughtful, even-keeled, respectful, imaginative, and compassionate. That reputation was the main reason why 1,005 voters voted for me in 2024. While in office, I have worked to keep earning that reputation and to be a representative of the entire Town, not just the people who voted for me. I have also gained detailed knowledge of how the Town works, and I’m ready to put that knowledge to work on the first day of my second term.