Warner for Mayor

Dear friends and neighbors,


First, have a well run-city.

This must be our priority. Without it, our city won't provide the best services possible, it will spend more than it needs, it will sacrifice community preferences in pursuit of any dangling dollars, and it will come hat-in-hand to residents and businesses for further fees and taxes.

Here's another way of thinking about it: The more we succeed at running our city efficiently and cost-effectively, the more we can deliver for people and services that need it the most.

We need a well-run city, and the well-run city must be the mayor's first--and most important--job.  

This is the role of the mayor. Northampton has no appointed city manager, and the Northampton Charter going back to at least 1883 precludes City Council from directing any department manager, controlling any city program, or allocating any city funds. These authorities and responsibilities belong solely to the elected mayor. For a well-run city, the buck stops there.  

And we're talking about a lot of bucks. Northampton city government is now a $120 million a year operation. With this much at stake, we need a mayor with a commitment to integrity and fairness, with good communication skills, with courage to stand-up to special interests, and with an absolutely solid record of relevant and well-developed professional skills.

I believe I have these strengths, and I would be honored to apply them as your mayor in the pursuit of a well-run city.

Here's what I can bring to the job:

• The right professional skills to examine city issues. I have a Ph.D. from MIT, a master's degree in public policy and management from Carnegie-Mellon, and have spent the last 29 years conducting management, operations, and planning studies for large public agencies throughout the United States. I have extensive experience helping stakeholders to set priorities, analyzing capital investments to ensure project soundness, developing efficient services and operating strategies to meet public needs, and working with management and unions to craft fair and fiscally responsible labor agreements. As a full-time mayor, I would end all responsibilities for my company of the last 29 years, Warner Transportation Consulting, Inc.
  

• A strong record of civic engagement. I've been a policy wonk and a watchdog on four city committees.  I always took the mission seriously. It was a pleasure. I have also served three times as a delegate to the Democratic State Convention, ran the Democratic Platform Committee hearings in Northampton in 2013, and have served as a board member and treasurer of the good government group, Common Cause of Massachusetts, since 2003. My columns and letters on local and state issues have appeared dozens of times in the Daily Hampshire Gazette and Boston Globe.  (You can see these elsewhere on this website.)
  

• A commitment to work only for the best interests of Northampton. It is your community, your public services, and your taxes and fees. I will never forget that I am representing you, and I will develop sensible policies and priorities, not in response to the loudest voices or most powerful players, but to the most reasonable voices and the most powerful arguments.  
  

Thank you for visiting my campaign website, and I hope you take a few minutes to read some of my op-eds and views elsewhere on the site. I think you will see that I am the right choice for a well-run city.

Yours,


Marc Warner
177 Riverside Drive
413 588-6998
marc@warnerformayor.com