Downtown Wakefield has suffered for too long.

We're all painfully familiar with the abandoned storefronts and business closures that plague our downtown area. The strip across from the Americal Civic Center has sat abandoned for around two decades. The recent closure of Brother's Deli was just plain heartbreaking.

There are a lot of reasons for the situation. Some of it has to do with landlord barons, who have swaths of downtown property in their chokehold. We've been unable to pass policies which penalize commercial landlords for long-term vacancies, let alone make the facades look marginally cleaner.

We need to enact policies which seriously discourage long-term abandonment of commercial property.

Some of it also has to do with property tax. Massachusetts famously lacks meaningful home rule for its towns and cities. We have very little control over our taxes: just look at the towns around us, constantly pushing back and forth on tax overrides. Why? Because the only significant taxation tool the state allows them to use is the property tax. And our "solution" to this problem in the 70's was the state lottery... which essentially acts as a regressive tax on the working class. So, even well-meaning, small landlords feel the need to raise rents through the roof to meet the escalating property taxes.

Maura Healey recently gave an inch on home rule to get her housing plan started. We need to take the mile. We need to gather together with other towns and exert our collective political pressure on the state. We need to file home-rule petitions so that we can use other taxation tools.

This is another piece of the affordability equation. Property taxes, of course, hit homeowners hard. It's a key aspect of the housing cost crisis. With home rule, we can take the pressure off of homeowners and place it elsewhere.

We need young voices.

Wakefield has been fortunate to have a history of Town Councilors who care deeply about the town. But, historically, the Council has been a rotating door of the same kind of people: well-connected, middle-class, number crunchers at the middle or end point of their careers, and who can comfortably step up to a demanding and unpaid position.

On a 7 person board, we should have at least one person who can represent the rest of us.

As a young, cost-burdened renter, retail manager, and graduate student, I know the pain of trying to achieve the American Dream in this modern era. I feel that it is my civic duty to represent the many people just like me in Wakefield. The struggles we all face in life are collective struggles; we must fight them TOGETHER, and we need elected leaders who can pave the way for progress.

My perspective as a young person includes prioritizing housing availability and long-term affordability. It includes opposing any data centers that are eying out town (which is a prime target for them) so that they don't steal our water, pollute our community, destroy our roads, and more. It includes treating the environmental and global heating crisis as an immediate crisis. It includes defending our friends, family and neighbors from violent injustice.

And it includes rejecting the status quo when it just doesn't work for us.

Join me to "Break the Cycle" and fight for change in Wakefield!