Patty Correa, Candidate for Brookline Town Meeting, Precinct 6

Patricia (Patty) Correa, Candidate for Brookline Town Meeting, Precinct 6

Hello, I am your neighbor Patty Correa of 32 Davis Ave., and I am writing to ask for your vote as a Precinct 6 (P6) delegation member to Brookline’s Town Meeting, your local legislature.  My husband and I have lived here for 30 years and raised two sons (proud graduates of Pierce School and BHS).  I am a lawyer with a long career that includes many years of government / public service, including: 

• 14 years combined as the Town’s First Assistant Town Counsel and Associate Town Counsel (retired as of 2022).  As a Town lawyer, I worked to find pragmatic and creative approaches to accomplishing community objectives.  For example, after Massachusetts voters (and 60% of Brookline voters) legalized cannabis sales, I devised a first-in-Massachusetts local licensing scheme for cannabis sales that bolsters the Town’s ability to miigate against adverse local impacts.

• 11 years combined as a Massachusetts Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division and Director of the Attorney General’s Disability Rights Unit. As an AAG, I was a litigator on cases with national implications, including: 

  • • together with National Federation for the Blind, a settlement with a national ATM fleet operator that achieved better access for the blind; 

    • successful defense of the State's reproductive health care access law; 

    • together with the EEOC and MCAD, a settlement with a national cleaning company that achieved reformed policies and procedures for the protection of a mostly immigrant work force against on-the-job sexual harassment.

Since retiring in 2022, I have continued public service to the Town as an “at large” (non-Town Meeting) member of the Advisory Committee.  The Advisory Committee reports to Town Meeting on proposed local legislation (“warrant articles”) and vets and votes on the proposed Town budget for Town Meeting’s review and approval.  I serve on the Advisory Committee’s Land Use, Zoning and Sustainability Subcommittee, where I supported a proposal to evaluate the viability of an affordable housing overlay district.  I also supported several proposals asking the legislature for local authority to take certain kinds of steps (otherwise reserved to the State by law) targeted to reduce the Town’s greenhouse gas emissions, so that the Town would have those tools in its toolkit of climate measures in the future.  It is a natural segue for me to seek to serve on Town Meeting itself, in addition to serving on the Advisory Committee.  After 14 years as Town staff legal support, I am well-versed with Town Meeting and municipal law and can and will hit the road running.

Also since retiring in 2022, I joined the leadership team of Mothers Out Front-Brookline (a climate advocacy organization) and I serve on its Fossil Fuel Free working group. I co-organized an EV “meet up” and resource table at the 2022 Brookline Day.  I have largely (but not entirely) decarbonized my home, and I am oh-too-familiar with the complexities, challenges, and (at times) outright obstacles we as a community face as we try to march (or tiptoe, or trip) along the road to a zero emissions future.  As a Town Meeting member, I hope for opportunities to advocate for robust Town leadership to assist the entire Town with reducing the Town’s carbon footprint.

I am a member of the International Municipal Lawyers Association and of the Massachusetts Municipal Lawyers Association (MMLA), in which I served on the Executive Board and as Chair of its Amicus Committee.  I am the MMLA’s 2022 recipient of the President’s Award for career service for the betterment of local government, municipal law, or the MMLA.

With your vote, I hope to bring an informed and well-reasoned voice to Town Meeting.  In particular, I hope to vocally support well thought-out measures that: 

• advance the Town's progress toward a carbon free future, and 

• achieve more affordable housing within the Town.

I am pleased to have received endorsements by Brookline Pax, Brookline for Everyone (B4E) and Brookline By Design.