YOUR LOCAL VOTE MATTERS. See how candidates for Town Council answered our Climate Change Survey. VOTE TUESDAY NOV 5
See WFCC Candidate Survey here
Watertown Faces Climate change (WFCC) is a working group of Watertown Citizens for Peace, Justice, and the Environment and a node of 350Masss. Because we believe it’s critical for the town to continue taking steps to meet the challenge of climate change, we asked all the candidates for the Council to respond to ten questions. (To see the questions, go to this link or type in https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HL68B6M)
For eight questions, candidates could respond Yes, No, or Abstain. There were very few “No’s” but there were many abstentions. Reasons for abstaining included uncertainty or lack of information about or the complexity of the issue as some candidates explained in the open-ended question at the end of the survey.
A few highlights:
- All 12 of the candidates agree that climate change is an important issue that the town needs to address. Nine rated it “a global crisis”; the other three ranked it “real and serious.”
- All 12 consider the development of a robust shuttle system a priority in dealing with the town’s traffic congestion.
- The next highest amount of support—nine out of 12—is for keeping it a priority that the new elementary schools be Net Zero Energy.
- A majority of the candidates support the town buying its electricity from 100% renewable sources when entering into the next contract.
- The question with the least support—should Watertown join neighboring towns in prohibiting gas infrastructure in new development—got only two “Yes” votes and multiple abstentions,
- signaling that this issue may be too new to have generated widespread support.
We encourage you to attend the Candidates Forum on Thursday, October 24 from 6:30-9:00 at the Watertown High School and to vote on Tuesday, November 5.
Watertown Faces Climate Change meets every two weeks to work on local and statewide initiatives. To learn more about upcoming meetings, check our events listings.