The cost of maintaining our quality of life is rising, and now places uncomfortable, even untenable, pressure on some of our fellow citizens, elderly and young families alike. We must get to work now on the longer-term challenges.

Being a Selectman is an important job, and our town faces significant choices. These involve several priorites:

► To facilitate community discussion on whether and how to enhance our commercial tax base. A national chain store is exploring building a new store on Route 95 in Georgetown . Working with the neighbors, we need to ask if we could and should attract a larger complex, with several anchor stores, that could be a source for significant commercial real estate tax revenue. The Loop Mall in Metheun raises hundreds of thousands of dollars for that town.
► To think out-of-the-box.
Everything must be on the table. I have begun to work with businesses and individuals in town to create new cooperative businesses and incentive programs which are set up to put their profits back into the town and school systems.
► To work more closely with our state representatives and senator.
We need to run down every grant and other source of state money. For instance, current legislation, if passed, would provide grants of up to $100,000 to towns such as ours to hire consultants to aid in town planning. Likewise, we can should be looking to our state representatives to help the town identify Clean Water SRF grants or other state and federal funds for extending the sewer lines, which currently terminate in Groveland, into the our downtown and commercially-zoned areas. This will permit the growth of more commercial developments, which will in turn bring additional revenue to the town from commercial real estate tax.
► To enhance volunteerism and philanthropy.
We need to expand the number of folks in town who regularly volunteer. Many more of us need to step up to the plate and help out. We also need to ask those who can afford to donate to worthy causes. Earlier this month, a group of us in town established a trust for funding improvements in our downtown – including landscaping and grants to local businesses for renovations and repainting. We have already found more $20,000 in committed donations, and hope to be able to raise $50,000 by this summer. These projects to vitalize the downtown won't cost taxpayers a dime.

It is time for a fresh perspective. During the last few weeks of the town budget process, I have watched people who should be close friends walk out of meetings looking like they hate each other. Civic life in our town should not be reduced to haggling with each other over money. What keeps me up at night is trying to find ways to put our town on the right fiscal track so that we are not wasting our time fighting over budgets and overrides. The Selectmen need to commit themselves to these challenges, and unlike my opponent, I have no other political agenda except for the well being of this town.

My Bio Age: 41 Occupation: - Patent Lawyer, Ropes & Gray - Calando Pharmaceuticals (co-founder) - AsymmetRx, Inc. (co-founder) - BountyQuest (co-founder, with Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com) Education: - Worcester Polytechnic Institute - B.S. Chemistry - Tufts University School of Medicine - Ph.D. Biochemistry - Suffolk University School of Law - J.D.