MOORECOL. No.13 10-28-2004 hed : We are voting for needs this year, not parties Let's see, this is about who do we feel should represent MetroWest [that's us] in the State Senate. Right? I'll say right now : Karen Spilka. As state rep since 2001, she's done well for Framingham and Ashland. She's knows the ropes, she meets needs and she has a conscience. She'll win big. I'll come back to that in a moment, with a word on two candidates for the House. But there are other things on your mind and mine about this matter of sending someone to the Legislature. A lot of it mixed up and often cranky. Then this year we have Gov. Romney's Reform campaign aimed at increasing GOP numbers on Beacon Hill. Especially here, where Democrats have held the Senate seat for 30 long years. Romney has a point. In 2002, he carried the suburbs like he owned them. Heavily-Democratic Framingham was his by 1604 votes, and the same held for the other six towns in the Second Middlesex and Norfolk senatorial district - Ashland, Natick, Holliston, Hopkinton, Medway and Franklin. Granted his opposition was Shannon O'Brien who stuck to a campaign on the leftmost extreme of the Democratic Party. So Romney's pitch appealed to voters who were not looking for party ideology but for results . . . . that met their suburban needs. Expansion costs plenty and they want to have a word on how it's paid for. OK, that desire hasn't changed. But Romney has. He's injecting political parties. Another senator voting Republican could help meet their needs, he tells suburban voters. As if to say there's no one out here who can get your druthers on Beacon Hill unless the governor beats those Democrats. Not a soft approach, and it brings me to what this election is all about. Getting something, namely, meeting our needs. ENTER SPILKA - Right now Framingham and Ashland are abuzz with the news that the towns' schools will share $471,000 coming to them through a "Pothole Amendment." That special amendment makes up for education funds left out of the budget. It was Rep. Spilka who lobbied the House Ways and Means Committee to include specific wording applicable to the two towns. And getting a promise that it would fight for those Spilka terms. She did the same with the Conference Committee. When Romney vetoed the amendment, she rallied the troops and finally, the veto was overridden and the money is available. To schools in Framingham and Ashland. Take another case. Spilka used the same follow through to win back from veto-land $475,000 in special funds to keep running buses from Framingham through to Milford. Too expensive, some said. Her vision of MetroWest tied together public transportation needed for employees without cars and for seniors who can't drive. Talking about getting something "from our legislators" often gets cranky and despairing. I think it's important to point out what you may already have guessed - that it takes patience and knowing where to find other legislators who will go along to bring home the bacon. METROWEST - We're really talking about a region called MetroWest. It includes all seven towns in the senatorial district, including those along the 495 ring where so much has been done to lead towns along the highway to give and take to find ways to foster mutual interest. That work was started by Spilka's predecessor, Sen. David Magnani. He adopted a West Coast mutual-effort plan to get residential, scientific and industrial communities to work together. Now I'm calling the senatorial district MetroWest. It is that. Its local interests and their futures come together. The work of the 495 Partnership is known in Framingham, as it is in towns represented by other senators and reps. They all have a stake. You can bet that we in MetroWest, are in for a lot down-to-earth talk of interchanging. Spilka is a worker. At all times and with all people. She wins followers and keeps friends. They seem to grow together. Quietly, their runaway win in the Democratic primary was no accident. I don't think that Atty. Jim Coffey of Hopkinton, backed with RFR [Revenue From Romney] will do any better than the Yankees and Cards did against the emotionally-united Red Sox Express. HOUSE SEATS - when it comes to voting for a successor to Spilka in the Ashland-Framingham district, there are two contestants - Ashland School Committee Chairman Tom Sannicandro, Democrat and an ally of Spilka, and Mary Z. Mary Z. Connaughton of Framingham Precinct 11, a Republican. Mary Z is billed as a Romney candidate but those 4000 households that have met her find her to be her own person. Her shoes are worn almost to an Adlai Stevenson's holy pair thinness, if you recall his foot-up poses. Tom won his nomination as a sensational sticker candidacy, as we all know. He is a dedicated educator, a practicing attorney, has a business of his own, a close-knit family, knows everyone just over the line in Framingham and promises to work for better education funds and for protection of the elderly and the disabled. And he means it. As one stern Democrat put it, "Mary Z's a perfect candidate in the wrong party." Connaughton a mother of two, is a CPA, held an educator post at Framingham State, served five years a chief financial officer of the State Lottery and is a commissioner on the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. On the question of full-time service, Sannicandro said he probably could not be full-time beyond the first year. Mary Z said, if elected, she'd step down from her role on the judicial conduct commission to be full time on the Hill. I believe, with her background and determination, Mary Z can be a first rate legislator for the local needs of 26,000 residents in Framingham and 14,000 in Ashland. We are talking needs this year, not parties. ________________________________________ Bob Moore can be reached at edmoore4@aol.com or at 1-508-620-1449. To unsubscribe, send email to majordomo@syslang.net with body unsubscribe frambors (the subject is ignored). Please read the Frequently Asked Questions maintained online at http://frambors.syslang.net/faq/about.html before posting or replying.