ABOUT
Hi, I'm Meghan
WHERE I COME FROM
I've lived in Westford for 7 years now, with my spouse and 6 children. I was born and raised in Massachusetts. I was born in Salem, raised in Danvers (when there were 2 working farms behind our house), and then Wenham. After 4 years of college in Washington, D.C., I returned to Massachusetts, living in Tewksbury, Brookline, and Arlington before finally arriving in Westford.
A THRIVING CAREER
I’m an engineer by training, a Biomedical Engineer.
As a Biomedical Engineer, my education included a variety of engineering disciplines: mechanical, electrical, computer science, chemical, biomaterials - a wide variety of disciplines.
Earlier in my career, I performed a lot of failure analysis and process improvement work which required outside the box thinking.
For the last 20 years, I have led Quality organizations for medical device and pharmaceutical companies. The most important skill in those roles apart from my engineering problem solving skills is the ability to listen to and understand the seemingly-at-odds needs of various stakeholders – sales, marketing, operations, finance, customers, patients, the FDA, etc – and propose solutions that balance all of those needs.
Easy? No.
But necessary to ensure long term success.
Recently in Westford, we have seen multiple examples of the Select Board failing to listen to, understand, and take all residents into consideration when making decisions.
The most striking example is last Spring, when several town boards voted a combined 17 to 2 for the override – the Select Board voted 5 to 0.
Residents soundly rejected the override at the ballot box by 12 points, 56% No to 44% Yes.
I ask you, does that sound like a Select Board that has their finger on the pulse of the community?
MISSION STATEMENT
Keep Westford Affordable
I am committed to ensuring that our town remains affordable for families, seniors, and young professionals alike, by driving cost savings and efficiencies which reduces the upward pressure on real estate taxes. We need smart growth and responsible budgeting to ensure that all residents can continue to call Westford home
One key to keeping Westford affordable is to encourage and develop a variety of perspectives on our town boards and committees. Too many boards and committees have grown out of touch with the Westford voters. Bringing a wide range of perspectives to all of the town's boards and committees will help ensure that decisions are made with the concerns of a broader cross-section of the community in mind.
Meghan is dedicated to rebalancing Westford’s commercial / residential ratio to relieve the tax burden on homeowners. Why is this important? Homeowners alone cannot shoulder the burden of the taxes needed to run Westford. We need commercial property to share that. Our peer communities average 86%/14% residential / commercial. Several years ago, Westford was at 89%/11%. Now we are at 90%/10%, and on track to become even more unbalanced. By attracting more businesses to our town to fill the vacancies, we can create jobs, increase revenue, and keep residential property taxes in check.
Last year, Meghan was part of the team that successfully fought off the Prop 2 ½ override, which would have raised taxes for all of us. She knows that we need to find creative ways to implement level-service cost savings and efficiencies in town government so we don’t have to face this fight again.