MUNCIPAL GOVERNMENT EXPERIENCE
During his 30 years in Windsor CT, Al started off as a committed community volunteer working to improve public school funding for children in Windsor. This journey led him to run for local office and become an elected Town Councilor in Windsor, CT. Elected officials worked without compensation. He served for 18 years on the Windsor Town Council from 1999-2017 and was the Deputy Mayor from 2007-2013. The population of Windsor CT is about the same as that of Northampton MA. The size of Windsor’s municipal budget is also very similar to that of Northampton.
Most significantly, he was the Town Council’s Finance Committee chairperson from 2001-2013, during which he acquired deep expertise in the financial management of municipal government, overseeing the Town Manager, Finance Director and their staff. Under his leadership, the Finance Committee reviewed, altered, and approved all budget planning parameters. The Finance Committee under Al’s leadership, in partnership with the town manager and professional staff, always explored multiple fiscal options to achieve the Town Council’s policy goals based on the shared understanding that there are always multiple ways to accomplish policy goals, which requires a data-driven approach and openness to testing multiple models to find the most suitable solution for the local conditions.
During his tenure on the Windsor Town Council, Al also served as the Chair of the Special Projects Committee, and Health & Safety Committee. Al was the creator of, and first chair of, the Council’s Personnel Committee. This committee created the process for performance reviews of the Town Manager, as well as for the appointment of local citizens to the town’s Boards and Commissions. (New England towns rely on citizen volunteers to do a lot of work! It’s the same here in Northampton.)
NORTHAMPTON EXPERIENCE
In 2021, Al was selected by Gina Louise Sciarra, who was then the President of Northampton’s City Council, to serve as one of two citizen representatives on the City Council’s Select Committee on Rules. The goal of this Committee was to recommend strategies to improve the efficiency of how the City Council does its business so that they can get their work done in a timely and transparent manner and also hear the opinions and concerns of the people of Northampton. Al volunteered to serve on this committee because he believes it is important to ensure our part-time City Councilors get the public’s business done in an efficient, transparent, and timely manner to serve the best interests of the public.
Since May of 2024, Al has been involved with Support Our Schools, advocating to fully fund high quality education for our children in Northampton’s public schools. He was able to use his municipal finance experience to show that Northampton has enough money available in its budget to have prevented the almost 30 job cuts to our schools these past two years. Essential services have to come first. As Al says, “The fight over funding our schools is not a money problem, it’s a priorities problem.”