Brookline Select Board 2021 Candidate Profile: Miriam Aschkenasy

BROOKLINE, MA — Miriam Aschkenasy,48, a Town Meeting Member for Precinct 13 and who has been active on the Parent Advisory Taskforce, and Committee to the Superintendents office on Race Equity is running for the highest elected office in town.

Aschkenasy is one of five candidates vying for two open seats on the Brookline Select Board. Town Meeting Member Donelle O'Neal, Select Board Chair Bernard Greene and Nancy Heller as well as former town sustainability manager Zoe Lynn are also running.

She has two children at Heath School —and a dog affectionately called Mrs. Barky Bark.

Aschkenasy got her undergraduate at Mount Holyoke College in biochemistry, then went on to Tel Aviv University for her doctorate of medicine. She went on to get her masters in public health from the Harvard school of public health, and then her masters in public administration.

She worked in global humanitarian response for 16 years, including as the deputy director for the center for global health at Massachusetts General Hospital, and as an emergency room physician at Cambridge Hospital.

For the past three years she's been a program director at the Institutional Antiracism and Accountability Project at Harvard Kennedy School.

Patch reached out to all the candidates and presented the same list of questions for each, here's how Aschkenasy responded:

Why are you seeking elective office?

I am running for Select Board because we need real change in Brookline. Not just any change, we need a government that reflects our values, with a clear lens on equity, a clear idea of what good governance looks like, and a focus on inclusivity.

We need to ensure that the people of Brookline are truly represented in their government and that our budget reflects our priorities as a community; that is what real democracy looks like.
I am running to bring that kind of change, that kind of lens, to the work we do here in Brookline.

The single most pressing issue facing our (board, district, etc.) is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it.

The single most pressing issue facing the Select Board is recovery from the effects of the pandemic. COVID-19 has surfaced and exacerbated many disparities and hardships in our town.
Students already dealing with the anxieties of adolescence are in need of greater mental health supports. Their teachers, who pre-pandemic already had to do so much with so little, have had to do even more with even less. Residents of public housing, many of whose units were already in need of repair, have had to deal with low-quality internet during this period of remote learning and work. During the pandemic, seniors, the most vulnerable population, saw budget cuts to the Council on Aging and the Senior Center. And small businesses have faced all their normal financial pressures during an unprecedented downturn in customers.

Our town’s budget must invest in community members’ futures to recover from the pandemic, including those identified above. A responsible budget would invest resources to address the root causes, not just the symptoms, of our residents’ hardships and disparities. Doing so would not just lead to better outcomes for residents, but it’d be a more thoughtful way for our town to spend its limited resources, much like how a vaccine is far preferable to an antibiotic.

What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?

My background is in establishing programs, working with scarce resources, and building consensus in culturally diverse environments. I am an expert at operations and strategic thinking, and I am, at heart, a pragmatic optimist.

I believe we need a fleshed-out, long-term strategy for Brookline that involves getting our budget to reflect residents’ priorities. Additionally, we must build transparency and accountability into our governmental structures.

I think progressively, and I vote progressively. On the Select Board, I would work to develop a strategic vision and plan for Brookline and then execute it by pushing for more progressive policies and practices.

If you are a challenger, in what way has the current board or officeholder failed the community (or district or constituency)

I firmly believe that the legislative branch of government (Town Meeting) and the executive branch (Select Board) need to work in concert with each other and check and balance each other. What I have seen as a Town Meeting member is that the current executive branch of Brookline’s Government does not respect the checks and balances of the legislative branch. I have witnessed the Select Board ignore or outright refuse to follow Town Meeting’s wishes, including a budget amendment that I co-sponsored.

How do you think local officials performed in responding to the coronavirus? What if anything would you have done differently?

First, I want to thank all the experts who worked on the four panels convened by the town. Their work was exceptional. I have more than 15 years of experience in epidemic and pandemic response in low resource settings, including Ebola, Cholera, SARS, and MERS, just to name a few.

One of the most pressing and underappreciated needs of any pandemic response is to share information in a coherent, consistent and accessible way. Another vital component is to manage expectations while listening actively; in other words, to empower the affected community as much as is safely possible. This is a highly challenging balance to achieve. Personally, I would have advocated for more frequent, clear, and evidence-based communication and the creation of a regular channel for community input.

Early on, I would have developed a short, medium, and long-term response plan. Such planning would have anticipated needs like those of the food bank and schools, the pandemic’s mental health implications, and established criteria for accessing emergency funds. Finally, good response plans start planning for recovery during the early stages of the response, and I believe we have yet to do this.

Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform.

I see my campaign platform as a Venn diagram of justice, good governance, and inclusivity. Our government and its policies should sit in the middle of the diagram and reflect all three principles.

Why justice? Because all of our decisions must be made with a historical lens of race and economic equity. Nothing we do now is divorced from what we did before. This justice lens has to inform our thinking all the time and is an integral part of Good governance. Good Governance involves thoughtful and strategic planning, transparency, and accountability. And why inclusivity? We can’t make equitable policy or perform good governance without listening to all voices and having everyone at the table.

Our town needs long-term, strategic planning that reflects these three principles. And such a plan must account for the intersectionality of issues like affordable housing, climate change, transportation, senior and youth needs, schools, policing reform, public health, voting rights, etc. You can find a complete list of my priorities on my website.

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

My time and actions as a Town Meeting member has provided me significant insight into what works and doesn’t work in Brookline politics. My nearly 20 years of experience in high-pressure, high-stakes working environments has prepared me to make decisions under pressure. And my organizational and programmatic skills provide me the abilities to be one of our town’s chief executives.

I ran a 700-person field hospital in Haiti after the massive earthquake in 2010. At the time, I managed HR, payroll, security, patient care teams, an onsite school, and acute care surgical hospital with rehab — all while under a very tight budget. In the role, I also managed complex relationships with the US Government, United Nations, hospital staff, volunteers, local community, and patients and their families. I would bring these experiences and expertise to the Select Board.

The best advice ever shared with me was:

My father once told me, “Everyone makes mistakes. It is how we handle those mistakes that matter.” We must understand no one is perfect; mistakes are an opportunity to acknowledge, learn, make right if we can, and do better next time.

What else would you like voters to know about yourself and your positions?

I am a single mother of two kids of color in the Brookline Public School system who has lived in Brookline for nearly 20 years as a renter, condo owner, and now single-family homeowner. I hold many identities, and I am a lifelong learner. I wish to help make the Town’s government more deliberate in how it functions and representative of its constituents. I want us to develop a strategy with a sharp lens on justice, good governance, and inclusivity — and then execute that strategy.

Campaign website
www.miriamforbrookline.com