I am supporting Jenny Armini

We have several talented people running for State Rep. I am supporting Jenny Armini.

Platforms are ideas and promises. Remember the quote: ”don’t tell me what you’re going to do, show me what you have done”.

To distinguish among the candidates, I have narrowed it down to three things:

Do they know the district?

Jenny Armini has lived her for 17 years, and had a variety of experiences as a parent of children in the public schools, homeowner, volunteer, member of a church, active in grass roots organizing (founded Elect Blue in 2017).

Diann moved here 1 year ago, Doug moved here 3 years ago. Despite their talents and ideas, I don’t think you can represent a district when you are that new to it. Tristan, although he was born here, is not a homeowner, a parent, or employed full-time, which limits his experience in the district.

Do they have the personality and qualities to work well with others? Do they listen, do they work as a team?  Has their life experience been as CFO or CEO, or as someone who works as an equal with others, not top down? Have they had experience organizing at a grass roots level, worked with folks in Town Government, been involved in community issues? Have they had experience working at the state level?

Jenny listens, works collaboratively, pitches in on planting trees, local elections, local overrides, and is a grass roots organizer. She and a friend recruited people to write postcards for the 2018 midterm elections, by going to different groups and encouraging/inspiring people to get involved. Jenny has a wide network and broad base of local connections from those efforts.  Jenny has worked on Beacon Hill, with a bipartisan think-tank which proposed legislation, with Department of Revenue, with the executive branch as speech writer for Gov Swift, on Capitol Hill as a legislative aide, and in a Planned Parenthood Clinic. These experiences inform her goals and her method of working with others.

Do they have a strategy for coping with the demands of being a State Rep, a generalist, presented with many issues? A State Rep cannot always be the expert, with all the answers. A State Rep is not a CEO or CFO, they must balance different demands/different constituencies/other state reps. They have to work WITH people, and make compromises. They are not running the show and telling people what to do.

Jenny has the willingness to learn, has built a network of experts, of local and municipal contacts, whom she calls on regarding different issues, to hear from local people about subtle problems or local twists. Jenny has the curiosity and humility to ask questions: of environmental activist community, professors of Government or Public Health, local officials. I know this because she has asked me for information on environmental issues, and asked elected Municipal board members. She has sought health-care-strategy input from Dr. John McDonough, (designed “Obama-care”), then discussed with me (I am a retired physician).

Please vote for Jenny Armini!

Eileen Haley Mathieu

Longview Drive

Marblehead