Polly Titcomb solves puzzles

I am supporting Polly Titcomb in her campaign to represent our community as a State Representative on Beacon Hill and here’s why. Polly loves puzzles. This obsession with puzzles makes her the best candidate to fight for what Swampscott (and Marblehead and parts of Lynn!) need at the State level. Polly loves puzzles for the complexity and challenge of them. As the only candidate who has held elected municipal office, she has used this dedication to complexity and challenge to weed her way through mastering municipal financial policy to design policies to address Swampscott’s complicated financial issues. She’s also used her puzzling skills to navigate and lead the Swampscott Board of Selectmen (through a pandemic no less! And she’s running with their full endorsement!). She understands what it takes to run our North Shore communities because she has done it. This experience means when Polly is representing us at the State level, figuring out how to connect State resources with our community will be a lot less puzzling. 

I have learned so much about the challenge of politics through watching Polly puzzle through this process. Polly is running for an office in a system with a huge barrier to entry for single, working parents without their own resources to pave the way. And campaigning is not cheap! This has proved one of the biggest puzzles of all. How to galvanize support in a crowded field of Democrats with very limited resources? Polly has hit the road, spending endless hours speaking to neighbors in our community about her passion for public service, about her ideas to secure housing and transportation for our communities and safety for our coastline. As she’s met with individuals, she spends the time to listen; to hear their piece of the puzzle, what’s important to them and to reflect on how she can support them when serving in Boston. 

And when she needs five minutes to recharge? She turns to the puzzle of the week on her dining room table. I have had the privilege to be on the other side of that puzzle from time to time.  I am always challenged by the conversations we have as she thinks about our community that she is so driven to serve, parsing out the roots of our struggles, the possible solutions and the importance of making sure they are solutions that work for all of us, across an incredibly diverse spectrum. From living in this town and benefiting from the policies that Polly has been instrumental in designing and implementing, watching her work so hard to share her passion and vision with our community and from what I know of her as a person, I know she will take her dedication, find a way to make complicated policy pieces fit the whole picture in a cohesive way and be a tireless and thoughtful advocate for us on Beacon Hill. 

Sarah Hesch

Milett Road 

Swampscott