Jennifer Mann brings a new voice to Brunswick government and is eager to guide the town and its residents into the future.
PLATFORM
important issues in brunswick:
Commercial Support & Development
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Planning to ensure the functional use of our commercial areas.
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Ensuring financial stability for our local businesses.
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Maintaining a successful commercial district that will support and accommodate growth.
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Making Brunswick a Climate Smart Community to unlock state funding.
Our businesses financially support our community so we need to support them. The forming of a local business association, supported by the town, will give our commercial areas the connections they need to thrive.
Every resident of Brunswick can certainly come together over our mutual frustration about the traffic on Route 7. It has gotten noticeably worse in even the past 5 years. Despite the appearance of over-development on Hoosick due to the ever-present traffic congestion, our commercial corridor is actually dramatically under-developed when compared to nearby towns of similar size with a major state road running through them. Traffic represents a serious impediment to the flourishing of our commercial district.
We need someone in office who will relentlessly urge the state and engage the city of Troy to work with us to find a viable solution to the Hoosick Street traffic problem. I do not claim to have a simple solution or to have ready answers to this complex problem, but I can pledge to be open-minded, to gather solutions from many angles, to listen and to care about how residents and businesses feel about proposed solutions. I plan to help our community devise a workable solution for everyone. We could, and should, be getting a whole lot more out of Brunswick’s commercial development areas.
Our Town's Government
The hallmark of a well-run town is that residents DON'T think about their local government and often take it for granted. Brunswick suffers from this excellent problem! However, there is always room for improvement.
In my view, there are several key areas that the Town of Brunswick needs to focus on:
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Having a means of bringing people’s voices together in some way, such as an active town email list.
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Improving communication between the town government and town residents.
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Increasing trust in town government by offering transparency in decision making and reporting/recording information.
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Providing a searchable, user-friendly town website that is actively updated every week.
The town government is funded by our taxpayer money, so every item of business, all budget considerations, all elections and their results, etc. should be freely made available to taxpayers.
There is a natural oversight that comes with bipartisan government, so our town and its residents of both parties will benefit from having members of both parties on the town board.
Open Land Preservation
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Forward-thinking vision to maintain diverse neighborhoods and preserve their distinct characters.
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Farming encourages community involvement while enhancing quality of life for residents.
Many of Brunswick’s largest acreage plots have uncertain futures. Sadly, Brunswick only has a handful of working farms left - the rest of them lie uncultivated since the traditional model of farms being passed down through generations has waned.
One of my biggest concerns for Brunswick is how we develop our open land and extend our commercial and residential areas. Currently we are seeing rapid piecemeal development in Brunswick, with fallow fields being sold off and dense housing developments popping up at random in the midst of extremely rural areas.
I love this area and the diversity of the neighborhoods that fall beneath the umbrella of Brunswick and I feel compelled to run for office to pursue a forward-thinking, purposeful vision for the town so that inappropriate development does not sneak up on us.
As an owner of a formerly fallow farm myself, I fully understand the complexity of this issue and the pressures facing both landowners and the town. I am confident, though, that we can come together as a community to find novel, progressive solutions to accomplish this traditional, conservative goal that I have of preserving the opportunity for a rural lifestyle in this area.
The Face of the Town Council
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The town government should accurately represent the demographics of the town.
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Town Councilmembers must take a long-view approach to the town's direction.
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The Town Council should invite feedback, make themselves available to residents, and seek consensus in their planning.
As we all know, the Town of Brunswick encompasses a broad expanse of land, a range of topographies, and an array of neighborhoods ranging from semi-urban bordering on Troy, to suburban surrounded by rural countryside, to truly rural homes. Residents in these various communities within Brunswick have very different concerns and priorities for their local government.
It is critical that our elected officials come from diverse backgrounds and areas so that ALL Brunswick residents are represented.
Brunswick United Party - 2021
Created by Jennifer Mann and Paul Beuhler
We created Brunswick United as a non-partisan party because, as a bi-partisan campaign team, we know that the best results come from collaboration between people of different perspectives.
Our team deeply values:
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representing all Brunswick residents.
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mutual cooperation and respect between people of all political parties.
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putting neighborliness above politics.
Our Community
I'd like to hear from YOU, the members of my community! What are your hopes for development in Brunswick? What can your local government do differently or better? How can we improve our public amenities, services, communications and online access? Let's work together for the future of Brunswick!