Pull up a chair and grab your popcorn. Newton’s new City Council, with its shuffling of committees and leadership, brings a frisson of excitement in the choice of committees and committee chairs.

It also brings some inevitable questions. To wit: why did the leadership choices exclude a veteran councilor?

Every other year, Newton swears in a new council and elects the council president. (And in 2026, for the first time in eight years, I will be sitting as a former councilor “outside the rail,” meaning not on the uncomfortable seats with desks in the front of the chamber, but in the even less comfortable benches in the back.)

This term looks to be a little different. For decades, the council president was someone with many terms worth of experience (Lisle Baker, Scott Lennon, Marc Laredo, Susan Albright). John Oliver, like most of the council now, is younger and fresher in the role.

Also this term, in a rare move, a councilor who has decades of experience in leadership, Susan Albright, is not getting a single leadership role. Given how many new or fairly new councilors make up each committee, I assumed she’d be given a chair. 

Sometimes, senior councilors ask not to be put in leadership. 

But that wasn’t the case with Albright, she told me.

To be fair, finding balance between veterans and newcomers, between pro- and hesitant-about-growth camps, and across nine council committees is difficult. President Oliver said mentoring for councilors with only a term or two under their belts was a strong factor in choosing vice chairs. And a full half of councilors are in their first or second term. 

So that explains the leadership of Public Safety & Transportation (PS&T), where Tarik Lucas is chair and Randy Block vice chair. Four members of the committee are in their first term, so would not be expected to take on leadership. Pam Wright is already a vice chair in Zoning & Planning, which is fairly time-intensive. Maria Greenberg has a demanding day job and didn’t want to take on leadership work.

President Oliver explained that since PS&T will likely take up parking plans in light of the overnight parking ban, he was comfortable with the preponderance of first-termers. That left him with fewer choices for leadership. 

But for those interested in the safety of vulnerable road users (bikers, walkers, scooters, skateboarders, motorized wheelchair riders), the committee’s leadership duo appears at best indifferent to that issue. Lucas has expressed doubts about the safety pilot on Washington Street, which so far has met its many goals; Block is reportedly questioning the foundation of the Walk, Bike, Roll Plan that would prioritize areas for safety improvement around the city. 

Oliver didn’t say why he passed over Albright. He said that he and Vice President David Kalis wanted to balance male/female and across council’s various camps (although in five committees the chair/vice are as often allies as not). But that doesn’t explain Public Facilities, on which Albright sits and which she chaired last term. Vice President Kalis is chairing that committee, with Rena Getz as vice chair.

“I felt David brought a different perspective” to committee leadership, Oliver said. 

Should be an interesting term.

Other items to watch:

• Oliver noted that the Council will be considering reducing its number to, maybe 16 (8 ward/ 8 at large?) this term. The Council passed that proposal just before my first term, but after then-Mayor Warren vetoed it, didn’t take further action. Maybe this time will be the charm?
• Having two from the same “camp” chairing a committee may slant the committee vote. Oliver noted Councilor Bill Humphrey’s failed attempt to pass stricter Code of Conduct language on the Council floor after his amendments failed in committee as a model of how to bring minority views from a committee before the whole Council. If that’s how in-committee disagreements are resolved more often, full Council meetings will be longer – and may have more fireworks. Zoning may be a particular source of such discussions, given its leadership and makeup.

Andreae Downs was Councilor-at-large from Ward 5 from 2018-2025. During her term she was chair and vice-chair of PS&T, and sat on Zoning, Land Use and Real Property Reuse committees.

Correction: An earlier version of this column incorrectly stated the outcome of the City Council’s move to reduce the number of councilors.