The Charles River Regional Chamber has started a series of interviews with candidates for local office, and they started with mayoral candidates Marc Laredo and Al Cecchinelli.

Chamber President Greg Reibman spoke with the candidates separately about issues that impact Newton and ideas they plan to bring to the mayor’s office if elected. Among the topics discussed were schools, budgeting and housing, arguably three of the biggest issues on voters’ minds as uncertainty with the federal government and the economy persist.

Each candidate had about an hour with Reibman. Here are a few highlights.

What to do about Newton’s housing situation

With housing costs pricing many out of the region and Gov. Maura Healey planning to have more than 200,000 housing units built in the state in the next decade, housing is one of the biggest areas of concern and debate in Newton.

How would the mayoral candidates handle housing in Newton?

Laredo mentioned the Village Center Overlay District rezoning as something the city has done to address housing, despite several councilors being voted out of office for supporting it. And he said the city can only do so much to affect the housing market.

“We can’t control the cost of construction,” he said. “We can’t control interest rates—we can’t do that at the local level. We can’t control tariffs. We can’t control the price of steel. We can have the most well-intentioned zoning ordinances and laws out there, but there are lots of other factors that go into play.”

Laredo pointed to the Riverside development, which has gone through multiple re-dos of its plan to adjust to a depleted demand for office space and other post-COVID market conditions.

“I voted for every single one of the Riverside projects, and they still haven’t built anything years and years later,” he said.

Laredo said he knows of a developer planning to build in the new VCOD zoning, but the VCOD has not had much participation. In its first year in effect, only one housing unit was built.

Several villages were left out of the VCOD, but one thing Laredo said he won’t do is go to the City Council to add those villages to it.

When Reibman pushed Laredo on the fact that many of his supporters—constituents and city councilors who elected him president—are against a lot of new housing projects, Laredo pushed back.

“I’m not beholden to anyone, Greg,” Laredo said. “I’m not beholden to Right Size Newton, I’m not beholden to Vibrant Newton. I’m not beholden to any of these groups, nor am I beholden to any member, although I certainly hope that I’ll be working very closely with the City Council, because I think that’s how you get things done.”

He added that he has voted for every significant housing project that’s come before him and chaired the Land Use Committee that approved the Austin Street and Trio complexes.

“I believe in development,” he said. “I’ll be very clear: we are going to develop in this city. Period.”

Cecchinelli jabbed Laredo for that record.

“I don’t think he’s ever seen a high-density development that he hasn’t liked,” Cecchinelli said, “and I think high-density developments are hurting our city.”

Cecchinelli said he has a “reasonable” plan when it comes to housing.

“I’m looking at maybe having a third property tax tier, a commercial/residence tax, because when you put up an apartment building with 120 units, that is now a commercial operation,” he said. “We’re charging these people residential taxes. We should be charging them a commercial tax rate, because it is a business.”

The new tax tier would be for properties with more than six units, Cecchinelli added, pointing to a planned development on Crafts Street that is set to have almost 300 apartments.

Cecchinelli dismissed the idea that an extra tax on high-end apartments would create too big a burden for tenants who would end up paying that tax through rent hikes.

“We don’t have a housing crisis in Newton. We have a low-income housing crisis in Newton,” he said. “I looked on Zillow the other day, and there were 538 housing units available. We have 2,300 lined up being built. We have almost zero low-income housing.”

The Crafts Street development is a 40B project, with around 60 units set at 50 percent of the median area income, and Reibman asked Cecchinelli how he would justify raising their rents.

“Anything that’s deeded for low-to-moderate income gets a break,” Cecchinelli said. “So if we have a 200-unit housing development, 25 percent—that would be 50 units—would be taxed at residential. The rest of it—150 units—would be taxed at commercial.”

An override for the schools

Reibman asked if the Newton Public Schools teachers’ contract—which was signed after a 16-month battle and a two-week strike last year—is sustainable for the city. And Laredo said it is, at least for the time being, but future negotiations will take a “delicate balance.”

“You want to make sure that your teachers, and any union employees, feel welcome, that they feel like they’re rewarded for their service,” Laredo said. “At the same time, you have a finite amount of money and it’s a challenge to be able to negotiate a contract or series of contracts that will balance those competing needs.”

Laredo said he’s been meeting with Superintendent Anna Nolin to understand what can and can’t be done in the next few years to address long-standing issues with the NPS budget.

Reibman focused on the more immediate future, though, with a new union contract in effect at the same time the federal government is set to cut money coming to Newton.

Would the candidates support a Proposition 2 ½ override in their first term to support the school budget, including the signed contract?

“I’m never going to say no to anything,” Laredo said,  “but I don’t think you ask for overrides lightly, whether it’s for a debt exclusion override—which tend to be easier to pass because voters see something tangible—or operating override.”

Laredo said there would have to be a specific identified purpose for the override and it would have to be timed right.

“You can’t do it in a time of recession, you can’t do it in a time of high inflation, and frankly you can’t do it when you have a pile of free cash sitting there. Those things do not generate confidence in the voters.”

And even then, Laredo said, he’d have to think about people living on fixed incomes before pushing for a tax levy override.

Cecchinelli was more blunt. He said he would not ask the voters for a Proposition 2 ½ override.

“We know every year how much money we need to run the city,” Cecchinelli said. “We have an idea of what we have for a tax base. We need to work within those numbers.”

A property tax hike, Cecchinelli argued, would create a bigger burden for residents on moderate incomes than rent increases would create for residents in high-end apartments.

“People in Newton are having the same problems balancing their budgets as the city is, and it’s not fair to the rest of the city if we can’t do our job,” he said. “This is our job, to make sure that the city runs.”

Forgoing an override would mean service cuts.

“The first thing I would do is I would work with Dr. Nolin on cutting some of the administration in the school system,” Cecchinelli said. “The administration end of the school budget is very heavy. The money should be spent in the classrooms with the students.”

Cecchinelli said he’d combine the city’s purchasing department with the NPS purchasing department and do the same for city and NPS human resources, and he’d consider privatizing school custodial services.

Cecchinelli noted that unlike Laredo, he does not think the NTA contract signed last year is sustainable.

“We had to get our kids back to school,” he said. “They [the union] had us over a barrel.”

Campaign vitality and street line heritage

At one point, Reibman asked Cecchinelli if he was a serious candidate.

“I’m a serious candidate,” Cecchinelli said. “I don’t have the money that Laredo has to run, so it’s tough to knock on doors, but I am out there, I’m working every day.”

Cecchinelli added that he had a brain tumor removed in August and later had an infection that resulted in one of his toes being removed, but he said he’ll be back on the campaign trail soon.

“I am the definition of a grassroots candidate,” he said. “I’m doing this by my bootstraps.”

Reibman also asked Cecchinelli, a conservative Republican, what he would say if he found himself in an elevator with President Donald Trump.

“I’d say, ‘Thank you, you’re doing a great job,’” Cecchinelli said.

A controversy that has gained a lot of attention in Newton involved street lines. This summer, the city removed red, white and green street lines from Adams Street in Nonantum. Mayor Ruthanne Fuller cited traffic and state law, while Nonantum residents accused her of attacking Nonantum’s Italian heritage.

Laredo said he would “figure out a way” to allow the residents to put the Italian flag-colored lines back onto Adams Street and keep them there.

When Reibman asked the candidates if they thought Fuller had a vendetta against Nonantum and against Italian-Americans, Laredo pushed back.

“That’s not a fair question, and I’m not going to comment anything negatively on Mayor Fuller,” Laredo said. “I will say this. Mayor Fuller is a good person. Mayor Fuller has worked very hard. Mayor Fuller should be proud of certain accomplishments she’s had in the city. And there are things we disagree on. We have somewhat different styles, and that’s natural.”

Cecchinelli, who also said he’d allow the Italian flag lines back onto Adams Street, was less diplomatic toward the mayor and accused her office of hostility toward Nonantum because Nonantum residents stood up against the 2023 village center rezoning.

“I think she wants to show Nonantum that we can’t—we don’t have our own Manifest Destiny,” Cecchinelli said, referencing the 19th-century term used to promote the expansion of the United States across the American continent.

You can watch the entire Laredo interview here.

And you can watch the entire Cecchinelli interview here.