Joan Puglia wants more accountability from the BOA.

By Andrew Firestone

Joan Whitney Puglia was born and raised in Somerville, returning to the city to help her parents and raise her family in 1970. Working as an administrative supervisor at Tufts University, Puglia says that her experience working towards developing young minds, as well as her work with the Somerville Local Development Corporation, a non-profit that gives loans to small business, make her an ideal candidate for Ward 7 Alderperson.

“Professionally, I’ve been working to try to give people the skills to earn higher-wage paying jobs. I’ve been working to provide housing to a diverse group of people. I’ve worked on issues that are important people to try to make people’s lives better and I think those are important things to do. That’s what I’ve worked for,” she said.

In the city’s development future, Puglia called for more research and development-oriented jobs. “There aren’t simple solutions to the problems that we are facing but I think that by having an open conversation, and doing research then we might find better solutions to the economic development woes that we have,” she said in an interview with The Somerville News. “We really need better paying jobs in the city, something better than retail or restaurants.”

Puglia has spoken out against the zoning approval processes the city has undergone, and takes the current Ward 7 Alderman’s plans to another level in monitoring absentee landlords, saying that under current rules, only the name of the principle needs to be on building applications.

“Somebody goes in to develop a piece of property and it’s within a school zone. That person could be a sexual offender, and we would never know that,” she said.

“That may sound a little extreme, but it’s also important to make sure that there are no conflicts of interest with the developers and any members of the board or anyone else in city government,” she said. “I think that that would be a good way to reveal any type of issues right up front. I think that that has been a loophole in the zoning and development process.”

Puglia has also voiced concern about the raising of residential parking fees in the city. “The residential permits have increased every year for the last, I believe, two years they’ve gone from $10 to $20. There’s the proposal to raise it to $30. I have done some homework, and the adjoining cities and towns are not charging $30. They’re charging $20. So my question is, why do we need $30?”

“If the City of Somerville is going to be saving so much money by moving to GIC, why are we then raising fees as well? $20 is reasonable! I think $30 is extravagant for many people,” she said, noting the millions of dollars that might be saved by switching city employees over to the Group Insurance Commission.

“I know that every single person in Somerville needs to look at their budget and make some tough decisions,” she said. “I’m fully capable of making tough decisions as the alderman from Ward 7. I would just want more information before they get my vote.”

“I would go as far to say that there should be an audit of all city services. Are we duplicating services in some areas? I would say, what about consolidating some of the services we provide, for instance consolidating building and health inspection services into a single department?“

Puglia said she was critical of the current Board of Aldermen, and their willingness to go along with Mayor Joseph Curtatone’s plans, saying that the board needed to take “a step back” in order to “examine the issues further.” She called for more accountability in their decision-making.”

“I can’t fault just Alderman Trane on this.  I don’t think there has been an awful lot of discussion among the aldermen on some of these topics,” she said.

“The Board of Aldermen, their role should be that of the legislative branch, so there is a difference between the legislative branch and the executive branch. We haven’t really seen very much of that over the last several years, so I would like to able to advocate for that,” she said.