By Joseph A. Curtatone

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)

Somerville and its taxpayers received good news this week. We already had the highest bond ratings in our history. Now, Standard & Poor’s has raised our rating from AA- to a new high of AA+. That’s the second highest rating on the agency’s scale, only one spot from the rare AAA rating. This upgrade follows Moody’s Investors Service reaffirming the city’s Aa2 rating last year, only two spots from that agency’s similarly rare Aaa rating. These high bond ratings mean that anytime the city borrows money for a project, like rebuilding the East Somerville Community School or Argenziano School, building the roads and utilities that support our neighborhoods, or rebuilding parks and open space, we get phenomenally low interest rates, which means that taxpayers pay less for the projects that improve our community.

How did we get here, even despite the challenges we have faced along the way? We did it by believing in ourselves by investing in ourselves. It started a decade ago, when we faced a limping economy, slashed state aid and soaring fixed costs. In Washington and on Beacon Hill, the same, tired, short-sighted battle—that bewilderingly still rages today—waged on the floors of Congress and the State House. It even waged in a city as progressive as Somerville. Lured by the temptation of an uncomplicated path, pessimists with a fundamental disdain for government said: Cut blindly. Slash services. Invest less. They said to every one of you, to every person in this community: Go it alone. We can’t do anything for you.

Ten years of growing prosperity later, today we know one undeniable fact: They were wrong. In Somerville, we rejected the over-simplified more-government-versus–less-government argument. We rejected the defeatist idea that the only option was to merely endure. We knew that we could do more than scrape by and take our licks. We knew that with smart strategies we could budget carefully and still thrive. We knew that government is where people come together, define our core values and believe in the common good. We knew another path existed—the path of effective, cost-efficient government.

Walking that path demanded that we stop managing each year in a vacuum, simply managing budget to budget. It demanded that every investment, decision and policy we made thought not only of today, but of tomorrow as well. It demanded that we evolve to meet the needs of our community. Doing so would mean understanding the values of our community, and then basing every decision and policy on those values. It demanded: Stop looking at our budget as investments in “things”—buildings, vehicles, textbooks. Instead, realize what we are investing in. We invest in people. We invest in you.

We invested in creating 311, making us more efficient while delivering the accurate, courteous and easy service you deserve. We invested in the creation of our SomerStat office, which ensures that we do not manage budget to budget, but that data and the facts lead us to the most effective and cost-efficient policies. We invested in putting more Somerville Police officers on the streets, giving them better equipment and more mandated training, and our crime rate is down by one-third over the past five years. We invested in Assembly Square, and now new jobs, a new neighborhood and new commercial taxes are being generated for our community. We invested in data-driven hands-on learning in our schools, and we did not slash programs like music and world languages or layoff teachers while other communities did during the past decade, putting more in those programs instead. Today, Somerville Public Schools’ improvement in student growth puts the district on par with some of the highest-performing districts in Massachusetts, and our schools are showing improvement by every measure.

As we’ve become more successful though, we face new challenges today. We must invest in affordability to protect our greatest resource—our people. We have to modernize our water and sewer system to protect our homes and support our city’s growth. We’ve made great academic strides, but we must continue to invest in education to make sure every child has the opportunity to reach his or her greatest potential. We must invest in the ability of all of our residents to fully take part in community life by investing in accessibility for our sidewalks, squares, parks and buildings. We must invest in the goals of our residents via neighborhood planning to ensure that the Somerville of the future is the one we envision based on our shared values today.

We know the value of investing in people, and others see it too. Others now look to Somerville with admiration, laud our approach and policies, and clamor to invest in our ever-rising “stock.” That’s what happens when you demonstrate what smart, efficient, strategic government can achieve in the worst of times. I look forward to working with each of you to continue to set that bar high and show what that powerful mix of Somerville pride and determination can do.