Marybeth Arenella
candidate for 2021 BERWYN seventh WARD ALDERPERSON
1. What motivates you to seek this office? What skills, experiences, and perspectives would you bring, and why would those contributions be valuable in the office you are seeking?
2. When in the past have you had to balance competing interests? What process did you use? What did you learn?
3. What does transparency in government mean to you? How would you put it into practice?
4. As more of our local discourse happens in social media, what is your view on how local elected officials should communicate with and respond to constituents? How will you engage with the breadth of the community, and not only those on social media?
5. What barriers do you see for community members who wish to engage with Berwyn’s city government? How would you work to reduce or eliminate those barriers?
6. What do you feel are the three biggest issues facing Berwyn, and how do you intend to address them? How will you prioritize among competing priorities?
7. How do you define racial equity? Have recent events and discussions in the larger community informed or changed your thinking?
8. How do you plan to solicit feedback from people who may be experiencing Berwyn in a different way than you? What barriers do you believe may exist in this process?
9. Name an influential Berwyn community member. How did this person’s influence change Berwyn? As an elected official, what do you imagine your influence will be on the community?
10. How do you plan to encourage the youth of Berwyn to interact and engage with Berwyn’s city government?
11. Do you feel that Berwyn should do more to support housing affordability? If so, what specific policies would you support?
12. What impact can a municipality such as Berwyn have on climate change, and how will you prioritize that work among other issues?
13. What actions would you take to address the continuing problem of Berwyn’s municipal debt?
14. One of the most important responsibilities of the City Council is to pass a budget. How would you approach the development of Berwyn’s budget? Do you believe there has been sufficient transparency in the budgeting process in recent years?
15. Given the visible community efforts around the Black Lives Matter movement including the mural in the Berwyn Municipal Building parking lot, do you anticipate working for changes in policing policy or oversight moving forward? What specific changes would you support?
16. Many Berwyn residents have expressed confusion about the disparate roles of the City and the Township, particularly in the past year as the importance of the Health Department increased due to the pandemic. Do you believe action is necessary to increase public awareness of the various taxing bodies and their functions? What steps would you take?
17. As an elected official, what lessons will you draw from the experience of the pandemic about the purpose and role of government?