Diane Mahon, chair of the Board of Selectmen, presented the State of the Town address, an annual event since 2001, to the 2010 Town Meeting at the beginning of the session on Monday, April 26. Here is the full text:

Chair, I would like to start tonight by taking a moment to publicly thank our retiring Town Clerk Corinne Rainville for her many years of outstanding service to our community.  Corinne, you will be missed. (Pause for applause.)  

While our economy is beginning to turn around and things are looking a little bit brighter, we still face very uncertain times.  For many Arlington residents, simply making ends meet has become a challenge and some in our community simply cannot make ends meet at all.  For any of you here tonight or for any of you watching from home, if you are currently facing tough times, you are not alone. As Arlingtonians, we have a long tradition of helping each other, when help is needed.  With the generous support of many residents, we have established several assistance programs here locally.

If you are in need of any social services, if you are in need of help with food, shelter, clothing, the basic human needs, help is available to you.  Simply call our Health & Human Services Department at 781-316-3264 and you will be referred to the appropriate agency to help you.  

Another important source of assistance is the United Way of Massachusetts which operates a 24/7 one-stop referral center for all social services.  Simply dial 211 to contact them.

As all of you are aware, making ends meet is equally challenging for our town. Town Meeting this year is going to make some difficult choices.  We must work together to find solutions to the challenges facing our town.

Unfortunately, the solutions we develop will not please everyone, and in some cases may not please anyone at all. But, as elected officials, we must never forget our obligation to the citizens who elected us to provide quality Town services in the most cost efficient way possible.

As we move forward, one major challenge is how to slow the ever increasing cost of healthcare while continuing to respect our employees and our past commitments to them.  This will require very open and frank discussions and will require all parties to sit down together, and roll up their sleeves to develop a solution by consensus and collaboration.

After last month’s rain and the two “50-year storms” that we had within two weeks of each other we were again reminded of the continued flooding problems many of our residents face. We need to continue to develop a comprehensive regional flood plan to help alleviate this ongoing problem.

The toll these floods take on our neighbors is simply too high for us not to do all that we can to find a solution. In these difficult times we must also be creative in looking for and finding solutions to the challenges and problems that we face.

Whether that means seeking additional state or federal assistance, finding those elusive grant opportunities or developing new and more efficient ways of delivering vital services to our residents, everything and anything must be on the table for discussion.

There can be no “sacred cows” and “we never did things that way before” cannot be seen as a reasonable answer.  There is no one program nor one quick-fix solution.  The answers we need will not be easy to find, but we must do all that we can to continue to seek out the best options available.  

In the midst of these and a score of other challenges there is still one thing that has always held true for Arlington that I believe makes it a bit easier to find our way forward more so than in many other communities.

As a community the people of Arlington have always been willing to roll up their sleeves and get to work.  We have a wonderfully diverse community full of people with amazing talents. There is no easy way forward, but together we will move forward.  Thank you.