Service to the Town
My wife (Carla Wyman Benka) and I had our second date at the old Pewter Pot in Coolidge Corner, and have been residents of Brookline since we were married 37 years ago. Our daughter Valerie is a graduate of the Heath School and Brookline High School.
I was a Town Meeting Member representing Precinct 13 for 27 years, and during that time served on a number of Town committees and boards, beginning with a committee in the 1980s to reduce density in portions of Coolidge Corner, followed by the Housing Advisory Board and committees dealing with the Town’s electricity and utility purchasing. I also chaired the Moderator’s Committee on Zoning which drafted amendments, enacted by Town Meeting, to close loopholes in the Zoning By-Law and I drafted, on a pro bono basis, a brief to the Supreme Judicial Court successfully defending the validity of the Town’s Zoning By-Law. As a Selectman, I’ve chaired the Efficiency Initiative Committee and the Davis Path Special District Zoning Study Committee, have successfully urged expanded funding of our long-term liabilities to retired employees, and have brought my legal and economic training and experience to bear on issues before the Board.
Carla has also been active in the Town, originally working as a Preservation Planner for the Town, and later volunteering as PTO Co-President at Heath and vice-chair of the Brookline Community Foundation. She is currently also a Town Meeting Member, a member of the High School Site Council, a member of the Steps to Success Advisory Board, a board member of the Brookline Community Foundation, and the chair of the Capital Subcommittee of the Town’s Advisory (Finance) Committee.
Carla and I were extremely proud to receive the Brookline Neighborhood Alliance Leadership Award in 2006. We are fortunate to have settled in a community where so many individuals volunteer their time and talent to make a great community even better.