Pat Brown for Selectwoman

Pat Brown knows the details.

Pick the issue, and 9 times out of 10, she has an encyclopedic understanding of what happened when, who did what to whom, and why. The tenth time, she’ll say she doesn’t know, and two days later you’ll get a 12-inch e-mail explaining whatever you were trying to understand.

She and I met during the summer of 2012, gathering signatures for the citizen petition to enlarge the Sudbury Board of Selectmen from three members to five. Pat Brown did the work to figure out how to do that, and to write the petition that did. She impressed me with her commitment to open government, and her willingness to not just whine about it, but pick up a pen or a sign or a shovel and get to work.

Pat gathered the signatures to get that article before a Special Town Meeting to let us decide, spoke at the legislative hearing on Beacon Hill in favor of the change, submitted a written letter of support to the Legislative Committee for the charter amendment, and reviewed the draft language of the charter change. All the while, she was even-tempered and thorough in the face of hot tempers and big egos, equally eager to contribute and to shift the credit onto others.

Pat Brown is effective, because if she doesn’t win you over with the depth of her grasp of the facts, she’s going to do it by just being too good a person to ignore.

Pat Brown is a leader. She has the depth of experience to see the forest for the trees, the courage to make decisions, and the resolve to follow through with the action necessary to achieve anything in the real world. She’s someone people follow, because she’s someone worth following.

I’ve followed her, and having done so I think Pat Brown would be an excellent selectwoman for Sudbury. Please join me in voting for her on Monday, March 31.