Jaden Crawford for NRC
Fair and Accountable Natural Resources Stewardship
About Me
I moved to Wellesley with my family in 2010. Like many families we quickly fell in love with Wellesley’s outdoor spaces. We spend much of our free time enjoying Centennial Park, Hunnewell Fields, Morses and Longfellow Ponds, Town forest, and most of the town’s parks, playing fields, and 47 miles of trails.
We also spend a lot of time in our gardens and have slowly replaced most of the lawns with organic vegetable gardens, as well as native and ornamental gardens to support and enjoy local wildlife. One particular joy is maintaining milkweed and other native plants to support butterflies and other pollinators as a Monarch way-station.
For over 17 years, I have worked to decarbonize the worlds electric grids. Early in my career, I built and operated renewable power plants. Since then I have focused on developing wholesale and retail electricity markets to integrate distributed energy resources (DER), such as smart thermostats, solar roofs, batteries, electric vehicles, and building management systems. I am currently the Director of Policy for a DER focused energy retailer, where I lead our regulatory and policy engagement. However, the best part of my job is helping electricity customers fully utilize their distributed technologies to reduce carbon, reduce their electricity costs, and increase grid resiliency.
I’m asking for your vote on March 7th. Here is why I hope you’ll vote for me
I’m Running for ALL of Wellesley’s Natural Resources
In Wellesley, we are fortunate to have a wealth of open spaces, including fields, trails, ponds, woodlands, and wetlands. When healthy, these natural resources don’t just provide a refuge for people and wildlife, they offer protection from the impacts of climate change. These spaces are under threat from drought punctuated by flooding, invasive species, canopy decline, and pollution from fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. We need the prioritize these issues.
For the past several years the NRC has focused over 70% of its efforts on playing fields despite the fact playing fields are only a small part of the NRC’s charter. This cannot remain our overwhelming focus given the seriousness of climate change, and our need to improve the resiliency and health of all of Wellesley’s open spaces.
I am running for NRC to restore Commission focus on addressing the long-term health of all of Wellesley’s natural resources.
I’m Running for Accountability and Fairness
I want to improve Commission accountability and ensure that fairness is again a guiding principal for NRC initiatives. The current Commission explicitly decided to ignore the NRC Charter. This enabled them to vote in favor of multiple construction projects that actively harm impacted neighborhoods and a town wetland, despite the fact that such construction would never be allowed for any Wellesley resident or business. This may be legal, but I don’t believe it’s right. It’s definitely not an example of governance that I think we should set for our children.
As an NRC Commissioner, I will always use the NRC charter as my framework for decision making and will publicly note where decisions deviate from it. These simple actions will help to ensure that you have both the ability and the information necessary to hold the NRC accountable for its decisions. Hopefully it will also lead to more consistently responsible decisions.
I will also be a strong voice in each meeting for Commission action and reporting regarding the NRC’s progress toward meeting critical Town initiatives such as the Climate Action plan and the Unified Plan and will work with the amazing NRC staff to develop reporting
JadenforNRC@gmail.com
I’d love to talk with you about why I’m running, about what matters to you, or even about gardening (especially compost. I love compost). Just sent me an email, and we can set up a call or an in person chat!
Jaden Crawford for NRC 