Table of Contents
Hafiz Adamjee, Candidate for Winchester Town Meeting, Precinct 3
Winchester News
February 8, 2025
Years lived in Winchester: 30
Professional background and education:
I began my career as a management consultant, working with private and public sector clients to transform their businesses by targeting unmet customer needs and maximizing customer satisfaction, growth, and cost efficiency.
More recently, I held roles with divisional or global responsibility in finance and capital planning, purchasing, operations, supply chain and manufacturing, and ethics and compliance at a multinational pharmaceutical company.
For the past 15 years, I have served as a trustee of a publicly-funded global health and education non-profit organization.
I have degrees in engineering and business administration.
What Winchester town positions (appointed or elected) have you held, and for how long?
I am in my 4th year on the Finance Committee. I served for 2 years on the Capital Planning Committee.
What volunteer roles have you done that made a difference in Winchester?
While serving on the Finance Committee, I conducted a deep-dive assessment of transfer station operations to identify opportunities to increase net revenue, reduce user fees, and reduce our environmental footprint. This effort was the foundation for the work of the Transfer Station Working Group.
I also led the financial assessment of the Community Preservation Act as a member of the CPA Working Group.
Why should I vote for you?
I am a long-term resident of our exceptional town and truly love being a part of our community. But I believe, in some ways, our town is heading in the wrong direction, whether with school performance, crumbling infrastructure, or the ever-widening gap between spending and revenue.
If elected to Town Meeting, I would advocate for:
- A Comprehensive Town-Wide Tracking Survey
Winchester lacks one “source of truth” regarding our satisfaction with town services as well as our concerns, needs, and priorities. A periodic survey is needed to facilitate redirecting resources to services we value and are willing to support through our taxes.
- Transparent, Data-Driven Dialogue on the Town’s Long-Term Financial Outlook and its Implications to our Pocketbooks
Winchester faces a fiscal reckoning in the coming years. We must invest in addressing performance gaps in our school curricula (including literacy), persuade families that shifted to private schools during COVID to return to WPS, and reverse the decline in statewide rankings.
At the same time, due to years of chronic underinvestment, town assets require hundreds of millions of dollars over the next years simply to be maintained in their current state. We must also fund the new Muraco School.
This is an immense undertaking. We have no long-term (15- to 30-year) plan that clearly lays out the scale, timing, and priority of investments required and how they will be funded.
We must be given the opportunity to understand the long-term consequences to our property taxes and to openly debate the trade-offs we are willing to make to bring spending in line with revenue. Otherwise, we face endless overrides, risk to our bond rating, and a continued exodus of residents who can no longer afford to remain in Winchester.
- A Drive to Maximize the Efficiency of Town Services
Winchester does many things well, but there is always room to improve. I’d encourage the Select Board to sponsor independent working groups to evaluate our services and their resourcing and efficiency. Select Board must make informed decisions about maximizing value from our taxes and redirecting funds where critically needed.
What specific methods will you use to gather and represent your constituents’ perspectives on issues that come to Town Meeting?
Residents must be involved in shaping the future of our town.
I would encourage the Precinct Chair to offer virtual open houses prior to Town Meeting, seeking to gauge resident perspectives on specific articles before Town Meeting. I would also bring together a group of 10 randomly selected precinct residents with whom I would consult prior to each Town Meeting.
The results of the town survey, if implemented, would also guide me.
What steps will you take to keep your constituents informed about Town Meeting decisions to explain your voting rationale?
Following each Town Meeting, I would work with other precinct members to prepare a brief report (distributed by the Precinct Chair by email) updating residents on Town Meeting decisions and voting records and rationale.
How do you plan to evaluate and make decisions on budgetary allocations to ensure fiscal responsibility while meeting the town’s needs?
As a member of Finance Committee, I am well versed in the proposed budget and the status of our operating reserves. My votes would reflect the inputs of budget owners and precinct constituents and would be rooted in the need for a balanced budget.
