Virginia Smith

I have lived in Brookline Village since 1997, and am very grateful to have been able to raise my three children in this wonderful neighborhood and for them to have attended Brookline's amazing public schools. 

I have a BA in English Literature from Carleton College and an MBA from Harvard. I was co-president the HBS LGBQT group as a student, and then served as the co-president of the HBS Gay and Lesbian Alumni Association for over 10 years. I lived in New York City for 15 years after graduate school, most recently working  as an Acquiring Editor at a large trade book publisher. I'm now a freelance writer and editor. When my kids were younger, I wrote a parenting column for the Boston Globe Sunday magazine.

I've been a Town Meeting Member since 2009 and have concentrated in these areas: 

• Early advocate for a New Pierce. Every year from 2004-2017 when my children were students in the open classrooms in the library, I spoke at the fall Principal's Forum to say that the lack of walls in the 1960s Pierce Building is harmful to our children's learning and must be radically altered so that kids can actually hear what is being said and be able to concentrate. Later, when Pierce was the most overcrowded school in Brookline, I notified the Schools Committee about new rental space available on the top floor of the old Benefitness Building. This became the Pierce 7th grade "Loft," which alleviated some of the overcrowding and is where my youngest child finally had a classroom with walls, doors, and a chance to learn in a quiet environment. 

• April 2021-December 2022,  I worked with several colleagues to successfully fight a developer who wanted  to build a Level 2 Bio Lab in Brookline Village on the site of the northeast corner of Washington and Boylston Streets. 

• 2010-2013, I was a member of a Moderator's Committee for Pay-As-You-Throw which resulted in increasing the volume of recycling and decreasing the volume of trash in Brookline. 

• June 2020-now, I worked to save 40 Kent, probably the most handsome as well as the most historic house in Brookline Village, from demolition.

• 2005 and continuing, I serve as Head of Friends of Linden Park and strive to maintain the park at a high level.

• 2021-2024, I worked with another Town Meeting Member to successfully prevent the demolition of a mid-Victorian historic house at 370 Washington Street, the former residence of an early Pierce principal directly across from the Brookline Main Library.

• 2021-2022, I cleared out over 60 contractor bags full of invasive vines that were suffocating the Larz Anderson Swamp, and then worked with the Brookline Scouts to clear almost 80% of the entire swamp.

• 2000 and continuing, community gardener in Larz Anderson Park.

At a Town Meeting Member, I support protecting the environment; finding ways to raise taxes on those best able to afford them; advocating for education, affordable housing, and green space; and reining in developers who see Brookline Village as a source of profit and luxury housing for multi-millionaires, and not as a neighborhood for people at all levels of income.