Ward 7 councilor candidate Paul Katz

Paul Katz never intended to get involved in city government. 

Katz first came to Waltham in the 1980s to study at Brandeis University and settled in Waltham in the 1990s. He has fond memories of performing with the Reagle Music Theatre at the old Waltham High School and watching city meetings on television at his old apartment. When he and his wife bought a home in 2003, they decided to stay in Ward 7.

He first became involved in city politics when he joined Waltham Citizens for Education to advocate for the construction of the new high school. He said he was often frustrated at “the politics and the arguing” that happened during City Council discussions. He said there were times when halfway through watching a City Council meeting he threw a coat on over his pajamas so he could get to City Hall and attend the rest of the meeting in person.

When the previous Ward 7 councilor stepped down, Katz decided he could offer an important skill that the City Council needed: a willingness to spend time talking out problems. He was elected in 2021, and has served as the ward’s councilor ever since.

He said as a councilor he knows his decisions are going to disappoint some people — but he wants to make sure he can always have a smart, respectful discussion with constituents about why he took any given vote.

Katz said that Waltham is a city with a lot of strengths. He praised its school system, diverse array of housing, and neighborhoods with everything from parks and recreation space to prestigious universities. 

However, he thinks that people — especially in the relatively residential Ward 7 — sometimes forget that Waltham is a city and will always include a certain amount of hustle and bustle. He said one of the hard parts of his job is trying to address constituents’ grievances and annoyances without infringing on the needs of their neighbors. 

For example, he mentioned that Ward 7 was dealing with “illegal” student rentals that create overcrowding but said he thinks the city should crack down on property owners’ rental policies, not renters. He added that no matter whether renters are students or professionals, they have the same residential rights as homeowners.

Katz said some problems are harder to navigate. Federal issues such as Immigrations and Customs Enforcement activity in Waltham, he said, strongly affect residents, but they aren’t clear-cut issues where constituents agree on what to do. He said he tries to respect everyone’s perspectives and that, ideally, he would like everyone in Waltham to feel safe and welcome. 

He added that Waltham isn’t usually able to create enforceable laws about national issues such as immigration enforcement but said the City Council still needs to consider that context when making decisions to avoid endangering Waltham residents or the programs they rely on. 

“As far as I’m concerned, if [people] live in my neighborhood and their kids are going to the schools and they’re working here, they have my priority,” he said.

Katz said he prides himself on responding to constituents’ concerns and encourages residents to reach out to him if they have any kind of problem. He said he’s willing to put in the work to get feedback, noting that he plans to go door to door after the election to talk to his ward. Still, he said councilors need constituents’ help identifying the specific issues they’re facing.

Katz said more information also makes it easier for the City Council to appropriately allocate funds to city departments and services. He said councilors can’t and shouldn’t add line items to departments’ budgets directly, but rather wants to make sure he can ask the right questions during budget deliberations so councilors can make informed decisions on getting departments the funding and leadership they need. 

Ward 7 readers identified traffic as one of their most pressing issues in The Waltham Times’ election reader survey. Katz agrees that traffic is a top issue, saying that the current level of traffic in the West End is much higher than the streets can handle. 

He said some of the resolutions he has brought to the Traffic Commission address years-old problems but that his proposed solutions can feel like piecemeal solutions. He wants to see more traffic enforcement but thinks the city most urgently needs a big-picture plan that takes into account how navigation apps are routing traffic. He said that’s why he has pushed for the West End traffic study.

“I will not give up on anything that is going to make our neighborhood safer for people, whether they’re driving, whether they’re walking or riding their bike, whether they’re just trying to garden on their lawn and are afraid that a truck is coming up on their lawn and gonna crash into their house,” he said.

Katz said he wants to be able to show neighbors a good-faith effort from the city to make change. However, he also pointed out that it is hard to adapt to change, and that the city should potentially be more willing to trial solutions such as one-way streets and speed bumps in order to collect data on their effectiveness and get people used to them before they’re adopted permanently.

That also goes for addressing housing issues. He said that he wants to see Waltham try to maintain its housing diversity by building affordable housing that’s not just “mega-apartments.” He suggested Waltham explore private-public cooperation options and “out-of-the-box thinking” to experiment with housing solutions, such as neighborhoods of smaller houses that could provide residents with community and a path to homeownership.

Katz also said he thinks Waltham needs to get better at discussing issues: “The city is a terrible communicator,” he said. He said that City Hall needs a better website, tools such as electric signboards in public spaces to update residents about upcoming meetings, and more avenues to disseminate information that residents can trust to be impartial.

He said he wants people to know that he personally doesn’t have an agenda beyond taking interest in his ward’s issues. “I take great pride in being a councilor. It was not a lifetime goal… [but] I think it’s a very honorable position.”