Loring Barnes is the recent Millis Select Board member and longtime community volunteer who championed her town’s first economic development function and expanded resident communications. She looks to stem ballooning taxation from a series of unfunded Beacon Hill mandates and facilitate stronger collaboration between municipal leaders and industry experts when working toward future legislation.

Speaking to voters from the seat’s 8th Middlesex District of Holliston, Hopkinton, Millis, and Sherborn, Barnes proposed new ways to expand funding sources for school mental health services and community facilities for unmet needs of the surging senior population.

The only female candidate in the race said she’d engage private sector experts to look at opportunities for developing hydro energy recapture as part of mandated lead service pipe replacement work.

“Budget challenges aren’t new, but today’s society is more complex, which is why we need new leaders with broader perspectives and more respect for taxpayers’ wallets making laws,“ offered Barnes. “I’ve spent my entire career creating solutions that have improved organizational performance while minimizing cost, including in government. I know what it’s like to be told that bold ideas are out of reach, that I have no budget, or that people won’t volunteer— and I have always scaled those hurdles and made a difference.”