Sharon Antia
By Alice Waugh
Sharon Antia of Lincoln has opinions and isn’t shy about sharing them with the people she meets—and she’s hoping enough of those people will vote for her in November to win her a seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
Antia, who is running as an independent, is challenging incumbent Democrat Thomas Stanley, who has been the state rep for the 9th Middlesex District since 2000. The district includes Lincoln and part of Waltham.
“My primary goal is to be a voice for the people, and the people I’ve talked to in both Waltham and Lincoln don’t feel they have that voice. Almost everyone in Lincoln said they had never met [Stanley],” she said during a conversation in the Whistlestop Cafe. “it’s not going to be easy. He’s deeply entrenched in Waltham life and the community, but maybe it’s time for a change.”
Antia has held public office only once, when she replaced a departing member of the Lincoln School Committee in 2005. However, she’s been active with the Council on Aging, hosting monthly “fireside chats” to discuss topical issues including gun control, civil rights, energy and the needs of the aging.
“I really like bringing together people that may or may not have the same views and help them find common ground—to listen and understand even if they don’t agree,” Antia said.
Social policy is “really dear to my heart,” said Antia, who holds a master’s degree in education and policy management from Harvard. She and her husband Bob adopted four boys through the state Department of Children and Families (DCF), so she has first-hand experience dealing with social service agencies for kids and adopting parents.
“I don’t think it should be this hard to get the services you need,” Antia said. “They try, but the resources—the knowledge, people, training, money—just aren’t enough… and I think both our communities are very concerned about these issues.”
She’d also like to see more state funding for the METCO program as well as closer relationships between METCO and Lincoln families. “I think there’s room for us as parents in Lincoln and Boston top model for the kids what that looks like,” she said.
Another local educational resource, Minuteman High School, is “woefully utilized” by Lincoln families, Antia asserted. “Going to Minuteman does not mean you’re not going to college,” she said. However, the school’s recent efforts to change its multi-town funding formula to place more weight on each town’s overall means is “crazy,” she added. “We need to look at other ways of raising funds for Minuteman.”
Antia is also in favor of increasing state funding for early education. “The earlier that kids from all economic levels are given opportunities, the better,” she said. “We need to level the playing field.”
As for the thorniest Lincoln education issue of late—the school building project debate—Antia voted against the plan proposed at Town Meeting in 2012. “I didn’t think we were ready,” she said, adding that she supports a school project in some form but isn’t sure what the ultimate solution ought to be.
Other issues Antia would like to tackle as a state legislator include transportation, energy and the environment, and business development. “Wouldn’t Waltham be a great place as a hub for manufacturing?” she said, adding that its proximity to area colleges and research labs make it ideal for apprenticeship or co-op programs.
Antia grew up in Attleboro in a family of eight children—“we were poor, but our parents always read to us,” she said—and worked for 15 years at Dunkin Donuts, where she rose through the ranks to become a general manager of three stores. Later, she worked full-time as a development center specialist and customer support engineer while earning an associate’s degree at the Community College of Rhode Island, she got her bachelor’s degree in business management from Northeastern University in 1999 and her master’s from Harvard in 2010.
Since 2004, Antia has been a parent advocate, serving as a member of advisory committee for Caring Together (a DCF/Department of Mental Health (DMH) collaborative effort to create a new standardized residential system of care) and a researcher for the DMH to study how parent support resources are utilized and develop best practices.
Antia is also an advocate for women who have had surgery for breast cancer or are considering it. After several family members were diagnosed with cancer, Antia had herself tested and discovered she was positive for the BRCA2 gene, which carries a significantly elevated risk for breast and ovarian cancer, so she had her breasts and ovaries removed but elected not to have reconstructive surgery afterwards. “I’d like to help normalize our bodies as flat,” she said of herself and other women who have made this choice.