{"id":12547,"date":"2026-09-25T19:07:51","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T19:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stage.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/candidates\/isha-agarwal\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T12:29:04","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T12:29:04","slug":"isha-agarwal","status":"publish","type":"candidate","link":"https:\/\/stage.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/candidates\/isha-agarwal\/","title":{"rendered":"Isha Agarwal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Previous Offices Held<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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First time running for office<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Top Three Priorities<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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My top three priorities are strong schools, safe roads and more thoughtful\/slower growth. As a town councilor, I will prioritize high-quality public education that enables every child to reach their full potential. I will also prioritize traffic calming, speed enforcement and connected sidewalks\/bikeways. Finally, I will work to slow down additional development in Scarborough, given that our town is already feeling the strain of rapid growth.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Why are you running?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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I am running to support strong schools and safe roads. This year, Scarborough\u2019s Town Council considered drastic cuts to the school budget, including all afterschool activities and many teacher and ed tech positions. I believe our schools are our town\u2019s biggest investment. I have treated many patients in the ER with injuries from crashes in Scarborough; I would prioritize slower growth, mixed-use zoning, and connecting walkways and bikeways to improve road safety.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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What is the biggest challenge facing your town\/county? The biggest opportunity?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Inflation is hitting everybody. The biggest challenge facing Scarborough is balancing affordability and property taxes with adequate funding for schools and infrastructure. This is especially true with the state\u2019s new school funding formula, which limits the amount of state funding Scarborough receives to offset its school budget. Our biggest opportunity is to create a more walkable and bikeable town where neighbors can gather in third spaces without having to drive to a dedicated town center.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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If you could change one thing about how the town\/county functions, what would it be and why?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Participating in town government should be accessible to everyone in our community, including busy working parents. Serving on town committees can be difficult for parents of young children because of the time commitment. I worry that their perspectives are not always well represented. I would love to see more parents with young kids run for Town Council and see the Town Council role become less time-intensive and flexible so that more people feel they can realistically participate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Do you support more development \u2013 i.e. more housing construction and business building in your town\/county? Why or why not?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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I support more thoughtful\/slower development. Scarborough has grown rapidly over the past decade. We need to be more thoughtful about how rapid growth is impacting our schools, traffic and public safety. We should prioritize conservation and avoid encroaching on the marsh. I support updating zoning in existing residential neighborhoods to allow for mixed-use development, and I would love to see more caf\u00e9s and restaurants in our local neighborhoods so we don\u2019t have to spend our free time in a car on Route 1.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12791,"template":"","meta":{"voter_guide_candidate_first_name":"Isha","voter_guide_candidate_middle_name":"","voter_guide_candidate_last_name":"Agarwal","voter_guide_candidate_suffix":"","voter_guide_candidate_race_id":12443,"voter_guide_candidate_age":38,"voter_guide_candidate_hometown":"","voter_guide_candidate_occupation":"Emergency room doctor","voter_guide_candidate_bio":"I am an ER doctor and mom of three young kids. My husband and I moved to Scarborough to raise our family, and we love the community here.","voter_guide_candidate_education":"Harvard Medical School\/Harvard School of Public Health","voter_guide_candidate_years_in_municipality":"","voter_guide_candidate_headshot_url":"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/open?id=1ETKZh7RpSOYNME7N4zTJ_P-rmS3YeB15","voter_guide_candidate_date_filed":"","footnotes":""},"vg_party":[1073],"vg_residence_municipality":[],"class_list":["post-12547","candidate","type-candidate","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","vg_party-democratic"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stage.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/candidates\/12547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stage.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/candidates"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stage.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/candidate"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stage.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/candidates\/12547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12548,"href":"https:\/\/stage.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/candidates\/12547\/revisions\/12548"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stage.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stage.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"vg_party","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stage.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vg_party?post=12547"},{"taxonomy":"vg_residence_municipality","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stage.pressherald.com\/voter-guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vg_residence_municipality?post=12547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}