BERNARDSTON — Running for representative of the 1st Franklin District was never part of Bernardston resident Sabra Billings’ “grand plan.” Then, she had the chance to consult on a campaign.
“I found myself getting really excited about that,” said Billings, 51. “When I found out that wasn’t moving forward, I found myself very surprisingly feeling a lot of disappointment. I had been really excited about just getting more involved in the political process.”
Although the prospect of running for a state government position had not occurred to Billings at the time, the potential project sparked conversations with friends, and one encouraged her to consider running for former state Rep. Natalie Blais’ open seat.
Blais resigned on Jan. 19. As Speaker of the House Ronald Mariano opted not to call a special election to replace her, Blais’ seat will remain open until the November 2026 election and the winner will be sworn in next January to represent the 1st Franklin District.
Since Blais’ resignation, five people have announced their plans to run for the open seat: Billings; Corinne Coryat, a Deerfield resident and former aide for Blais; Johnathan Creque, a Greenfield resident and former staffer for U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren; Whately Town Clerk Amy Lavallee; and Greenfield City Council President Lora Wondolowski. Deerfield resident David Wemhoener also filed paperwork with the Office of Campaign and Political Finance to run, but decided against it.
“It just felt like a good fit, it felt like something I could do, and I’d love to be able to make a positive difference for this county I’ve spent my whole life living and working in and supporting,” Billings explained.
At 3 years old, Billings and her family moved to Bernardston, where they stayed until Billings’ sophomore year of high school. At that time, they moved to Deerfield, the town with her family’s “deepest roots.” Like nine generations of Franklin County residents on her father’s side, Billings stayed in the area, always happy to return home after trips elsewhere.
“Through the course of my career I’ve had multiple opportunities to relocate, including some pretty lucrative opportunities to relocate, and there was never enough that could really pull me away,” Billings said. “This has always felt like home.”
Billings has spent most of her career in the manufacturing and operations industry, including directing operations and logistics at WhiteMug Inc., project management at Lactalis U.S. Yogurt and commercialization for Commonwealth Dairy.
Her path also took a few detours into nonprofit work, including through a role as director of food operations at the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, where she helped launch the Mobile Food Bank program, and as a member of Just Roots’ board of directors.
Now, Billings runs InsideUP Resourcing, her own consulting company that “[works] with businesses to help them make the most of their internal people resources.”
“My goal in opening my own consulting business was, in a way, to pay back what had been provided to me as I grew my own career,” Billings said. “I did not graduate from college. I really worked my way up and I worked really hard, but I also recognize that I had a lot of help along the way in terms of really informal mentors … people who were willing to give me a chance when I may not have had all of the qualifications on paper, and that made all the difference for me and my career.”
Residents may recognize Billings’ name from her days owning Adams Donuts in Greenfield before Sereyvith “David” Mon and Kosal Chum took over in August 2024.
With a range of roles on her resume, Billings feels she would bring a “unique breadth of experience” to Beacon Hill.
Although Billings described her lack of experience with legislation as a “significant gap that I see in ideal experience,” she said she is a “quick study” with “resources to lean on” and she has started researching the process for drafting legislation.
According to Billings, common responsibilities connect the phases of her career — skills she described as “transferable” strengths that set her apart from other candidates.
“I have literally decades of experience leading people in teams and a really strong track record of success,” Billings said. “A lot of the projects and processes that I’ve been responsible for throughout my career have required me to bring people to the table who may have conflicting priorities to collaborate and make something happen.”
If elected, she plans to apply this repertoire of skills to tackle three key priorities.
“I generally subscribe to the philosophy that if you have more than three priorities, you have no priorities,” Billings said with a laugh.
Since filing paperwork with the Office of Campaign and Political Finance at the end of March, Billings has talked to 1st Franklin District residents about their concerns, and increasing funding for the area’s schools rose as a “top issue,” Billings said. She hopes to secure more funding for municipalities through the Chapter 70 formula and Unrestricted General Government Aid (UGGA) to help them shoulder school budgets.
“This issue is a pressure point for almost everyone that I’ve spoken with,” Billings said. “Most people want to provide kids with a really quality education, and there’s so many circumstances that have converged that have made that incredibly challenging.”
Billings described housing affordability as another “pressure point.” If she is elected as state representative, Billings plans to work toward striking a balance between boosting new housing growth and preserving old homes in Franklin County.
“We know that our housing stock is aging and we know that people are incredibly cost-burdened, which, to me, speaks directly to their ability to maintain their homes,” Billings said. She described helping residents preserve their homes as “shoring up the foundation” of the district towns.
For her third priority, Billings plans to focus on “building resiliency in our local food systems” by continuing Blais’ commitment to supporting farmers, a cause that especially struck her on a recent visit to Bree-Z-Knoll Farm in Leyden.
“I don’t know all of the answers, but I do know that even in the scope of all that has been accomplished recently, farms like Bree-Z-Knoll are still struggling,” Billings said. “My goal is to dig in and flesh those opportunities out and advocate for them.”
She plans to continue meeting with farmers, superintendents and Selectboard members in the 1st Franklin District on a “listening and learning tour” to hear town concerns and strategize solutions. After already hearing from residents who were not aware of the legislative district they lived in, Billings decided to create a “dashboard” with “community-specific data and information” to keep 1st Franklin District residents up to date on state government actions trickling down to their towns.
Since she started voting, Billings was a registered Democrat. Then, about 10 years ago, her view of party politics shifted.
“The political environment has gotten really divisive and in a lot of ways very ugly, and so it’s just been hard for me to identify with that,” Billings said.
Billings is running as an unenrolled candidate. Although she described being unenrolled as “pretty equivalent” to being an Independent, she noted that, “the reality is I think some people have the perception that Independent means more right, some people have the mentality that Independent means more left, and that’s just simply not true. … For me, what [unenrolled] means is that I’m not a party politician.”
“I believe with my whole heart that the most significant issues that exist, especially if you’re looking at our county, are issues that are shared across the political spectrum,” she continued. “If we can get people to focus on those issues more than political parties, then it will be easier for us to make progress.”
