Selectmen candidates Rhonda Sprague (left) and Lucy Wallace shake hands after a debate sponsored by the League of Women Voters and the Harvard Press in Volunteers Hall, April 10. (Photos by Lisa Aciukewicz)
The two candidates vying for a vacant seat on the Board of Selectmen succeeded this week in sharply articulating their differences on a number of controversial issues that have been the talk of Harvard for months.
The setting was a debate held Tuesday evening in Volunteers Hall at the library and sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Harvard and the Harvard Press. It was the only forum at which the contenders, Rhonda Sprague, owner of Harvard Realty and a Historical Commission member, and Lucy Wallace, a former Selectmen and veteran of other town boards and committees—will appear together before the town election on May 1. Harvard Cable TV plans to rebroadcast the event but has not announced its schedule.
More than 60 residents turned out, filling the third-floor library assembly space. Supporters of Sprague and Wallace clustered on opposite sides of the hall, mirroring the positions of the contenders at the front table. One attendee, who said it was the first debate he had attended during his six-year residence in Harvard, characterized the discussion as “surprisingly civil.”
From left: Bill Johnson, Laura Johnson, and Beth Williams respond to a moment of levity at the Selectmen’s debate April 10.
The candidates were asked to take positions on more than a dozen questions in four categories—municipal buildings, affordable housing, town planning, and the role of the Selectmen in town government—and they were given two minutes to make their statements and another minute to respond to each other. Jo-Ann Berry of the Acton chapter of the League of Women Voters moderated the discussion.
In her opening statement, Sprague, who said she had lived in town for nearly 40 years and been involved as a mother, a grandmother, and a business woman, told attendees that rising property taxes were the biggest threat to the character of the town and urged fiscal restraint on major projects, such as the renovation of Town Hall. Rising taxes, she said, make it difficult for young people, such as her own children, to move into town and for the elderly to stay. Sprague said she had a unique perspective on what town residents wanted.
“I have opened the doors of our neighbors as they have moved into town, and closed them as they move on,” Sprague said.
Lucy Wallace, running for a fifth term after serving on the board for 12 years and then stepping down in 2010, said the town needs to be “fiscally responsible” in caring for its buildings, roads, and other assets, “steering clear of unreasonable expenditures” but “avoiding the trap of being penny wise and pound foolish, which leads ultimately to their long-term detriment.”
During the 90 minutes that followed, Sprague and Wallace parried one another with answers and rebuttals to questions in all four categories. But on a few issues in particular, their differences seemed sharpest, including the renovations of Town Hall and of Hildreth House; the disposition of the affordable housing apartments at the Inn on the common; the handling of committee appointments by the Board of Selectmen; the advisability of an increase in the Community Preservation Act surcharge on property taxes from 1.1 to 3 percent; and the causes for a projected 30 percent rise in property taxes by 2020.
Town Hall: The right time?
Regarding Town Hall, Sprague said, “We’re in a time of difficult financial [crisis] for many of our citizens. We’ve had a number of foreclosures in the town. I deal with people every day who have financial challenges, who have lost their jobs. When we talk about spending $4 million on Town Hall, I have a concern.”
She said she was concerned that less expensive solutions had been overlooked.
“If it causes one more person to move out of town…if we raise our taxes to a point where Harvard becomes not sustainable for a lot of people, then I have a problem with it,” Sprague said. “…It’s not an easy yes or no answer. We need to repair, fix, scrape, paint…but I’m not sure today, this year is the time to do it.”
“We have a lot of debt nationally,” she said. “We’re taking on a lot of debt locally. I wish we had taken more time and set a budget so we knew exactly what we were getting into when we started this process.”
Wallace, however, said she supports the proposal of the Municipal Building Committee to proceed with the renovation of Town Hall.
“We’ve done a very careful study of it, and we certainly understand the fact that our previous habit of not taking care of our buildings is now leading to a higher cost to do the repairs we need to do,” Wallace said. “…It is falling down.”
“We could put things off to the future, and I know that seems like the prudent thing to do, but it really isn’t, because right now the cost of borrowing is very low,” Wallace said.
Wallace also claimed that the amount the town pays on its debt is declining.
“The additional expense is not significant,” she said. “It will be more significant in the future.”
30 percent by 2020?
The candidates were also at odds over the reasons behind the roughly 30 percent rise in property taxes that the Capital Planning and Investment Committee has projected will occur by 2020 if all of the projects of which it is aware, including Town Hall and Hildreth House, were to be completed.
Sprague cited that percentage, as well as the fact that taxes had already gone up 50 percent over the past 10 years, as reasons for caution.
“We have to take a very careful look at the cost to the community, and our families in the town,” Sprague said.
“Not only do we have the municipal buildings” on our plate, she said, but also other capital improvements that are needed. “We have neglect all over town which we are not even talking about.” These are capital costs, she said, and “do not even take into consideration the money for our schools, the added cost of the town sewer.”
But Wallace objected that most of the projected 30 percent increase, by her calculation, was due to the normal 2 1/2 percent increase in property taxes that the town levies each year, as permitted by state law. Compounded over eight years, she said, that annual increase by itself will cause taxes to rise 24% by 2020. All of the other capital projects planned for that period, including Town Hall, Hildreth House, and the sewer would add another four percent over the same period, she said.
CPA surcharge
On the question of whether to raise the Community Preservation Act surcharge on property taxes, Sprague said, as the Historical Commission representative to the Community Preservation Committee, she had voted against recommending the measure because “we would be taking money out of your pockets, and putting it into [CPC’s] pockets.” Without a specific project, “it’s too early to ask people to dig into their pockets.”
Wallace said it would be “wise” for the town to increase the surcharge. By adopting the higher rate, she said, “we open ourselves up…for more state reimbursements.”
If the town had been at three percent in 2011, Wallace said, Harvard would have received $131,000 versus the $48,000 it actually received that year.
Wallace also favored action by the town to preserve the historic Harvard Inn on the Town Common—which has been foreclosed and is likely to be auctioned—as affordable housing. But Sprague, who said she has managed the Inn for 10 years, said it was a “money pit,” and the Town could not afford it. The two affordable housing buildings (referring to the Inn and Great Elms) are both “antiques,” she said, and “have too many problems.”
The contentiousness issue
Finally, on recent acrimony between the Selectmen and other town boards, Sprague opined that while it was important for boards to respect one another, “sometimes you get where you need to go by disagreeing.” But, she added, “We have to listen carefully and do it respectfully.”
Whatever motivated the debate sponsors to place this issue on its list, she said, “There is clearly a sense that the Board of Selectmen is not functioning optimally.”
Wallace noted that comments on a recent survey by the Master Plan Steering Committee suggested that residents “are disapproving of the way the board is behaving.” As a case in point, she cited a split decision by the Selectmen to appoint a volunteer to the Historical Commission without waiting to hear the recommendations of the commission chairwoman, as the Board of Selectmen’s own policy recommends. That decision led the then-chair and a former chair of the Historic Commission to resign The way the matter was handled by the Selectmen “led to a lot of discomfort and anger in town,” Wallace said.
Sprague said there were “two sides” to the story and that while the outcome was “unfortunate,” it was time to move on.
Later during a period of open questioning, Billy Salter of Elm Street asked Sprague if she thought the Selectmen had handled the appointment properly.
“The fact that there are two sides to the story makes it more contentious,” he said. “You’re running to be on the Board of Selectmen, so I have a simple question: Do you think the selectmen handled that properly?”
“I’m really not going to judge them,” said Sprague. “I can’t. They did what they thought was right. I’d love to just put it behind us.”
When she was invited to respond by moderator Berry, Wallace said simply, “I do not think they handled it properly.”
