It’s time for Harvard, Shirley, and Ayer to take back governance of Devens. That’s the view of Selectman Leo Blair. He has a plan and he’d like the three towns to put the question to a vote this spring at their annual elections. But the state-designated developer of the region says it has no plans to leave before its remaining 20-years of authority expire.
Blair wants representatives of Devens, Ayer, Shirley, and Harvard—the “stakeholder communities,” or DASH, as he calls them—to plan now for the eventual return of Devens to the towns, which current law says must happen in 2033, unless the state legislature decides otherwise. His idea is to develop “some rough parameters” of how governance of Devens might look in the future and then for each of the three towns to hold a nonbinding referendum on the idea at their town elections this spring. The ballot question, Blair says, would state “Here in very broad strokes is what we’re considering,” and it would ask, “Should we be [considering them]?”
Blair presented his ideas last Thursday to a joint meeting of the selectmen of Harvard, Shirley, and Ayer, as well as members of the Devens Committee, which represents the residents living within the boundaries of the development zone currently managed by MassDevelopment, the entity appointed by the state to oversee development of the former Army base.
A spring referendum?
The meeting, led by vice chairman of the Ayer Board of Selectmen, Gary Luca, was held in Ayer Town Hall, Thursday, Nov. 16. In a show of support, all five Harvard selectmen were present, as was Victor Normand, current chairman of Harvard’s Devens Economic Analysis Team (DEAT), and Joe Hutchinson, chairman of Harvard’s Master Plan Steering Committee. In the audience was George Ramirez, the MassDevelopment executive in charge of operations within Devens, along with Richard Henderson, the MassDevelopment executive responsible for real estate.
Preparing for permanent governance
If the results of the referendum “are tepid or negative—fine,” said Blair. But then again, if voters in the three towns agree, “We would spend the period of time between [then] and the next Annual Town Meeting a year later working on the hard part, which is getting all the details worked out as to what this might look like,” Blair said. The goal, he said, would be to come up with a detailed plan for permanent governance whose broad outlines would already have the support of area citizens.
“What we need,” said Blair, “is to get iterative buy-in from our voters…so we don’t get to a point where we go back to them [with a plan] and they look at us and say, ‘What, are you crazy?’ That’s the approach we’ve used in the past,” he said, referring to Proposition 2B and Vicksburg Square, two proposals for changes at Devens that were rejected by voters at past elections. “It’s an approach that’s not going to work in the future.” For any measure affecting Devens to pass, all three towns—Ayer, Shirley, and Harvard—must approve it at either a so-called Super Town Meeting or Town Election.
“So what happens if one of the three towns turns the concept down?” asked Shirley Selectwoman Kendra Dumont.
“Then it’s dead,” answered Blair. “Our only path forward is if we’re all pulling together.” He added, “Even if there were a method where one of the towns or two of the towns could prevail absent the third, I think it would be a really bad idea. Because we’re neighbors, have been for hundreds of years, and we’re going to be for a long time.”
The dual roles of MassDevelopment
Currently, Devens is under the jurisdiction of MassDevelopment, a state entity that is responsible for developing the 4,400 acres of the former military base and for providing fire, police, and other services to its 250 residents. The area is formally known as the Devens Regional Enterprise Zone or DREZ and includes land within Harvard, Ayer, and Shirley. By state law, the towns still have jurisdiction over the land within their historical boundaries (see map at harvardpress.com). But although Devens residents who live within Harvard’s boundaries cast their votes in Harvard town elections and can run for office here, Harvard cannot tax them and does not provide them with municipal services. That authority belongs by law to MassDevelopment, which collects about $400,000 in taxes each year from the Devens residents and in return provides police and fire protection and other municipal services. Under the terms of Chapter 498, the law that created Devens, MassDevelopment’s authority will end in 2033. The question that haunts the DASH communities is, what then?
Solution: An overlay district
The approach that Blair proposes (see sidebar, “Devens Transition and Itegration Matrix”), is one he first put forward in 2009. He proposes a long transition period that would begin now and end in 2033, during which time the three towns would gradually assume responsibility for governing their former lands. The DREZ would be maintained as a distinct entity—a so-called “overlay district”—that transcends the historical boundaries of the towns. Within the DREZ, MassDevelopment would remain the development authority, and the Devens Enterprise Commission (DEC) would remain the planning and approval authority for all activity there.
Governance of Devens, however, would revert to the three towns and to the Devens residents. Blair proposes that the three towns create a joint governing council, consisting of members elected by each community, including Devens. The council would “provide oversight” for the DREZ finances and services and would assume authority over the region once MassDevelopment leaves. The council would explore ways the towns could collaborate to offer police, fire, and other services to Devens and would eventually negotiate with MassDevelopment to provide them itself. It would also work to ensure that public utilities such as water and sewer were available to the towns outside the DREZ.
‘You should be so lucky’
At the Thursday night meeting, Tom Kinch, chairman of the Devens Advisory Committee, seemed to resist the idea. The committee represents the 250 residents who have bought homes at Devens and advises MassDevelopment on their needs. “You should be so lucky to have the services that MassDevelopment provides,” he told the group. “The most important thing,” Kinch said, “is the continued development of Devens as a residential and industrial community. It’s a job MassDevelopment does well.”
“This is about governance, this is not about development,” Blair replied. “We’re saying…MassDevelopment’s activities as a developer would go completely unimpeded.”
“It’s hard to tell the difference between governance and development,” said Kinch, who argued that the police, fire, utilities and other services that MassDevelopment provides are part of the package it offers to the businesses it courts.
“In the world I live in, government is representative and elected,” answered Blair.
“You live in a different world than the DREZ apparently,” said Kinch.
A company town?
“But think about how antithetical that is to everything else we do,” Blair countered. “When I think of MassDevelopment, I think of them as a benign coal-producing town where they own all the houses, and they own the grocery store, and they send the guys down in the mine and they charge everything, and at the end of the month they say, ‘Well gee, you’re short three bucks this month.”
At this point Kinch interrupted Blair, to laughter: “Now we’re miners,” he groaned.
“But what if all the services currently in place at Devens continued, but were under the management of the towns?” asked Blair. “Then nothing would change. Then as contracts came up for renewal, towns might choose to provide the service differently. I’m not talking about some sort of massive change. I’m talking about easing into what is inevitably going to happen anyway. Which is, at some point, at 2033 or perhaps at some time earlier, MassDevelopment is going to leave. They’re going to be gone. And we’re going to have to be able to handle this.”
‘MassDevelopment is not going anywhere’
Perhaps the most dramatic moment of the evening came when MassDevelopment Executive Vice President Ramirez told the assembled boards and committees that his organization had no plans to leave before 2033.
“I want to make one thing perfectly clear,” he said. “Mass Development is not going anywhere. Chapter 498 is the law. And it’s very clear. It says MassDevelopment should be the developer and the administrator and the governance. And that’s what we’re trying to do. And we don’t have any timeframe. Our view of it is that we are making progress. But I want to be crystal clear that we are not going anywhere. There’s no ambiguity about that. That’s our plan for 2033 or beyond.”
But Blair was unwilling to give ground. “It’s very odd for me to even ask MassDevelopment what they want to do about governing the residents of Harvard, or Shirley, or Ayer, because it’s none of their business,” he said. “I don’t mean that unkindly. But in reality, they live in our towns. And this is part of our property. And they are a welcome contributor to the economy, and I respect all that. But it’s a very odd situation.”
Harvard Selectman Ron Ricci said he wanted to know what the businesses and residents of Devens thought. “What’s important is that we, the three towns and the Devens community, show that we can work together toward coming up with something before 2033 when the legislature makes the decision for us,” he said. “If we’re still arguing about this in 2033, the legislature is going to say, guess what, this is what’s going to happen.”
The joint boards of Harvard, Shirley, and Ayer will continue their discussion next month when the group meets Dec. 19 at 7 p.m. in the Shirley Town Hall.
