Lured by low taxes, level sidewalks, and a brand new senior center with a heated swimming pool, Harvard residents of a certain age are moving to Devens in droves. “Why would we stay in a town where we don’t matter?” said lifelong resident Bessie Madigan-Willard. “Over in Devens, we’re appreciated for what we are: taxpayers without school-age children.”
According to local real estate agents, more than 30 houses have changed hands in the past six months, all but four of them belonging to residents over the age of 60 who moved to attractive new townhouses and cozy bungalows near the Red Tail Golf Course at Devens. There, they have established a close-knit community of Harvard émigrés only a stone’s throw from their former neighborhoods. Officials at MassDevelopment are clearly delighted by this demographic windfall, which they have quietly encouraged for years.
“We may work for the state, but we can apparently do the math better than the high rollers over there in Harvard,” gloated one administrative assistant in the housing office. “These older folks pay their taxes, stay home at night, and almost never cause trouble. What’s more, they don’t have children in school, which we’re under contract to educate in Harvard at $14,000 per child per year. They’re buying these units as fast as we can build them. We’ll do whatever it takes to get them here and keep them here.”
Meanwhile, panic is setting in at Harvard Town Hall. “This is a fiscal catastrophe,” said Ken Bernanke, Harvard’s new assistant town administrator for poor planning mitigation. “Those lost residents represent dozens of bedrooms that will now almost certainly be occupied by school-age children as new families move in. Harvard’s school population has been slowly drying up, but this is a game-changer,” Bernanke lamented. “Not only is Hildreth Elementary School suddenly too small, but the population cohort that stabilized the tax rate for years is vanishing.”
Bernanke, who knows a bad situation when he sees one, is not planning to stick around too long either.
Editor’s note: We hope you’ve enjoyed reading this bit of pseudo-news, published in honor of April Fool’s Day.
