Leo Blair addresses a previous town meeting. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz
At 7 p.m. on April 12, while voters are still casting their votes for two open positions on the Board of Selectmen, Leo Blair will be casting his final votes as a selectman. Although Chairman Ron Ricci nominated Blair for another term at the March 5 Town Caucus, Blair, who wasn’t present, later declined the nomination. He told the Press that he asked Finance Committee Chairwoman Alice von Loesecke to run for his seat, and if she had declined, he would have run again. But von Loesecke, and Selectman Stu Sklar, are running unopposed for the two seats, marking the end of Blair’s colorful career as a selectman, at least for a while.
In an interview this week, Blair said that the primary reason he did not want to run for another term is to spend more time with his family. The decision came to him after he attended a funeral service for a friend whose 15-year-old son is friends with Blair’s son, also 15. “I realized that he had nothing to regret because he spent a lot of time with his kids, and I realized that I need to allocate more time to my kids.” He said that the job of selectman takes about 20 hours a week “if you’re doing it right,” and added that most of his colleagues spend at least that much time on the job.
MAHT and CPC
Blair is also one of four selectmen who are members of the Municipal Affordable Housing Trust, and he said he would serve out his term on the trust and as the trust’s representative to the Community Preservation Committee. His term expires on June 30. He added that, if asked, he would stay on the trust a few months longer to help with the disposition of the property at 166 Littleton Road. He is also on the Old Library Accessibility Committee, which, he said, has almost finished its charge to gather cost estimates for options to make the building accessible.
A town blessed and challenged
When asked what challenges Harvard faces, Blair said, “It’s one big challenge with a lot of parts. Harvard is blessed by having three things that most other towns don’t have: a volunteer fire department, a volunteer ambulance service, and a lucrative contract from Devens to educate Devens kids.” He estimated that those three things probably save $3 million to $4 million in the town budget, and that surplus subsidizes Harvard’s schools. He added that if those three things disappeared, it would be a big challenge to the town, but he doesn’t think that will happen anytime soon.
Blair also included Harvard’s old municipal buildings as a challenge, and he has long taken the position that these buildings are a liability. “People misunderstand,” said Blair. “I talk about it from the parlance of a balance sheet. If we want to keep them, they need to be accessible for everyone, and people have to value them enough to pay more taxes to fix them up and make them accessible. I call them liabilities so people will at least talk about them.”
One project that Blair has championed for years, senior housing on the land next to Hildreth House, is one that he hopes to stay involved in. “During the 2008 ice storm,” he said, “we became acutely aware of the number of older people living alone in their homes, which in most cases were way too big for one person. People in this situation want to stay in town, but they have nowhere to go.” Blair contends that a deal could be made with a private developer to build as many as 25 two-bedroom units on the five acres of land next to Hildreth House. “The developer would get the site with zoning, water, and sewer in place. In return, the developer would build phase two of the Hildreth House renovation project, paying a private wage rate instead of the prevailing wage rate.” Blair said if that deal cannot be made, the town could sell the land and use the profit to build phase two.
A critique of volunteer government
Blair also had a lot to say about how well volunteer government is working or not working in Harvard. On the topic of civility, he said, “People berate the selectmen for not honoring the town’s volunteers—we’re volunteers! Honoring volunteers is misguided. People should be judged on how well they do their jobs.” He also brought up an undercurrent in town of resentment of authority. “I think there are a lot of people in town from the ’60s who still think they’re going to stick it to the man. They haven’t realized that they are the man.”
He is not a fan of what he calls “self-selected” committees, which he said are populated with members who want a certain outcome. “They have an end in mind before they start the process,” he said. He declined to name any specific committees that fit this description, but he had high praise for three that he said did not: the Water Study Committee, the Town Hall Construction Committee, and the Hildreth House Improvement Committee. All three, he said, had a narrow charge, stayed within that charge, adapted when necessary, and did not insert any member agendas.
Voting for what, not who
When asked about the mix of liberal and conservative views on the board, Blair said he believes that the current board is balanced. He thinks of himself as a moderate, and he said that one of his key beliefs is to base a vote “on the what, not the who.” He added that some board or committee members make decisions based on the person making the request, while he asks himself, “If someone else was asking the same thing, how would I feel about it?” Blair believes that the board will remain balanced when von Loesecke joins: “I think she’s closer to my position than to the position of anyone else on the board.”
Blair’s advice to future selectmen is to “have a thick hide, vote for the what, not the who, and don’t read the newspaper.” When pressed for the meaning of the newspaper comment, he responded that he believes that news reporting in the Press is sometimes biased. Blair has said many times in the past that he doesn’t read the Press, but he knows what’s in it because “people send the articles to me.”
Time for family, travel, Bruins
Blair said that after his term on the housing trust expires, he has no plans to be on any committees or boards in town, at least not for the next few years. He said he’ll travel more with his family, and he is excited about a summer trip to Italy they are planning. When asked if he would ever run for selectman again, Blair said, “Maybe.” But, he added, as a Boston Bruins fan, he’ll enjoy having Tuesday nights off so he can attend more games: “This fall I’ll be at the Bruins games livestreaming the selectmen’s meeting as opposed to the other way around.”
