In a brief Town Hall ceremony Tuesday morning attended by Lt. Gov. Karen Polito, state Rep. Jen Benson, members of the Board of Selectmen, and various department heads and well-wishers, Harvard became the 299th Massachusetts community to sign a Community Compact with the state.
Selectmen meet with Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito and state Rep. Jennifer Benson to be the 299th town in the state to sign a Community Compact, Aug. 29. From left: Alice von Loesecke, Ken Swanton, Polito, Lucy Wallace, Benson, and Kara Minar. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)
The document commits Harvard to making improvements in three areas chosen from a list of 10 in which the state encourages communities to improve. In return, the state provides a grant program specifically for Compact Communities, extra points on applications for other grants, and technical resources to help Compact Communities achieve their goals.
The compact was co-signed by Polito and Board of Selectmen Chairwoman Lucy Wallace and commits Harvard to developing an information technology strategy, improving maintenance of town facilities, and making Ayer Road and the town center safer for vehicular and pedestrian travel.
“This will really help us advance some of the goals that we set out in our Master Plan a year ago,” said Wallace.
Later in the day, Town Planner Bill Scanlan noted in a brief phone conversation that Harvard had applied in August for a $1 million grant through the state’s MassWorks Infrastructure Program to improve safety for vehicles, bicycles, and pedestrians in the center of town. As a Community Compact town, he said, Harvard will now receive extra points on its application as the state evaluates the many requests submitted. Last year the state awarded MassWorks grants totaling $85 million to 33 towns and cities.
The Community Compact program was established by executive order in 2015 by Gov. Charlie Baker to encourage Massachusetts communities to collaborate with the state to improve their delivery of services to residents. Each compact, in the words of the state website, is “a voluntary, mutual agreement between the Baker-Polito administration and the local government,” in which a municipality agrees to implement best practices in the specific areas it has identified. Once a compact has been accepted by the state, a municipality has two years to complete the work, with its progress monitored by the Division of Local Services.
“Every town is different,” said Polito in her remarks, but the purpose in all cases “is to strengthen the relationship between state and local government.”
