We, the members of the Town Center Planning Committee (TCPC), are writing in response to the January 26 column, “My 2 Cents,” submitted by Selectman Scott Kimball.
We began to read this piece with great enthusiasm, for, as it stated, there are a host of items related to the center that we must address as a town—so many, in fact, that the 2003 Annual Town Meeting confirmed the public’s desire to develop a comprehensive plan for town center. Over the next two years the TCPC did just that. In March 2005, we presented a plan that assessed the full set of issues, risks, and opportunities facing the center. It is a plan which was developed with extensive input and review from many citizens, multiple boards and committees (and yes, prepared with the assistance of paid consultants and planners). The Town Center Action Plan represents a comprehensive series of recommendations for addressing these issues in a systematic, pro-active way. (The plan can be found in the “online documents” section of www.harvard.ma.us.) In fact, at a meeting with the Board of Selectmen May 3, 2005, the selectmen directed the TCPC to pursue the two most urgent recommendations on their behalf: first, develop a plan and cost estimate for a town center wastewater system (completed November 2005), and second, perform a municipal building inventory and assessment (ongoing).
Imagine our dismay to read that the TCPC was accused of wanting “to permanently…change our center forever.” A strange claim, given that the overarching goal of the action plan was, and remains, to “make recommendations that will reconcile two seemingly contradictory desires—to move forward with those actions necessary to support and sustain the center’s vitality and mix of activities, while simultaneously preserving the center’s classic village character…”
We are acutely aware of the current fiscal climate, but let us not forget that all is not well in the center of Harvard and that we must all work together to save it. The post office is gone, the general store has closed and is up for sale, the library on the common will soon be vacated and its future is uncertain—all of the things that Mr. Kimball admired about the center of other small towns. Can we truly afford the cost of doing nothing? Or are we willing to come together as a town and make some difficult choices regarding the investment in necessary repairs to our town infrastructure? It is the responsibility of the selectmen, as the managers of our town, to facilitate a dialogue among all Harvard’s residents and develop consensus on the road map that we can use to move forward together to achieve our common goals for the Town Center.
Current and Former Town Center Planning Committee members:
Susan Barber, Historic Commission
Tim Clark, former Planning Board member
Ginger Kendall, Library trustee
Jack Purdy, citizen
Caroline Ready, former Park and Recreation Commission member
William Salter, citizen
Lucy Wallace, Board of Selectmen and Housing Partnership
Willie Wickman, School Committee
