Arlington Election Profile: Lenard Diggins For Select Board

ARLINGTON, MA – Arlington will have several contested races in the June 6 Town Election, including School Committee, Select Board and Town Clerk. Arlington Patch asked candidates to answer questions about their campaigns and will be publishing candidate profiles ahead of the election.

Lenard Diggins, 56, is running for a three-year seat on the Select Board. He lives in Arlington with his partner, Jonathan.

Diggins previously served as a Town Meeting member for Precinct 3. He has worked various overlapping jobs over the years, including population/evolution genetics research, neurodegeneration research, video editing and engineering, applications development and management and systems administration.

Diggins has an educational background in biology.

Are you running for office in Arlington? Contact Alex Newman at alex.newman@patch.com for information on being featured in a candidate profile and submitting campaign announcements to Arlington Patch.

The single most pressing issue facing our (board, district, etc.) is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it.

Dealing with the wide-ranging effects of the pandemic is the single most pressing issue facing our town and our region!

I want to work to continue working to make our community more resilient by encouraging the adoption of mutual aid models of networking. I also want to make sure that we don’t lose our focus on the even larger issues of climate change, environmental sustainability, and economic sustainability. In all ways possible, as we recover from the pandemic, we should do so in ways that reduces our output of greenhouse gases. This applies particularly to our transportation network. Also, I want to work with other leaders in Arlington as we continue striving to reduce our negative impact on the environment and continue trying to create a community that has economic diversity and a sufficient housing stock so that people of all means (from young adults just entering the workforce to those exiting the workforce and wanting to downsize) can afford to live in our town.

Even with what will hopefully be more federal assistance, it is highly likely that there will be significant negative impact to Arlington’s financial state. It is prudent for us to start anticipating now what the impact will be on our budget in the next 1-5 years. That is the role of the Long-Range Planning Committee. Should I be elected, it will be up to my fellow Select Board colleagues to allow me to replace Dan Dunn on that committee. In any case, I will keep a close eye on the financial state of the town so that we can balance our wants with our means and needs. My ability to work with others to review capital plans and operating budgets for the MBTA and my work with the Boston Metropolitan Planning Organization to develop its annual 5-Year Transportation Improvement Plan (produced annually) and its 20-year Long Range Transportation Plan (produced every 4 years) gives me the skills to evaluate various funding scenarios and help make decisions that nearly always involve significant trade-offs.

What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?

I bring a large number and wide breadth of connections both within Arlington and, more importantly, outside of Arlington. While the Select Board focuses on matters that pertain to Arlington and its residents, the larger challenges (transportation, housing, sustainability) are regional challenges, and we must work effectively with the many other cities and towns in our region for comprehensive and effective solutions. It is also advantageous for the town to learn from other municipalities and to implement ideas tested elsewhere. Thanks to the work of the Town Manager and many other members of the staff, Arlington is seen as leader in the region. As a leader, we can have a more significant impact on the decisions that are made in our region. It is in our best interest to foster more regional connections, and I’m in a very good position to do so.

If you are a challenger, in what way has the current board or officeholder failed the community (or district or constituency)?

As a community, we need to figure out better ways of determining the sentiments of the entire community. If that isn’t possible on a large scale, then we need to make sure that we survey all constituencies. Though small groups can be effective (and are often necessary) agents of change, we must be very careful in equating a subset of the community with the whole community.

With a good baseline for whatever metrics we choose, we must then determine how to measure the effectiveness of whatever actions we take. This is difficult work, but without it, we have no way of knowing the real effects of our actions. Envision Arlington makes a great effort to gauge the sentiments of the community with its annual survey, and we should provide them with the support they need to survey the community more comprehensively.

Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform:

In addition to my focus on the big regional issues (transportation, housing, and sustainability), I intend to continue working to increase civic engagement here in Arlington, and I intend to continue supporting Arlington arts and culture.

One goal is to continue promoting the precinct meetings that I have worked with Envision Arlington to organize. I also want to get youth and young adults more aware of and more involved in local government. By whatever means available, I want to lead the effort to create a Youth and Young Adult Committee with members ranging in age from 11 (6th grade) to 30.

With artistic tendencies of my own, I have a deep appreciation of the arts. My “ART in ARlingTon” [sic] video series on ACMi gives me a greater appreciation of the importance of the arts and culture in our community. I also better appreciate the extent to which many of the artists are small businesses unto themselves and should be included in economic development conversations. There are also pieces of art in public spaces that we take for granted, but they are part of our culture. Preserving them comes at a financial cost, but I feel that it is money well-spent.

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

I would cite my current position as Chair of the Regional Transportation Advisory Council (RTAC). RTAC is a collection of various transportation-related organizations that provides the Boston Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) with additional public input. We have a seat on the MPO Board which is responsible for programming approximately $2 billion of Federal surface transportation funds over 20 years. At times, I work with the members of RTAC to determine our collective position. At other times, I speak on behalf of the group based on my knowledge of the group’s values. I see my position as Chair of RTAC as similar to that of a member of the Select Board. Both positions require the ability to pay close attention to details and the skill of collaborating effectively.

I would also cite my current role as a Town Meeting Member, my status as member of the Transportation Advisory Committee, the Sustainable Transportation Advisory Committee, and the Arlington Heights Neighborhood Action Plan Implementation Committee. Along with my dedication to recording nearly all of the Select Board meetings since mid-2013, I have gained a good sense of how the town works and the challenges that face us as a community. I also have very good relationships with the current members of the Select Board, the Town Manager, and many of the staff in town.

The best advice ever shared with me was ...

“You should run for a seat on the Select Board!” I seriously mean that, because in the process of running for this position, I have met so many nice, knowledgeable, and helpful people in Arlington. Regardless of the outcome, I have benefited greatly from campaigning!

What else would you like voters to know about yourself and your positions?

Though I tend to be a nuts-and-bolts type of person who focuses on the details and the nitty gritty, I do have some big ideas. These ideas revolve around transportation and potentially a major development project in Arlington Center. Regardless of the specific projects, though, the paradigm that informs everything that I do is that we should decide on the future that we want and not just let the future happen to us. Of course, in the process of creating our future, there will be unexpected developments, and we will have to incorporate those developments into our plans. Without active planning, though, we the people cede control of our destiny to entities that historically have had narrow interests that benefit the few rather than the many.