Dean Banfield

My wife, Chris, and I moved our young family to Concord in 1996. It has been 30 years now, and we’ve never looked back. Our three children grew up and thrived here. They all attended public school, all found high school jobs, some at long gone businesses - La Provence, Video Revolution - and grew into confident, independent adults. Concord remains that kind of place, where people can put down deep roots, find connections to their passions, and grow along with others for a lifetime.

One of my guiding principles has been a strong commitment to public and community service. I’ve sought out opportunities which tapped my interests, allowed me to offer my talents and permitted me to help the Town achieve its goals. My decision to run for Select Board is an extension of that commitment. I intend to be ready to roll up my sleeves and engage with the demanding work of a Select Board member. My focus going in will be in the following areas:

Sustainability

Sustainability and a concern for the natural environment has been a focus of my service on Town bodies. Since the passage of Article 51 at 2017 Town Meeting, Concord has committed itself to climate actions aligned with State and Global (Paris Accord) targets, and detailed in its Climate Action Plan, but it has been uneven in its progress against that plan. To spur action on its solar production target, I have successfully petitioned Town Meeting (twice - 2022, 2023) to produce a plan to meet that goal, and then chaired the task force that ultimately produced a solar production plan in 2024. The Light Plant is currently working on a significant expansion of the landfill array, as directed by that report, and this year I will be petitioning Town Meeting to create a bylaw requiring all new municipal buildings to include solar at the time of construction, another recommendation of the solar task force. This should help us avoid the problems that have occurred with the Ellen Garrison building solar installation. I expect to be watchful that sustainability principles are clearly articulated in the findings and recommendations of the Land Use Working group and the MCI redevelopment proposals. I am also watching with interest now from the sidelines as the Town develops a decarbonization plan for existing buildings town-wide, and if I should be seated, will be able to help oversee that plan and help the Town honor those decarbonization commitments.

Fiscal Prudence

I joined the Finance Committee (2017-2022, chair 2020) to engage in the central planning tasks that drive everything - from our tax bills, to the technology budgets at the schools, to how many roads get repaved in a given year. I expected to work on the financial aspects of these details. What I found was that the Finance Committee’s primary work is actually a black art of trying to divine through the shared understanding of an unwieldy 15 person body, exactly what would be a reasonable and prudent increase in our tax levy (‘the guidelines’), that residents could absorb without overly damaging the character of the Town or their family budgets. I worked to bring some discipline to this process by creating a target for the guideline we called a ‘sustainable growth rate’ for taxes. As a Board member, I will work hard to see that the Town Manager’s budget (the 1/4 of our tax levy managed by the Select Board) is carefully crafted to meet community needs and does not add recurring financial commitments without balancing against existing programs. Every budget should be built from the ground up, a practice known as ‘zero-based budgeting’. This means that every line item has been vetted to ensure that it meets a planned requirement for the year ahead. Meeting the FinCom guideline will be a top priority for me, as is maintaining our AAA bond rating, which will be critical to meeting our long term capital needs affordably.

Maintaining Concord’s Unique Character

Concord has a been a vibrant center of philosophical, agricultural, political and artistic activity since its founding. The physical beauty of the Town is a testament to the generations which have seen to maintaining its unique character. Our community cultural institutions thrive in an environment of openness to fresh thinking and creative expression. Tending to that legacy is a core responsibility of the Select Board. This means attending to areas of stress in the community and providing a framework of thoughtful engagement that recognizes problems and builds support. Our commercial districts, built during an era of local retail shopping are under pressure from a combination of big box retailers and online sales. The recent run-up in taxes has put residents under budget stress, especially those whose incomes that aren’t moving up as robustly under budget stress. We don’t want to see residents move away because their taxes have just become unaffordable, or businesses shutter for lack of foot traffic, or new ones not open due to regulatory red tape. The Select Board has few tools at its disposal to alleviate these pressures, and the tools it does possess are an imperfect match to the problem at hand. I will work to listen to all voices and have the Board take action where it can to alleviate stressors and prevent things which will erode our shared legacy.