 Welcome to this episode of Talk of the Town. I'm James Milan. We are in the lovely select board chambers at Town Hall. I say lovely not only because it's a nice atmosphere, but it's air conditioned and we're very much appreciating that today as we are appreciating also the presence of our guest today. He is Sandy Poole, our town manager and first of all, thanks so much for being here. We really appreciate it. It's a pleasure to talk with you. And I have gotten to talk with you over the years and it was part of your previous, the work you did in your previous position, deputy town manager. We'll talk a little bit about that today, but I basically, this is a somewhat unusual talk of the town in that oftentimes we are interviewing folks who are coming into town for the first time into a new position, et cetera. Not the case for you. Obviously, that happened a little while ago and I think we may have even done an interview at that point. But I want to talk to you today about the fact that you've assumed the town manager role, but let's start, if you don't mind, by just kind of doing the same thing we would do if you were brand new to the town and ask you about your journey to this point, specifically professionally. What have you been up to and where and just give us a little intro of that sort. So I've been doing municipal finance for a long time. I think the irony of that maybe or maybe it's just something about the skills one needs. I came out of college with a green history, not finance or anything like that. I did public interest work at Mass Perg for five years. And then I decided to go to law school. When I came out of law school, I was really balancing between the corporate world and the public sector. I went back and forth, finally decided I would work in the public sector. And so then I started working in the Massachusetts legislature. That was a very exciting, interesting experience. I was committee counsel for a series of different committees, did a lot of interesting work there around some big issues. Then at one point, I also decided that the legal side was interesting. But really if you control the budget, that's where decisions were really made. So coinciding with my boss in the legislature deciding he was going to run for mayor of the city of Newton, I went to the Kennedy school and did their mid-career program, got my master's in public administration, took every budget class I could possibly get my hands on. And then worked for the city of Newton for eight more years as the budget director there or chief budget officer was the title. And then for the last four years I was there, I worked as the chief administrative officer which might be sort of the equivalent of a COO in a private company. Then my boss decided to change again and retire. A new mayor came in, brought in his own stuff. Right, out with the old. Exactly. I eventually ended up in the town of Amherst, which is a beautiful community out in Western Mass, as many of your viewers probably know. Started there as the finance director, had a very good experience in that town. Then unfortunately the town manager there all of a sudden died. Young guy, 52 years old, just passed away one day. So that was sad. He was a friend of mine as well as my boss. At that point, Adam Chapter Lane, the manager here, had heard that would basically asked if I was available to come to work for Arlington and along the short of it is that's how I ended up here. Well, that is, I appreciate you sharing, especially going back that far because I didn't realize, among other things, you and I have a number of parallels in our background, including a law degree that we didn't use. And I also graduated in history. And I also worked briefly for the Pergs out in California. But I have to say the fact that, and this is a totally on the side, but the fact that you were at Mass Perk for five years is astonishing. Anybody who has been involved in Perg work, that's public interest research group work in any of the states that they operate know that, boy, did they burn through young people's energy fast in those places. Understandably so. But tough work. It's a lot of work. That's right. But I have to say, coming out of there, every job I've had since has been easier. I am not. People think we're exaggerating. We are not. No, it does teach you how to work hard. Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of that is thrust into the, you know, is thrust upon people in their early 20s, early to mid 20s, who are taking on roles and again, needing to just kind of master new skills at a very, very rapid rate and then supervise incoming peers of, you know, a year, two years younger than they are, etc. Really quite the cauldron in a lot of ways. So it doesn't surprise me to hear you say that in that with, obviously, a pretty impressive resume of quite heavy responsibility in all of those jobs. So I want to then actually you brought us up to the point where you came to Arlington for the first time as deputy town manager, as you said, your predecessor, Adam chapter Lane, reached out to see if you were available. Therefore, clearly, your reputation preceded you. Was that your, did you know anything about Arlington at that time? If not, tell us a little bit as you recall, what it was like to come into this community, what your impressions were of the community, etc. So I had lived in Arlington the year after I graduated from college. So that was 1979. I'd lived here for three or four months down on Palmer Street, right off of Mass Ave. Arlington was a very different town then. It was a dry town back then. I remember there was a fountain in the middle of town center, sort of near the firehouse. And from time to time, high school students would fill it with with detergent and it would bubble up. So that was the Arlington that I remembered. It my understanding of the town since then, it has a reputation for being a very well run town. It is, I think, a financial leader across the state for how it manages its money. It has changed as a community a lot with the development of restaurants and diversity and, you know, everything from the commercial base to the the types of people who live here. And the school system has really grown and become one of the strongest in the state. So both just the community atmosphere was appealing and the professional atmosphere here in Town Hall. I knew I was going to come in and work with colleagues. I liked, you know, starting with Adam, I'd known him before and, you know, had a lot of respect for him. And just very quickly meeting the other staff here, it was apparent that it was a high quality group of people. So it was easy to to come in. So good and easy choice at that point for you. Great. And then so just remind people briefly in your role as deputy town manager, what were your primary responsibilities? Well, there was a transformation over time in this job and I think in most jobs I've had, my responsibilities have sort of grown as I have poked my way into doing more and more things. My partner says I'm a buddhinsky. I'm sure they mean it in the nicest way. I'm not sure she always means it in the nicest way, but she's known me for a long time, so I would say yes. So I started, you know, in charge of the budget and doing sort of that aspect of it. And I think very quickly I inserted in myself to trying to bring together all the different financial departments. So I would hold weekly finance team meetings with the treasurer, comtroller, assessor, school business agent and just get us all in the same room. Sometimes we bring in the IT department and just make sure we were talking with each other. At that time, the treasurer was a separately elected official. The comtroller worked not for the manager, but for the select board and of course, the school business agent worked for school committee. And but I just, in my experience thought it was very important that everybody be in the same room and sharing their experiences, working on problems together. I think it was a very productive set of meetings. It eventually led us to a more formal structure where one of the town meeting members suggested that we have a finance director position in town. It was Dean Karman who put that forward. I think he came to that conclusion as he was the town treasurer, put that through town meetings. So then I became the finance director in a formal sense after having done it informally. So I've been doing that ever since. And I think it's been great for the town. We also helped transform the treasurer firm and elected to an appointed position, transform the comtroller to be accountable to the town manager directly. And I just think it's made for smoother, better operations. I have since then taken my management and analyst, Julie Wayman, transformed her from helping with the budget to really putting the budget together. She did that this last year. I asked her to start doing that, partly because I knew there was a chance that there'd be a transformation and partly because I just thought she was ready for it. So threw her into the budget and told her to swim and she did a great job. So I think that's been a big part of my experience here. I've also been very involved in collective bargaining along with Karen Malloy, our human resources director. I think that's been very successful. We've had a very open process with our unions. We've put together a lot of data on the town's financial condition. We've put a lot of data together for them on how different salary proposals will affect their members and allow them to see spreadsheets with member by member, showing what different colas or different step patterns or other things have been. And it's really been a positive relationship with I'd say most of the unions. It's really gone from a world where I first started doing collective bargaining years ago where you sort of hid all the money to one saying, hey, the books are open to public process. Let's just talk about how we get to a contract. And I will credit Karen a lot with that for her understanding of how important it is to have good relations with our unions. And by having those, we are just able to get through a lot of problems seamlessly or at least with minor bumps in the road. So I'd say those are two of our biggest or my biggest institutional changes. And I guess the one other thing I would mention is the whole process of building the high school and being on the high school building committee. It's been great to see it go from an idea to steal to actually having the first wing built up there. I'm still on the building committee. I still attend those meetings once a month. And it's been an exciting process. That is, it's a great kind of description of the things that you've been up to over your years here so far. And what I was really struck by is the fact that you have a low profile until recently, you've had a low profile in town. People might recognize you, might recognize your name, might not. And yet you have been kind of absolutely intrinsically involved in changes that are meant to, and I'm sure indeed benefit the community as a whole, working behind the scenes. So interesting really that you are emerging into the light at this moment. But again, as somebody who has been working hard on behalf of the community more in the shadows, or not the shadows, but more under the radar I guess. I've always liked being a number two. I think at the Kennedy School, they teach you how to be a leader and so forth. I think they need to emphasize a little bit more that actually being the number two in an organization is an important role. There's an ability to get a lot done, to counsel the number one, to sometimes hold the number one's hand. But to bring about some substantive change and do it behind the scenes in a way that doesn't, I've always tried to keep my name out of the press, except with you. But I haven't seen that over time as my role. It's been my role to bring about institutional change and improvement and I've really enjoyed doing it. Yeah, and I really liked the analogy you made earlier about the work that you did in Newton being similar to a COO because, again, the CEO, or in our case, Town Manager, that's the person out there in front doing the communicating. Adam often mentioned that he wasn't doing the work itself, he was basically communicating about it. And obviously he was very good at that and I'm sure you are and will be as well. But you've just made a really kind of compelling case for why actually being in the number two position, so to speak, being to the side of the throne or whatever, does allow you to actually have the ability to make change. Yes, I think it does. And to be involved in the work itself in that way. And that is satisfying in an entirely different way, right? Exactly. Let's jump to the present. And I'm thinking that you were saying earlier that the decision to come to Arlington's Deputy Town Manager, Adam's invitation, was an easy one. How was this one? So far, so good. I've seen myself to date as essentially trying to oil a machine that runs pretty well. We have very talented department heads. We have a lot of very talented, dedicated staff. I try to let them do their jobs and not interfere with that. And I think in general they- So what about that Bedinsky part though? Well, you know, there's always some internal tension. Sorry to interrupt. No, that's all right. So I do try to talk with the department heads. One of the things I've done since becoming manager is go around and meet personally with each department head in his or her office and just ask them, all right, I've known you for the last six years through the budget process and so forth. And there are things though that you've probably told the town manager that I now need to know. So let's talk about that. And let's talk about where you see your department going in the next year. And so that's been an important conversation or set of conversations I've had with all the department heads now. And again, I think generally they are good at sort of running things and on a day to day basis. I think I have played some positive roles in talking through particular issues that have come up, whether it's just dealing with select board, which sometimes they have questions about, or dealing with constituents, or dealing with the press, or dealing with the unions, all of which are things that I think the department heads, they just need a wall to bounce ideas off of. And then I try to ask questions about how things are going and get a real sense. So I do know what's happening and I can talk to you or I can talk to the select board, I can talk to constituents about it. There are a number of big projects that we've got going on. I was just at an event today for the topping off ceremony at the new DPW building. So they put the last piece of steel up, they bolted it in place and raised it up with a tree and a flagpole on it. We all got to sign it. And it's getting the kind of project that I've had a lot of involvement on the finance side. And now just dealing with DPW as to how they've managed their staff during the interim, where they put staff, how we've given them the resources to get their work done while they're out of the building. And just keeping an eye on that without I think interfering with how they actually get their work done. An enormous new building that is going to be. Oh yeah. Clearly and great that there was a milestone just today, topically as we're meeting here for again, these are the kinds of things that as deputy town manager, you probably were finance director, you probably had a choice, whether you want to go or not in a sense. No such thing anymore, right? Yeah, no, I think, yeah, there are a number of things like that. I think, you know, the high school too. I mean, Arlington has got two huge projects going forward in this next year. It's again, my intention to just help things move forward. If there are problems, help deal with them, you know, and with both those projects, there have been any number of challenges along the way. Thankfully now, I think we're at the stage where they're both sort of running along and should sort of glide into completion. So keep it with you. I'm trying to be optimistic. Exactly. Well, we all like the sound of that verb. That's for sure. Let us hope that that is in fact the case. I was wondering though, you just mentioned over the next year and my understanding, and let me make sure I've got this right, is that your contract with the select board, with the town is for a year. Correct. Which is not as long as usually the case, I think. So can you talk to us a little bit about that? Is that because this was again, not something you had anticipated necessarily, the ascension to the town manager position and you had other plans? Well, I'll let you speak to it. Sure. So I had always thought that next summer would be when I would retire. I mean, both because I will max out on my retirement, just the numbers, when you're in a public system, you get to a certain point. I will be 66, almost 67 by then. And frankly, there are other things I'd like to do. I'd like to relax a little bit more. I've been working hard for a long time, travel and with my partner and so forth. So I'd always thought that I would retire then. And I also think in this coming year, it is in the town's interest and I think the select board agreed to have some stability in the next year, both because we're likely to have an override or there's certainly gonna be discussions about an override in this coming year, probably next spring, although all that needs to be decided. And so I think instead of bringing somebody in right before that happens or in the midst of that happening, it would be in the town's interest to have that continuity. And so the select board agreed with that and we'll go through that process. We'll allow them to start the search process for new town manager this winter to bring somebody in, probably beginning of next fiscal year or thereabouts, but not have to be the person who's leading the override discussion. And again, I feel comfortable doing this. I think the town is in good shape. I think the departments are being well run. If we have to deal with the override, I think I can make the case for the impacts of that override and so forth. If it turns out that the override isn't successful, I've been through situations where we've had to have cutbacks. When I was in Newton, several years in a row, I would have to ask departments to propose 5% budget cuts because back in those days in the early 2000s, health insurance costs were going up so much that we just didn't have the money to do other things. So I think I've been on both sides of that coin and I hope I can offer something to the town during this next year as we go into that big decision. I think both your experience and your demeanor frankly and your expertise, all of those things are a real boon for the town at this moment for sure because you just have been through overrides from a lot of different perspectives before. I also know from my series of conversations with you over the years about the budget that in Arlington, you can see things coming. You can see things coming because there's a real good long-range planning process that you're a very big part of. And then the town is quite good at communicating, getting people ready and prepared for the fact that this is coming. This is not gonna be a surprise. So, but it will require kind of steady and steady stewardship and good communication, no doubt about it because it's nobody's favorite thing. Right. Right. Yeah, I think we have balancing what against each other, both the desire not to raise taxes or at least too much and set a very high expectations that the public has for the level of services in this town. And it's keeping those two things in balance that will be the challenge in the coming years. Seems like it, I can go back about eight years now myself in terms of talking to different stakeholders and decision makers around these things. And yeah, that balances, whoof. That is a tough needle to thread. So glad it's your job and not mine. I'll say that much. So, Sandy, let me ask you the last thing. I know that your term is quite defined and you're anticipating your dessert, well-deserved retirement on the other side of that, et cetera. But do you have ambitions, goals, targets that you'd like to see accomplished beyond what you've mentioned already here, kind of providing that stewardship over this next little while? So in addition to the override in these building projects, there are energy and environmental issues that Adam did a great job of setting us forth on. So we have, for example, this fall, there's an electrify Arlington plan where we are hiring some advisors for residents who are thinking of making their homes all electric. And I'm going through that myself. I'm doing that my own home. I live in Somerville. I've just signed a contract with somebody to put in mini splits and all that stuff. But it is, it's a daunting process. And I think providing that sort of help to people. We have a good record in town of helping people putting solar on their homes, and that was a very successful program. So this electrify Arlington will be a great program. And we do have a net zero action plan, net zero by 2050. This will be an important part of that. And in any number of other environmental ways, we want to continue to make Arlington green. The other thing, again, I would give a lot of credit to Adam for starting this off is our diversity, equity and inclusion plan. We have a great DEI director in Jill Harvey and her staff. She's been doing a lot of great work. We have some consultants who are coming in doing an equity audit in the town. There's a lot of work that is planned for this fall and the next year with more training for our staff and more discussions in the community about this issue. It is one of the big issues of the day. When you have these discussions, you're always learning something about yourself. You're learning something about people around you. These are important discussions to have both from the learning perspective and from the action perspective to help make this a more inclusive and welcoming community. So I'm very much behind that and very much looking forward to continuing doing that kind of work. So that and making sure the garbage is picked up on the street, the snow is picked up and 9-1-1 works, all those things are things we'll look forward to continue to work on. Absolutely, the COO in you is gonna make sure that those things that the trains keep running on time, so to speak. Good enough. Well, I know that I get to speak to you regularly because we do the town hall update together and we will continue to do that. So, but I wanna say I particularly appreciated just being able to sit down, dig a little bit deeper, especially into who you are and what you've done in your life, which is very interesting. But thanks so much for taking the time to do this. James, it was a pleasure and enjoyed talking with you. Very, very, very nice. I have been speaking to Sandy Pooler, who is our town manager, and boy, he's got quite the resume and also hopefully some clear or some enticing retirement plans a little ways ahead of him. There's some work to do between now and then. So we wish you very good luck with that. We will be here to monitor the progress and to celebrate, let's hope, new buildings, new accomplishments, et cetera. This has been Talk of the Town. I have been speaking, as I said, to Sandy Pooler, our town manager. I am James Milan. Thanks so much for joining us. We'll see you next time.