 Hello everyone, I'm James Milan and welcome to this one-on-one conversation with candidate for our select board, Leonard Diggins. Just to mention at the outset, Len is a colleague of ours at ACMI. Len, thanks for joining us today. Yeah, thanks for having me. I really like these kind of conversations, so as much as I enjoyed the debate, I enjoyed these kind of conversations more. And you clearly did enjoy the debate. It was almost palpable how jazzed you were by it. But I want to get actually right to the nub of a question that I have, that we have. And that is, your campaign is all about connection. And clearly your commitment to establishing, maintaining, and growing connections all through the community is something that's been motivating you and your actions for years and years. Even before this run for the select board. But here's my question. Is being a select board member the best way for you to get done what it is that you're most interested in doing for the community? In other words, establishing those connections, et cetera. What is it about getting onto the select board that will enable you to follow that vision? Yeah, well, that's a good point, because I certainly thought about that in the making of the decision, because I am enjoying working on the various committees that I'm on. The Transportation Advisory Committee, even more so the Sustainable Transportation Planning Advisory Committee. I talked about aspects of this with Dugheim Legal, and I can't participate in them. It's really a matter of time. As with a lot of things, you have to be careful about not influencing things too much because of your position. And so sometimes it might require that I not talk as much, be just to allow people to get across their ideas and not be overwhelmed by my, simply by nature of the position. But I think I have the personality that will put people, make people rest assured. It's like, I may be in line against a select board member, but I am first amongst equals being in. So the emphasis will be that we are equals, and in a lot of respects, you're going to know things that I don't know, and I'm counting on that in order to be able to make decisions. So yeah, I'll be able to continue doing a lot of the things that I'm doing. With respect to making the connections, well, you know what I'm really hoping is, especially with respect to the, excuse me, the precinct meetings. Right now I help to organize those, but I pretty much only go to the one that precinct three participates in. And a lot of me is curious about what's going on in the other side. I kind of feel that it's a little, a little intrusive to go to those, you know, but as a member of select board, I think it would be entirely appropriate for me to go to as many of those as possible and then be promote them even more. I mean, so that gives me a little more of the ability to help try to connect the town, especially with respect to residents and the town meeting members. And finally, and this is one thing that gets back to the debate and some questions that I've had since then, and even before this, like, what is it that really distinguishes me from the candidates? And, and I really do have to emphasize the regional connections that I have. And that really came to me, that's just been bursting forth in terms of my consciousness, especially over the last couple of weeks where I was in Boston MPO meeting yesterday, being on the Metropolitan Planning Organization. And I chaired the regional transportation advisory council meeting the day before that, and it's just, even before COVID-19, it was just so apparent how we need to work on regional solutions, being to all of the major issues that we face, and I have really good connections with people across the region, not only for transportation, but in other issues, in respect to other issues, meaning, and one entity that provides those connections is the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. And I have tremendous respect for them. There are actually a fair number of Arlington residents that I know, and there are even supporters that are a part of that, and having the ability to reach out to them for honest answers or thoughts about the various concerns is just really valuable. I mean, I'll say one more thing, and that is, the town really appreciates that because I'm sorry, Adam Chapter Lane is right now, if he's not the vice chair, he is a prominent member of the Metro Mayor's Council, and they've worked a lot, not only on other issues before COVID-19, but they've really worked together for working to help deal with the issues caused by COVID-19. So he appreciates that, and I look forward, given the chance to be working with Adam even more on that. So how do you see the connections that you have already forged, the work around regionalization and regional issues that you already do, and your commitment to all this? How do you see all of that actually translating into opportunities for Arlington, for how is that going to, if you are on the select board, how is that going to push us as a community forward in these areas? Well, I think it will just help to push us more forward because Arlington is already known as a leader in that respect, and so I intend to keep us in the forefront, and when I do see opportunities, I mean, to take advantage of those and move us forward. I mean, it's not like I see right now some things that I really want us to get involved in, and I want to pinpoint that right now. I mean, if I did, I would say so, but it's not like I see them, but as you know, I mean, what you look for is what you tend to find, and I will be looking for those speed, and along with Adam, and other people in the planning department, we'll keep our eyes open and when their opportunities will take them, like one that came along was the Bus Rapid Transit Pilot, and they hopped on that, and piloted it, and decided that it was a good thing, and I think most of the people who participated in the pilot, meaning that the riders who took the buses then thought it was a good thing, we certainly saw good results from that made at the MBTA from the reduced trip time, because what that did was allow the buses to stay on schedule, because even though a reduction in five minutes may not seem like a lot, the fact that it kept the buses on schedule meant that they could adhere to their headways, which is simply the time between trips, and that makes the system work better, so the Arlington dustings like that, I mean, I can keep an eye out for other projects that the MPO is considering, like complete street projects that can supplement what we're doing, while still at the same time, having the regional perspective, because it can't be all about Arlington. It has to really be about Arlington being working with the rest of the region to make the region more private, because the more vibrant the entire region is, Arlington will be better, but we focus on Arlington as part of a wider community. And from what you understand of the work of a select board member, and certainly you'd be familiar with it from the hours and hours and hours you have spent at select board hearings, I know, filming them and just as a citizen who's interested. From what you understand of the work of a select board member, what's going to be challenging for you about that work? What's going to be a tough thing for you to have to take on? Or are you ready just to step right in? No issues? Well, the tough thing is going to be the meeting start late. I'm an early morning person, I tend to have busy days. There are days when I don't get enough sleep for whatever reason. I mean, I'm hoping that as with the running, being in the control room, I get so amped me from it that I don't fall asleep. But that's going to be hard, because a lot of times, even if I'm really interested in something, if someone says something and I know what they're going to say next to me, that I'm really tired, I will close my eyes and it's like, so I mean, I know it sounds pretty pedestrian, but that's my my my big concern. But other than that, I mean, it's like one of the reasons that I want to do this is like you bring up an issue and initially, I may not think that it's particularly interesting when you start you start diving into it. It's like, yeah, I mean, there are or are important elements in here. And then you kind of see how it integrates with the rest of the community or some other issue, make the connections between that, because it's not only connections between people, it's actually connections between concepts being an issues that help you see the the solution that can be not only take care of that issue, but maybe some other issues being and and so to a certain extent, people may think that it's a disadvantage to be a jack of all trades and early on, that may be the case. But but later on, as you develop more experience in all these other areas, they then you are able to make connections between issues and come up with more robust solutions. So that's hopefully the concern. And other than that, not any. OK. And one thing that came a question that some folks had coming out of the debate, because I think a number of us were impressed with your idea about establishing a kind of youth. And the young adult advisory council. Right. The youth council, right, exactly, to to take on, you know, not not just to be a talking group, but potentially to have real, you know, some kind of real impact on policy, etc. So clearly, your focus on the next generation and figuring out how to nurture and make and ensure their own growth and and engagement facing that everybody I think appreciates. But it begs the question in some ways, what are the other constituencies in town, who you also have a particular affinity, concern about, etc., that you're going to be wanting to use time on the select board to be able to kind of serve those constituencies? Well, well, certainly, I mean, the the the elderly population, which I'm kind of rapidly approaching being a member of. And I'm happy to do that because the alternative certainly isn't appealing at all. And so it means that your income goes down because you're not working and you want to stay in Arlington in this increasingly hard to do so. It either just aren't many places for people to downsize into. There are people with means who don't want to stay in their large house, but have no place to go, even though they can afford it. I mean, so so so in serving in having, in respecting and trying to work with those concerns, I mean, it also overlaps with the whole issue with housing in general. And that is that we need more diverse housing that can allow for elderly people to transition into it, but also provide a place for younger people. I know I'm coming back to the youth, but they're important. That's why I provide a place for for them to live in. And it also means that would also provide places for people with various income levels to live. Because I think through economic diversity, we get a lot of diversity that that we want. Because as I've said to many people, I mean, this region is eighty four percent white, so there's only so much racial diversity we can get me. But the incomes are much more mixed, I mean. And I think it's an extent we can provide for different ranges of incomes, being in different kind of family sizes, because I love I love kids, you know, have any kids, but I love kids and I want it to be a family, friendly community being so. So so yeah, the youth in the elderly man. I'm going to just answer your question there instead of trying to appeal to everybody. No, no, that again, that's fine. Just just I think again, everybody would have understood that you weren't solely concerned with the youth by any means. But because you had brought that up, it was it was I think, you know, people curious about OK, well, what does he have in mind? A clear and long interest of yours is around transportation. And so I'm wondering whether you have any specific programs that you want to push along from a select board perspective or any, you know, anything in the transportation area that you really see as the next thing that you'd like to tackle? Well, I mean, the big thing that I really want to tackle with transportation is is making the transportation a network more into a transit network because the cars are an unutilized resource. I mean, they said unused me for over 90 percent of the time. I mean, I think that model is not sustainable, you know, so they certainly want to see vehicles moving, you know, becoming more electric, being and becoming more shared and and and and do it in a way that he allows people to have the lifestyles that they want. I mean, we have the ability to be flexible and so I don't want anyone to feel that well, you know, I have a family, I need access to a car whenever I want, we can make exceptions, you know, in any policy while still transitioning towards transportation policy that trades transportation as transit and is available to people as they need and makes it affordable so that people can really thrive. And so so that's my one range objective. And a lot of people have that objective. Go ahead. I apologize for doing this, but we've got to we've got to stop this right now. We are exceeding our limit. It went fast. We thought it would. Thanks for joining us. We appreciate it. I'm James Milan. I've been talking to Len Diggins, who is candidate for our select board. Thank you for joining us. We'll see you next time.