Mary Byrne
Marathoner Matthew Taylor’s campaign for Select Board may have begun sooner than he realized.
“2017 was when I finished running every street in Belmont,” said Taylor. “…Looking back, that was the first step of my long journey that was kind of like a campaign—which is kind of like a marathon—and I love it.”
Taylor, who won his bid for a seat on the Select Board on April 2, said that on those training runs, he noticed the sidewalks, the roads, and the homes he ran past. He observed where there was construction and where things were wearing down or in need of repair.
“You find all these pockets that you may miss,” he said. “It’s the most rewarding thing, and you see the community at a pace and scale that helps you connect with it.”
Taylor served on the Warrant Committee—this would have been his second year—and as a Precinct 1 Town Meeting Member. His campaign for the Select Board began a year ago when he realized he wanted to bridge the gap between local government and residents.
“Training for an April marathon and campaigning for an April election are completely incompatible,” he said. “I am going to get out there in just under two weeks [for the Boston Marathon] … but it’s not going to be my original goal because I shifted my focus to what really matters, which is our community.”
Taylor said he plans first to listen, and then determine what he must learn. His priority, however, will be continuing the momentum of the priorities set forth by Select Board Vice Chair Elizabeth Dionne.
“It’s the zoning reform, the business opportunity—it’s enabling commercial growth,” he said. “I bring a lot of urgency to that. I look at what are the root causes to our struggles and missed opportunities that affect almost everyone in Belmont.”
As for the $8.4 million Proposition 2 ½ override, which passed by a margin of about 1,000 votes last week, Taylor said he is grateful for the community’s support.
“But it does hurt the affordability in Belmont,” he said. “I don’t take any joy in higher taxes. As I said in January … this is for the community we want, not the taxes we want.”
As a member of the Select Board, he feels “a lot of urgency around senior tax relief.”
“We want to be a multi-generational community,” he said.
Professionally, Taylor worked as a chief technology officer at a Harvard Square startup; now, he advises startups and their chief executive officers using data analytics. Independently employed, he plans to take a step back from that area of his life to allow time for municipal business.
“We’d look more broadly at economic … financial… and company data and say, ‘When has this happened before and what happened next?,’ ” he said. “You can do the same kind of stuff with municipal data too …. It’s not just what are [other towns] doing, but what happens next and how do we apply that to our situation?”
Taylor’s first meeting as a Select Board member was on April 5.
