Trust & Collaboration Key to Future of Massachusetts State Parks
Former DCR Stewardship Council member encourages public participation, engagement with council, state agency
Alvin Reynolds served on the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) Stewardship Council from 2018-2021. A graduate of Notre Dame and Boston College Law, he works as the Executive Director of Atlantic Global Risk’s Boston office and lives in Lynn with his wife and daughter.
Alvin was one of the Council’s more popular and outspoken members, serving as the Policy and Operations Subcommittee Chair. He led the Council review of the 2003 enabling legislation that created the Stewardship Council and showed a particular passion for keeping public resources open and affordable to all who use them. Both concerns were and are tantamount to the work of the DCR Special Commission, which had just begun its work and was the backdrop to our conversation.
We conducted this interview in the spring. COVID vaccinations were now available to the adult population, we had received our second shots, and both of us were feeling pretty good.
This interview with Alvin Reynolds has been edited for length and clarity.
MCV: What’s your favorite state park?
AR: Lynn Heritage State Park – it’s one of my favorite places. My wife and I go there with our daughter. It’s a beautiful area where you can have a small picnic, and you can get out, you can walk to the boardwalk. I took my mom there, and she saw the murals, and she was just blown away. It’s not the most magnificent; it’s not the grandest, and it’s not the most popular. But the memories that I’ve created there have been great.
MCV: How did you become interested in public lands, DCR, and the Stewardship Council?
AR: I was an athlete growing up. I played football and was on the team at Notre Dame. I’ve always enjoyed the outdoors. I lived in East Boston for a time, and I enjoyed thinking about the interaction between public space and densely populated areas. DCR plays an essential role in ensuring that we enrich the spaces that are available to us. Private interests are focused on what they’re supposed to be focusing on, right, their shareholders and maximizing value. Well, how state agencies and public organizations maximize value is different. How do you evaluate what the DCR does considering the diversity of its portfolio? It’s fascinating and challenging. I came across the Council after a mentor suggested that it could be an excellent opportunity to get involved. It was a good fit for me.
MCV: You’re from Essex County. Did you view your role as a Counselor to represent the County?
I was proud to represent Essex County and am glad to call it home, but ultimately, DCR resources are for all of us. So, for example, Revere Beach, it’s not just people that live in Revere. It’s people all over Essex, Middlesex, all over Suffolk. So, I’m representing everyone in the state and the generations to come and those in the past, too. We stand on the shoulders of giants who did what was necessary for us to have these opportunities.
MCV: You worked on the Stewardship Council’s 2003 enabling legislation to evaluate Council practice compared to its responsibilities. What did you learn was the primary purpose of the Stewardship Council’s work?
AR: Well, if I was reading the legislation, it’s to control the DCR.
But suppose I am thinking about it from a practical perspective. In that case, I think it is to leverage the various backgrounds and expertise of the Counselors to provide guidance, provide advice, ask questions, and offer high-level directives regarding the trajectory of the DCR. And so, we got to that point with the Resource Management Plans. These plans are an essential part of the enabling legislation. They’re important to DCR, its staff, and the public. There was a fundamental disconnect between expectations and performance, so we gave directives to revise the content of those plans. It was a big point of emphasis for us on the Policy and Operations Subcommittee, and we’ve made a big step and a significant improvement. And I think that’s where the Council can step in. DCR was working on the plans, but too slowly, and there was room for improvement, and everyone acknowledged that. Ultimately, Commissioner (James) Montgomery and DCR staff got on board. That’s a good role, I think, for the Council to serve.
At the very least, the Council should review the budget. The Council needs budget expertise. Someone who can go through the budget, understand how the budget breaks down, and ask the right questions. Someone who has a deep working knowledge of the budget can explain to the rest of the councilors how the budget intersects with the various other committees and their functions. I think Councilor Jack Buckley has been a great steward of the Finance Subcommittee in that regard.
MCV: Do you see the Council forming yearly budget priorities? Or join with the Commissioner on priorities that are public and presented to the Administration and Legislature?
AR: It will take time. It takes the building of trust, and it takes collaboration. I just don’t see a scenario where you have the Counsel with priorities, the Commissioner with priorities, and those two sets of priorities coming together without multiple conversations along the way.
I’ve got a question for you: what do you think is more efficient: to have two different sets of priorities or a collaborative discussion?
MCV: Ideally, a collaboration between the Council, the Commissioner, and the public. DCR must do more than manage its public resources, which is a herculean task. The Council and the Commissioner lead by having public priorities, and it needs to do that early in the budget process. Do you agree?
AR: Collaboration is essential, the councilors are very passionate, and I see how they’ve been interacting with the DCR to achieve that objective. But I would keep in mind that it does take patience, right? Collaboration doesn’t happen overnight. Suppose there’s a receptiveness by both parties. In that case, people are rowing in the same direction, and then you can maximize the expertise and utility of an advisory council like the DCR Stewardship Council. It’s hard to do it without a high level of communication with the relevant stakeholders at the DCR. And that’s something we continued to improve on during my time at the Council, but you must have mechanisms, processes, and procedures to ensure an incentive to collaborate.
MCV: Let’s talk about Retained Revenue and the pressure for DCR to find ways to increase their budget by imposing fees, like parking meters, for example.
AR: It’s not a secret how I feel about that. The public record shows that I had many concerns about the decision to install parking meters on public space in that manner. I don’t fault the DCR for the decisions they make in that respect. I just want to make sure that all the various stakeholders involved are aware these decisions impact citizens. The public owns this property. Parking meters or any other fee on park users to generate revenue is hard to pull back. Fees don’t go away.
We all must work at leveraging elected officials. When we talk about decision-making, budgets, retained revenue, and the Stewardship Council enabling legislation, our elected officials make these decisions. And if they don’t know that these issues are important to us, how are they going to make informed decisions?
MCV: I want to thank you, Alvin, for your service and for spending some time talking with us about your experiences and thoughts about the Stewardship Council. Any final thoughts?
AR: Thank you, it was great talking with you. My final thoughts – I think the most important thing is to come to the Council meetings. It is one of the only forums where the public has direct access to the DCR. Council meetings are a great forum. I loved hearing about the issues. I know my fellow councilors did, too. It’s where you get to hear on the ground level if DCR is meeting public expectations.