LexObserver sat down with Patrick Mehr, a candidate for Select Board, to learn why he’s running for the position and how he feels about various town issues.
Mehr was raised in Paris, France, and studied math and physics at École Polytechnique, which he calls “the French equivalent of MIT.” He’s worked in energy conservation for the French government, at a Cambridge-based consulting firm specializing in energy, and at Boston Consulting Group. In 1999, he moved to Lexington with his family so his two sons could attend Lexington Public Schools.
Mehr was a member of Lexington’s Tree Committee and represented Precinct 3 in Town Meeting from 2000 to 2015.
In his retirement, Mehr founded Plunkett Lake Press, a publishing company that digitizes classic nonfiction books so they can be read on platforms such as Kindle. He has re-published approximately 340 books as e-books since 2015.
Mehr is running because he believes the town does not adequately conduct long-term financial planning when pursuing “major projects” such as building the new Lexington High School or approving multifamily housing projects.
“My main priority is to make sure that in the future no major decision is taken without prior long-range analysis of what that decision may or may not do to our budget or other features of the town,” he said.
Mehr does not approve of the current plan for the new LHS, which calls for constructing a new building, referred to as Bloom. Mehr thinks Bloom, which he calls a “sardine design,” is too small to accommodate LHS’s future enrollment.
He predicts enrollment could increase as more students move to Lexington with the new MBTA Communities Act-compliant housing coming to town. He also believes Bloom is too expensive and could drive lower-income residents away because they can’t afford the tax increases needed to fund it.
“Too many people in this town believe money falls off the trees,” he said.
Instead, Mehr thinks Lexington should commit to a phased construction. In phase one, the town would replace LHS’s world language building with a larger structure to alleviate overcrowding. After the town sees the effects of incoming multifamily housing on LHS’s enrollment, it would conduct a new enrollment prediction and either build a new school, leave LHS as is with its new addition, or “something in between,” he said.
Members of the SBC have stated that adding to or renovating the current building would “trigger code upgrades.” That means Lexington would have to spend approximately $225 million to update systems including LHS’s HVAC and windows, among other items, according to SMMA, the town’s architect for the LHS building project, if it pursues a phased renovation.
But Mehr said, “to the best of [his] research, no such code upgrades would be needed.”
“I still have not seen what that’s based on and I am a person who looks at facts,” he said. “If the FDA one day tells me Lysol protects against COVID, I will drink Lysol, but not until that happens — same with the SBC and the code upgrades.”
For Lexington to hold a debt exclusion vote in December, two-thirds of the Select Board must be in support of the project.
If elected, Mehr will immediately try to convince another Select Board member not to support Bloom, making the Board’s support insufficient. He’ll then call Kathleen Lenihan, chair of the SBC, and tell her the Select Board will not vote in favor of Bloom so the SBC should halt its work and pursue a phased project.
If he isn’t successful, Mehr said he’ll “vote against the debt exclusion for Bloom and then in three years, people will say, ‘gee, Patrick was right.’”
Mehr also proposed Lexington consolidate its elementary school classrooms to reduce spending. Many of those classrooms can accommodate up to 25 students. If students are moved around, a few classrooms can be vacated and teachers can be let go, which could save the town money on those employees’ salaries, said Mehr. Added up, that could save Lexington approximately $3 million, which can then go toward the LHS building project, he said.
Mehr plans to spend the majority of his time on the Select Board addressing issues concerning LPS.
“I would spend 80 percent of the time on the schools because the town spends 80 percent of its money on the schools,” he said.
On top of that commitment, Mehr aims to ensure Lexington does not build too much multifamily housing. While he believes the town should bring more multifamily housing online, Mehr thinks Lexington committed too much of its land in 2023. He called the town’s state-approved plan, which includes allowing for multifamily housing on approximately 228 acres of land, an “unbelievably dangerous decision.”
Mehr hopes Town Meeting will pass Article 2 on March 17, which calls for Lexington to remove some of the town’s land from section 7.5 of its zoning bylaw — that is, land designated for village and multifamily dwellings — and reduce the capacity for dwelling units in remaining zones.
Generally, Mehr believes the Planning Board makes land-use decisions without looking at the implications of its decisions on the town’s budget. If elected, he aims to implement more of that analysis.
“The Planning Board has become a dangerous, rogue operation in town government,” he said.
To save taxpayers’ money, Mehr wants to institute a residential exemption — basically a tax cut for some people’s primary residences. If implemented, taxes would be reduced on all owner-occupied houses assessed below the town’s median home value, which Mehr said is approximately $1.4 million, and increased on all houses assessed above that amount. The lower the assessment of the house, the greater the tax cut.
“To me it’s the morally correct thing to do,” he said. “I think rich people who can afford a $2.5 million house and above should pay more in taxes, and anyone who disagrees with that should not vote for me.”
Mehr is also concerned about Lexington’s plan to achieve climate resilience, especially as it concerns the town’s trees.
“Only someone who thinks that Lysol can protect you from COVID can think that we don’t have a climate problem,” he said.
Mehr said he’s seen residents and builders frivolously cut down large trees that are agents in keeping residents healthy. That’s why he co-wrote the town’s tree bylaw in 2000 which aims to preserve and protect certain trees on portions of private property.
If elected, Mehr wants to strengthen that bylaw and expand its scope.
Asked how he thinks Lexington Center can improve, Mehr said he believes the buildings along Massachusetts Ave. in the Center should be “four to six stories high, not two stories high.” He imagines the bottom floors of the buildings would be commercial spaces and the top floors would be residences.
“To me that’s the way to enliven the town center, even in Lexington,” he said.
At a time where there is a lot of uncertainty regarding the federal government, Mehr urges people to “take a deep breath, get a little bit off the news, and wait to see what really happens.”
He hopes residents will instead focus on local affairs and vote on March 3.
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