The city manager announced appointments to the Planning Board today. The appointments are effective Dec. 1.
The manager appointed three new members to the board, reappointed two continuing members and allowed two members to depart. Four members of the nine-member board are continuing in their position and were not up for reappointment.
The new board members are Mary T. Flynn, Louis J. Bacci Jr. and Thacher Tiffany. (Tiffany is an associate member.)
The reappointed members are H. Theodore Cohen (currently vice-chairman of the board) and Catherine Preston Connolly. Connolly moves from associate member to full member.
The continuing members are Steve Cohen, Tom Sieniewicz, Hugh Russell (the current chairman) and Ahmed Nur (an associate member).
Departing members are Steve Winter and Pamela Winters. Winter is an economic development manager at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. Winters is a local artist.
New members
According to City Manager Richard C. Rossi’s announcement, the three new members were selected from 24 applications. (The 24 applications include the returning two and departing two board members.)
There have been five board members working despite expired terms even as the board and its processes have been under siege for months. At Monday’s City Council meeting, Rossi told the council he would convene focus groups about the board in November and produce a report to the council, ideally before the Dec. 1 meeting of the board and council.
“Because I am strongly committed to creating a representative board,” Rossi wrote, “the city will be recruiting additional Planning Board candidates over the coming months. For the duration of this time, one current full member and one associate member will continue serving on the board in ‘holdover’ status.”
The three new members are, according to the manager:
Flynn is manager of facilities at the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority. Flynn is a former deputy director of the city’s planning department and led the creation of the 1993 policy document “Towards a Sustainable Future,” which the city had designated as its master plan.
Bacci has served as a union representative member of Laborers Local 151 for more than 30 years. Bacci has served as a project manager and an owner of a property maintenance company. He lives in Wellington-Harrington.
Tiffany is director of acquisitions for Beacon Communities, where he manages acquisitions of affordable housing properties. He lives in Mid-Cambridge and has a masters degree in city planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a certificate in urban design.
Based on information provided from the city manager’s office Friday, the terms of Flynn and Bacci terms will expire Nov. 30, 2019, as will
reappointed members H. Theodore Cohen and Connolly.
Returning members Russell and Nur are in “holdover” status, and have not been formally reappointed to the board – they could be replaced
over the coming months, and their terms expired in April and March.
New member Tiffany will serve out Connolly’s old term, expiring March 13, 2016.
The terms of existing members Steven Cohen and Tom Sieniewicz terms will expire the same month.
This post was updated Oct. 31, 2014, to add information about term expirations.
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