Harvard-Allston Task Force Asked to Formalize Appointment Process

In light of confusion about how members are appointed to the Harvard-Allston Task Force, community members have placed mounting pressure on task force leadership and the Boston Redevelopment Authority to formalize the process.

Recent attrition among task force members has prompted a number of Allston residents and members of the task force that were present at last week’s meeting to demand that the advisory body formally explain the process of removing non-active members and appointing new ones in their place.

John A. Bruno, Interim Chair of the Harvard-Allston Task Force, leads a two-hour discussion on the University's development in Allston on Oct. 28. By Michelle M. Ng

In response, the Task Force has asked that current task force member Bruce E. Houghton and BRA senior project manager Gerald Autler collaborate to review and formalize the appointment process.

“I’m just concerned about procedure—because I think before we can go anywhere about all the great stuff that’s being discussed, we need to know what the procedure is to put people in place to make those decisions,” Allston resident Paul “Chip” Alford said at last week’s meeting.

Even Houghton, a current task force member, mentioned at last week’s meeting that he was unsure of how he was put on governing body.

Autler, in response, said that the process includes requesting nominations from elected officials and consulting community organizations to “put together a group that is representative of a range of perspectives” and the demographics of the neighborhood.

“Some times we’re more successful than others,” said Autler. “I would not say that this task force is as representative as we would like it to be.”

Yet despite this explanation, some task force members still feel there are inconsistencies in the process that need to be clarified.

“I think it’s important now to establish a criteria to determine who should be on [the task force]; the criteria used to select one member should be used to select all members,” said John A. Bruno, interim chair of the task force. “I don’t have objections to how the current election process goes.”

Bruno is tasked with temporarily overseeing the operations of the task force, filling in for the previous chair Ray V. Mellone. Mellone has been absent due to personal reasons.

Coinciding with the release of the revised Institutional Master Plan in 2013, between 2012 and 2013 the BRA appointed four new task force members due to attrition, using a similar procedure as when members were first appointed to the task force.

Although Autler believes that current attendance rates are not sufficiently low to warrant appointing new task force members, some Allston residents disagree.

—Staff writer Ignacio Sabate can be reached at ignacio.sabate@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @TheIggySabate.