Offers financial and problem-solving expertise
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| Marie Sobalvarro. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz) |
St. John’s Lane resident Marie Sobalvarro describes herself as the “no easy answers” candidate for selectman. Sobalvarro has been nominated for one of the two three-year positions open in this spring’s election.
Sobalvarro has lived in Harvard for four years, after spending many years living closer to Boston. She is a graduate of Wellesley College and has a master’s degree in business administration from Boston University, where she focused on data analysis and organizational behavior. Sobalvarro has worked as a health-care consultant for Kaiser Permanente and has also worked for Anderson Consulting and Deloitte and Touche, where she was a manager and senior consultant focusing on data and financial analysis. Her client base encompassed a range of health-care providers and insurers, including Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Cape Cod Hospital Systems, and Lowell General.
For the past two years, Sobalvarro has served on the town’s Finance Committee, where she says her experience in the financial world has been an asset. It has been helpful, she said in a recent interview, to keep a business model in mind when considering town budget issues. And if elected to the selectman’s position, she believes that her expertise will give her a valuable perspective when considering the “big picture” for the town. “By chasing the dollars,” she said, “you begin to understand the constraints as well as the inputs.”
For Sobalvarro, the most important aspect of the selectman’s job is to empower citizens to make informed choices.
“It’s not the job of the selectmen to make decisions,” she said.
She is reluctant to offer “easy answers” to the difficult questions facing the town. As selectman, she believes her greatest strength would be her ability to “take a complex picture and break it down into solvable problems.” Her ultimate aim, she said, is to help Harvard’s residents to feel that they understand the costs and benefits associated with any choice they make.
Sobalvarro is already working to implement this goal as she works with the Finance Committee to prepare the warrant for Annual Town Meeting. Traditionally, the Finance Committee annotates each article with a “recommend” or “do not recommend” designation. At Sobalvarro’s prompting, the Finance Committee is taking a slightly different approach this year. For the three articles that address new spending for fiscal year 2009, the Finance Committee will list the pros and cons of each article rather than simply recommending or not recommending it. Sobalvarro believes that this approach will enable residents to be better informed as they make their choices.
Sobalvarro’s expertise in information analysis has also come to the forefront in the town’s discussions about Devens. Sobalvarro recently helped Selectman Tim Clark draft a letter that was sent to Rich Montouri of Mass Development, which listed a series of detailed questions about the current and proposed development on the site as well as current and proposed goals. Sobalvarro said she believes that this additional information will be key to enabling the town to make a considered decision about whether to reclaim Harvard’s lands at Devens.
Sobalvarro’s other goals as selectman center around the issues of citizen empowerment and civic involvement.
First and foremost, said Sobalvarro, she wants to give town residents a more active voice in the political process. Sobalvarro believes that, in the current system, residents do not have enough access to selectmen to ask questions or address concerns. She would like to offer additional ways for residents to share their thoughts and is eager to “think out of the box” when considering solutions.
“The town functions as if we’re in the 1950s, where everyone comes home at 5 p.m., and then people are bemoaning the fact that folks don’t come to meetings.” she says. “We can’t operate on those same guidelines anymore.”
One solution, says Sobalvarro, is for selectmen to host office hours when residents could stop by and discuss their concerns. Sobalvarro believes that another key avenue for communication that has not been adequately tapped is the Internet. Sobalvarro would like to look into ways that Harvard residents could connect with each other and with town officials via the town website or town blogs. She says that the town website should do a better job of actively promoting what is coming up on the selectmen’s agenda, so that citizens can have enough lead time to attend meetings and make their voices heard.
Community service and volunteerism make up another cornerstone of Sobalvarro’s platform. “People would like to get involved, but they have no idea how,” she said.
To that end, Sobalvarro helped to organize the recent Volunteer Fair at the library, where 30 of the more than 97 volunteer organizations in town showed up to explain their missions to town residents. Sobalvarro said she would like to make the Volunteer Fair an annual event, so residents can stay well informed about the volunteer options available to them. Volunteering, said Sobalvarro, is key to ensuring the town’s vitality and sense of interconnectedness.
“You owe the town more than your tax dollars,” she said.
Sobalvarro said that she brings to the table a solid understanding of Harvard’s history. Through her work on the Finance Committee, she has closely read through every annual report for the past 10 years. She said this knowledge gives her a useful perspective when considering the town’s current issues.
Sobalvarro also cites her skills as a facilitator as assets for a position on the Board of Selectman. Sensitive to the wide range of views among town residents, Sobalvarro believes that she has the ability to welcome differing perspectives and to help others to consider an alternate point of view.
“I can help make the conversation move forward,” she said. “I do my homework. And I do my homework by speaking with people who have opinions on all sides of the issue.” Sobalvarro said her strengths as a facilitator have won her “the begrudging respect on the part of all the members of the tri-board.”
Those traits, said Sobalvarro, coupled with her ability to collect, analyze, and distill data, make her well-suited for the job of selectman. She is quick to add, however, that while gathering information is important, she does want to avoid what she calls “analysis paralysis.” Primarily, she wants to help Harvard’s citizens feel more engaged and committed to the direction that the town will be taking in the next few years.
“People can make good decisions if they’re presented with clear choices,” she said.
Sobalvarro has a website at www.selectmarie.org.
Note: Marie Sobalvarro is running against Leo Blair and Ron Ricci for a three-year term on Harvard's Board of Selectmen.