Episode 53: Steve Magoon (Assistant City Manager for Community Development and Planning)
Meet Steve Magoon! He's the Assistant City Manager for Community Development and Planning for the City of Watertown. In this conversation we dig into his career journey in planning, the role of public input in decision making, some things that make New England unique for planning, current and future projects in Watertown, and more.
(Click here to listen on streaming apps) (Full transcript below)
City's Community Development and Planning Website
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Transcript
Matt: 0:07
Hi there, welcome to the Little Local Conversations podcast. I'm your host, Matt Hanna. Every episode, I sit down for a conversation with someone in Watertown to discover the people, places, stories, and ideas of Watertown. This time I sat down with Steve Magoon, who is the Assistant City Manager for Community Development and Planning for the city of Watertown. I'll let him introduce himself, then we'll get into our conversation.
Steve: 0:28
I'm Steve Magoon. I'm the Assistant City Manager for Community Development and Planning for Watertown. You know it has evolved over time from just being the Community Development and Planning Director to really being more involved with city management which is a challenge but always interesting. It's a good job.
Matt: 0:44
Yeah, how long did it take you to say that long title without having to stop and think about it?
Steve: 0:49
It's too long. It really would be nice if it was a little shorter, but.
Matt: 0:53
Well, I always like to go back in time. We'll get to what you're doing in Watertown now, but let's go back and how did you first get involved with city type of work? You know what got that bug in you to start?
Steve: 1:04
Well, I think, like I'm sure a lot of people, when I got in college and was faced with what do you want to do for the rest of your life, I felt very intimidated by that and I was like I can't make that decision. I don't know what I want to do the rest of my life. My father was in counseling services at the University of Maryland and so I did some aptitude tests and things like that to try and figure out. And I liked the outdoors and things so I started with a natural resources management program. But as I started looking into careers that that would lead to, there really weren't a lot. And I've done a lot of jobs. I like working with my hands and things so I've done a lot of construction jobs and kind of like the built environment.
Steve: 1:44
So I added a second degree in urban studies. You know, more planning related. That kind of led into the planning field. As I started to work after graduating undergraduate, I then went back to school graduate school to get a graduate degree. And as I was in the planning field and I started to think about what to do in terms of education and so on and so forth, I really saw the evolution of my job as being one that was more management than really the details of planning. So I got a graduate degree in management with a specialization in state and local government, which I think has served me very well. You know, instead of getting into the deeper subjects of planning, which I felt like I had a good handle on, I instead got management experience and again, I think that served me well.
Matt: 2:30
So what made you? Was there any key moment or experience that made you think like, oh, the management is more my fit than the technical side?
Steve: 2:37
I think it was because I started moving up through the hierarchy and in the planning field fairly quickly and was getting to the point where I knew I was going to be managing people and managing projects. I think it was probably that more than anything else. If, you know, looking at it, I felt like I needed or that would benefit me more in terms of moving up through positions than additional planning degrees or same thing with, you know, planners can get a certification, AICP, American Institute of Certified Planners. And a lot of planners get that as sort of a way to indicate that they've met a certain standard and have experience and knowledge. I got to the point of being a planning director when I was thinking of doing that and it requires an exam and everything and continuing education and I thought, well, professionally planning director was kind of where I wanted to get to and so I never bothered to do the AICP certification. So it's kind of a similar thing. I was doing pretty well professionally and decided that that management experience would be better than more planning.
Matt: 3:39
Yeah, and what were some of those early positions that you were working in?
Steve: 3:42
So I started out, while I was still in school I did an internship in Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission, which is a mouthful, in the DC area, where even in planning circles that's a fairly well-known organization because it governed Montgomery and Prince George's counties, the two counties that border District of Columbia and they've done some pretty interesting over the years planning things. I also worked for the state of Maryland and their planning office is a regional planning office in Southern Maryland and there got introduced to some of the planning professionals in that region. And one of them convinced me to take a position in Charles County in Southern Maryland. So I worked there first as a transportation planner and then again moved up to planning director in not too great a time. And I was planning director there when my wife got a job in the Boston area and so we moved up here.
Steve: 4:30
And then I was looking a bit. I thought having been a planning director in a county level, which you know governs a much bigger area, a much bigger area of responsibility, would easily translate to a municipal job in Massachusetts because there's lots of those. And I kind of found that people didn't equate county work the same in this region. People kind of view that as, oh well, you didn't work in a town or a city. After I figured that out, which took a little while, I had to kind of tweak my message a little bit. But in any case I got a job at City Gloucester. I worked there. In four years I went from planning director to community development director to chief administrative officer in the mayor's office. The mayor I worked for most directly, mayor Bell, decided not to run again, so I helped with the transition to the new administration and then was looking for a job again. And eventually you know it took a little while, but found the one here in Watertown as planning director and took that and I've been here since, since 2008.
Matt: 5:26
Gotcha. Yeah, so you've been here for a little bit. Yeah, and through any of those journey spots, was there a particular project that was one of your maybe one of your favorite ones that you worked on?
Steve: 5:36
Working in Charles County in Southern Maryland, there were a lot of, I think, very cutting-edge planning techniques that we used. None of this was just me, but I'd say it had a lot to do with it. We instituted a transfer of development rights program where, in effect, you would have developers pay fairly rural or suburban property owners for their development potential of their farmland and things like that. Transfer that development potential into an area where you wanted development to occur and allow it to occur at a higher density. So, in effect, lets the private sector pay to preserve more rural areas of the community. That was pretty significant. We also did an adequate facilities ordinance that would measure the adequacy of the public facilities and require developers to contribute to those in order for their projects to move forward. I think we were one of the first ones to do that with school facilities. So there'd be a measure of the capacity of the schools that would serve a project and created a formula for projects that then contribute to improve the adequacy of those facilities in order to move forward. So those were both pretty significant
Steve: 6:43
Gloucester Gloucester was a very interesting place to work. I really loved working there. Very passionate community, very broad spectrum of people and interests from, you know, the fishing community, which has certainly some representation, you know, with lower incomes and things of that nature, and then some areas of the community out with beautiful ocean views and huge, very, very wealthy properties and property owners and everything in between. You know, beautiful spot. In a lot of ways a challenging place to get things done, though, too. Had a lot of challenges, so it was good. And here in Watertown, sure, there's a number of things that I think have been very significant, most recent one being Watertown Square, which, going through the planning process for that, I think has really reimagined, or at least given the potential to reimagine, the square, and I think that has the potential to be one of the more transformational efforts for Watertown in a long time, and really could make a difference and make that much more of a destination and a place that people want to spend time in and be there and do things, as opposed to, you know, basically a large intersection that people kind of dread getting through.
Matt: 7:51
Yes, yeah, I don't think anyone is like oh yeah, let's keep Watertown Square how it is. I love it.
Steve: 7:56
Yeah, and it's, it really is a very tough situation and, I think, one that at least I and most other people, you know when you start with the premise of it's a challenging intersection in terms of traffic capacity and congestion, you know, you usually start with a premise of, well, let's not make it worse and let's figure out ways that we can do things but maintain the ability of everybody to drive through there.
Steve: 8:18
And I think one of the real key parts of the Watertown Square planning study was not that we want to make it worse or have it be a real gridlock, but because it's primarily serving people in the region that are not coming to or leaving from Watertown Square or Watertown, but more people going through Watertown as a way to get to somewhere else. How much do you really want to dictate your city center to really be serving them? And I think most people would say, yeah, not so much. So, again, we don't want to create gridlock, but we want to make that serve the purpose of Watertown as a community. And when you look at it from that perspective and you want to make it more of a place, yeah, there's some things you can do that will really enhance that and maybe they do have some impacts on traffic. Is it going to completely bottleneck it and make it a complete gridlock? No, but it will allow us to make that more of a destination and incorporate things that are very significant and again making it a place.
Matt: 9:15
Yeah, and so maybe an interesting thing for people to hear would be how does that process work? Like behind closed doors work, your day-to-day of working on that project, like who are you talking to? How is that all start to work itself out? Obviously there's the public input too, but there's a lot of work that you guys have to do without all those meetings too, right?
Steve: 9:32
Yeah, I think it's. One of the very interesting parts of being a municipal planner is how you interact with the public and the public comment. You know a lot of people feel like, oh, I'm not going to bother participating in that, they've decided what they're going to do and they don't really care what I think. And that's very much not true. I think people often confuse us not doing exactly what they want with we don't care, we don't listen, which is, again, absolutely not true. But you can't always do what people want. But that doesn't mean that the public input's not an important part of the process. It is a critically important part of the process for lots of reasons. One, because those are the people that you're serving and working for. Those are the people that are going to, you know, for something like Watertown Square, those are the people that are going to make it become a place. And if you simply, from on high, tell them, oh, we're going to do this and you're going to like it, well, a lot of times they won't and that won't work and that won't happen. So I think it's important that they be involved and be part of that process. It's also always a challenge getting people involved. Most people don't want to come out to night meetings and participate. They've got other things in their life to do and it's always a challenge to find novel ways to get people involved and really get their opinions, but also to do that in a way that they understand what the issues are and what the options really are and understand how they can weigh in and influence that.
Steve: 10:56
I like to say that land use decisions aren't popularity contests. It's not just a matter of how many people come out and say they like a project or don't like it. You're talking about somebody exercising a property right, a right that they have as owners of a property, and it has to be much more involved than that. It can't just be how many people like it or don't like it. But it is important to get that input and get those opinions and what people think. If you're a neighbor to a project, you obviously have a very personal involvement in that, and rightly so, and you also know things that because you're there on a regular basis that we wouldn't know, and so that input's important. But you know, a lot of times people will say, well, I'll just say no, just deny this project, and a lot of times it's not that simple. You can't just take away someone's property rights because the neighbors don't like it. Anyway, I went off on a long tangent and not sure I even answered your question.
Matt: 11:50
No, no, no. That's good to hear. We like to hear that people working for the city want to hear resident input obviously. Is there a favorite suggestion you've gotten feedback from residents from that you've implemented into a project that was like that was really good feedback that we hadn't thought of before or really helped change the direction of a project?
Steve: 12:09
Absolutely. I think every, I guess I won't say every project, but pretty much every project, I think that there's usually some form of public feedback that we would factor into a project. You know you might go into it thinking well, like an example, with some of the school projects going into it thinking that having lots of parking for the school would be a big issue. And I think about several of those when we went and met with the community and talked about it, a lot of pushback to not have large parking lots at schools. That more interest in having just enough for, you know, the teachers and things and maybe some student drop-off pickup kind of things, but not having a large parking lot that could serve lots of other uses or needs and attract parking on a broader sense or even create a lot of paving that wasn't used. So again, we scaled that and sized that more in line with what the community wanted. I think that's a good example.
Steve: 13:01
You know some of the development projects, 104 Pleasant Street which is being built as we speak across the street, the design of the retail frontage and the potential for a restaurant space and post office and those things, you know that was changed by the public comment. How wide the sidewalk would be and how it would relate to that space, and that was based on public comment. Again, there were members of the public who really wanted it to not be there at all or not to be as many stories or have as many units, and again those things still happen. But I think that community input does provide for, in many cases, a much better design.
Matt: 13:40
So that's one piece of the pie. What are some other pieces of pie in terms of what you're thinking about when you're planning something? Resident input, who are the property rights owners, what are the other pieces to that puzzle that you have to lock in?
Steve: 13:52
Yeah, and I think some of those are related. Certainly, the politics is an important one. You know I work for the city manager, who works for the city council, and I would say in some ways I also work for the city council, and maybe not as direct supervisor, but a little more indirectly, and what the political realities of situations are always important. I think that's another thing that the public, general public, gets confused sometimes of if there's an idea of something they think is the right thing to do and a really good idea, why can't you just make that happen? Well, it's more involved than that and I think the government has a responsibility, particularly at the municipal level, to be more thoughtful, more nuanced to what issues are surrounding a particular concept and making sure that what we're doing and what we're deciding can stand the test of that political process, that the elected leaders will be supportive of it and they won't hear or have enough input from another direction that would undermine it, or that it's implementable, that those are things that we can make happen and have the resources and the legal backing, all those types of things to make it happen. And I think that's a big part of what professional staff bring to the table of understanding how those things work and what's reasonable or what's implementable. So we do that. We do spend a lot of time also staying up on what trends are in industry and the creative ways people in other communities are solving problems and how well they do or don't fit in Watertown and whether we can make those happen.
Matt: 15:22
How do you stay up on those trends?
Steve: 15:24
You know there's certainly conferences and meetings. There's also things like a listserv that's for planners in Massachusetts and you know a lot of exchange of ideas and things there. You know there's also APA, American Planning Association chapter for Massachusetts and they send out regular emails and publications, things like that. And we talk individually. I think one of the good things about our staff is there is some variety of opinions and experiences that people bring to the table, which also help with that. You know, if you're plugged into different communities or different perspectives, that helps broaden the conversation even internally, as opposed to just being kind of siloed. So a variety of ways.
Matt: 16:03
And I kind of jumped in there, but you seemed like you were moving on to another piece there after that one. Was there another one?
Steve: 16:10
Again we work internally with each other and stay abreast of what's going on in the industry. I think there's also the process with the management structure and what issues come up day to day. So you know, a big part of our job is long range planning, talking about those big longer term projects like Watertown Square, where you're planning for a future that's way out there. Or climate energy plan, you know where we're talking about trying to meet goals for 2035 or 2050. But there's the day-to-day. There's the person who calls up because, or sends an email because they were, you know, biking down the greenway and almost got hit at an intersection and want to know what we can do to help address that concern that people might have an accident at that location. You know what can you do to redesign that or make adjustments? People come in with a never-ending variety of issues that they see or feel and want to find somebody in government to help them solve it.
Matt: 17:07
And how do you balance all those different, you know, priorities used to be one word. Now priorities has an S at the end. So how do you balance, like those long-range ones with short-term goals, and what's the thinking behind trying to do that?
Steve: 17:22
I think it's really important that a community have long range plans and I think that that gives you the ability to view the day to day things in the lens of a long range plan and help you to make decisions day to day that further, or at least don't contradict where you want to go in those long range plans and that's certainly true here in Watertown. I think creating a common vision, and you know in some cases or some ways it can be somewhat contradictory, but in a sense, creating that long range vision gives you the ability to make those day-to-day decisions where they could impact that in a consistent way. I think that's huge and it goes across city departments and is a real important part of local planning and why it's important to do.
Matt: 18:07
Yeah, how about behind the scenes? Is there anything that's part of your job that people might be surprised that it’s part of your role?
Steve: 18:13
I think probably the most obvious answer to that is working with the Commander's Mansion. Planning departments sometimes will be involved with permit administration, almost always are dealing with long-range and short-range planning. Sometimes we'll deal with more environmental things like Resilient Watertown plan. I think a real outlier, though, is the Commander's Mansion. You know, a historic facility that is an important part of the fabric of the community that we have the good fortune to have available and use as a function facility for people to have events. And that has been a very interesting experience dealing with some of the issues that come up there. You know, as you can imagine, someone having a wedding and the various people that are involved with that and sometimes get pretty worked up about their big day, and that's been a little different. I mean ultimately it comes down to the same kinds of things, listening to people and trying to understand what issues they have and how you can or can't solve them, and explaining that. But the nature of the problems that come with that are a little different than I think most planning, community development or planning directors deal with.
Matt: 19:19
Yeah, you're dealing with a wedding planner rather than another urban planner.
Steve: 19:22
Exactly, or you know the mother of the bride, or whatever it is.
Matt: 19:29
They don't have the long-term plan. This is happening now. Yeah, so we have the Watertown Square plan, but are there any other long-term Watertown plans that are either in the works or that you're thinking ahead to, that you're kind of excited about?
Steve: 19:41
I think where we're going with the climate and energy Resilient Watertown plan is going to be interesting. You know we've come through a period where we had tremendous investment in the biotech lab industry and really becoming a bit of a center for that in a number of projects that were built here and that has given us a lot of local revenue that we would be able to use to fund a lot of things as a municipal government, which has been great. But obviously the industry has turned a bit. The demand for those projects has been met. We've got a federal government that doesn't seem to be too interested in scientific research. While that doesn't diminish the value that those projects have brought to the community, it does give you pause for going forward, and how are we going to deal with some of those development interests and new growth going forward? At the same time, the community has been very committed to climate resiliency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions and those things, particularly with all our school projects where we've created net zero schools and, I think, done a tremendous job.
Steve: 20:46
The next step in that evolution is a BERDO ordinance, one where larger buildings are required to document their energy consumption and then meet goals by certain deadlines out in the future. Lab buildings, just by the nature of what they do on a day-to-day basis often involves using things like natural gas and I think in some cases they're a little less able to just convert to electricity 100%. The industry obviously is having some contraction and so those property owners are very concerned that if we pass an ordinance, if it's too burdensome, that we will chase away that industry investment in Watertown and make it even more difficult. So I think that's a very, it's going to be a very challenging one to thread the needle, if you will, to figure out what's the appropriate amount of regulation to put in place to achieve our goals and at the same time not be so onerous that we end up chasing away that industry that has been pretty beneficial in many ways.
Matt: 21:44
Right, on the side track here a little bit, but talked a lot about kind of this, you know this threading of the needle between things. Are there any type of principles that you've learned through all these years of doing these different projects of how to thread that needle?
Steve: 21:58
That's a good question. I'm not sure I would say there's a formula or a preconceived way that I could easily define that. I think it's very important to be very empathetic and try to understand everyone's point of view and where they're coming from and what they want to get out of a particular issue and try to, as best you can, to meet everyone's needs. You know not to get into national politics so much, but that's one of the things that really concerns me about where we are today at a national level is it seems to be so focused on us versus them. We win, you lose. Not at all collaborative or having disagreeing points of view being heard or trying to collaborate or come up with compromised solutions. And I think that is so important. I think the way you thread that needle is usually through those kinds of things. Compromising and trying to figure out how you can solve everyone's problems most successfully as opposed to creating winners and losers. And maybe you don't always get everything you want, but as long as you get enough and somebody else gets some of what they want, and I would say that's probably how a lot of people would describe how I approach a lot of problems with property owners, developers, community members, whatever. And I think it's served me pretty well.
Matt: 23:15
Yeah, something also earlier I wanted to come back to was are there any other differences between different parts of the country, how they think about planning in the area? When you talked about the difference between Maryland and the Boston area in terms of municipality versus region, are there any other interesting differences between those areas that might be interesting to talk about?
Steve: 23:33
I think one of the really fascinating ones is ANRs, which you may not be familiar with what that is, but the process of dividing up land, of creating subdivisions, where you divide up land and put boundaries for ownership. I'd gotten very comfortable with how that process works in Maryland and very comfortable with how to, as a staff person or a city employee, how to navigate the nuances of that. And when I got here, one of the first things I was exposed to was an ANR plan, an approval not required. Which just the name of it is you have to ask for something that you aren't required to have approved. That just seems like such a misnomer to me. And I had fun calling my friends back in Maryland and saying you wouldn't believe this thing they have out there. But basically what it is is if you have a property that has frontage that meets the requirements of whatever the subdivision regulations are, then you don't have to go through an approval process, through a public hearing and all that. It's an approval not required. You're basically able to record that division of land. But I thought that was an interesting one.
Matt: 24:37
I'm asking for permission for something I don't need permission for.
Steve: 24:40
Yeah, exactly yeah. Pretty much, or at least that's what the title said. I think probably the biggest difference between Maryland and here is just everything is at the municipal level here and in Maryland, while there were some cities and towns that had their own governance, the vast majority was at the county level. And I think that's true for most parts of the country, that the county is where most municipal work gets done, most decisions are made, planning and zoning things like that are done. And the redundancy of the municipal organization in New England is just mind-boggling. You know, when I came here and I came to find out that there's a fire chief and a police chief and a school superintendent for four and a half square miles, that just sounded crazy to me. You know, the county that I worked in was much, much larger, many more schools, many more firehouses, all those things. Yeah, seemed very redundant to me. But that's part of being New England and that municipal pride and things that people have. It's not going to change anytime soon, but that was a big difference.
Matt: 25:45
Yeah, that's true. You hear people talk about their county they're from from different parts of the country, but no one says like, oh yeah, I'm from Middlesex county. No one has Middlesex county pride, or yeah. While we're sitting here with these lovely construction sounds in the background, any thoughts you want to put out there on Saltonstall park or anything about that, because we are recording at city hall and you might be hearing some Saltonstall Park construction in the background.
Steve: 26:05
Yeah, sorry about that. It's going well. I think it's going to be a nice improvement to Saltonstall Park. I will say I wasn't one of the people who thought we needed a new Saltonstall Park, but I do think we needed a bandstand enclosure kind of thing for performances that could serve both the baseball field side of things as well as the hillside of the upper Saltonstall Park. That kind of grew and morphed into a redoing the whole park, the upper park. I'm sure it'll be very nice and as of this morning they said they're still on track to be done, you know, around Memorial Day. So we'll see. I think it'll be a nice improvement, particularly having that dual-sided stage I think will serve us well for combined things like the Summer Concert Series and Faire on the Square and Pride events and all the various functions that we have in Saltonstall Park. So it should be good.
Matt: 26:56
Any other projects going around town you want to comment on at all?
Steve: 27:00
You know, I think from the private side of things, some of the developers who have improved lab space are trying to find tenants and you know, I think there's some that have had tenants that have gone under, and so that will continue to evolve. I do think, over the long term big picture, which is easy for me to say because I didn't spend millions of dollars building a building, but I do think that eventually that end of the industry will come back and Watertown will be well positioned to take advantage of that. I do think we'll start to see more of a rebound in the residential end of things as well. I think we'll probably see some projects from Watertown Square come forward that will take advantage of the new zoning that we've put in place to implement Watertown Square. On the public side of things, getting Mount Auburn Street rebuilt is going to be a pretty major one. Unfortunately, the short-term impacts to property owners and businesses is going to be tough, but I think that'll be a very nice one.
Steve: 27:55
We got a bunch of park projects, not just Saltonstall, but we're also improving Lowell Playground next to the Lowell School. We've got plans for Powell and Bemis as well as Sullivan Parks. All those are going to see some improvements in the near term. We're hopefully finishing up with Arsenal Park Phase 2. That should be done again this early summer. And then we've also got plans for Victory Field Phase 2 and hoping to start that construction this summer. So a lot going on. Pretty much all the park spaces are seeing some kind of activity.
Matt: 28:28
You can't go anywhere in the city without running into some type of construction. Yeah, all right, maybe to get into our tail end here. Is there anything else you want to talk about the job here before maybe I ask an outside job question?
Steve: 28:41
Yeah, I don't know, maybe this sounds a little corny, but I will say that I think one of the important things about planning as a profession, we've talked a lot about the public interaction and how important that is, I also would say that it is very much an industry or a business that is dependent on a lot of people being involved. So while in some instances I might be the face of the department, it's really the work of all the people in the department that makes those things happen, not any one of us, but all of us collectively. And we each bring something to the table, which I think is very important. I try as best I can with the staff people, you know, there are things that we have to do on a day-to-day basis that might not be the most exciting things to do sometimes, and those are things we have to get done, but beyond that, I like to give people the opportunity to work on things they're really interested in or really good at and take advantage of that excitement and interest, as opposed to just producing the widgets. And I think that helps. It makes people very motivated and is a big part of why we are able to accomplish a lot of things we're able to accomplish. And you know again, I think this department, the staff, people within the department, but also the leadership, you know, the city council and the manager, all collectively work very well together and are able to accomplish some really great things with a lot less resources that maybe some other communities might use.
Matt: 30:02
Yeah, I don't think that was corny.
Steve: 30:06
Good, I'm glad you don't think so.
Matt: 30:08
Cool. So then, to wrap up here, is there anything outside your job that you think people might find interesting, like a hobby or interest or anything that you know you enjoy?
Steve: 30:18
Sure, I really like to work with my hands. I like to do things myself. I don't like to hire somebody to do something I feel like I could do. I've pretty much rebuilt my house from top to bottom. Resided it, created rooms, removed an old chimney, replaced windows. I've done a lot of things in my house that probably most people wouldn't assume that you would do. And I like doing that. I like the sense of accomplishment of being able to have an issue and be able to address it and do it well. I still play ice hockey. That's probably a little different. A couple nights a week I go out and play. So sometimes when I scoot out after a night meeting, it's not because I don't want to sit and chit-chat, but it's because I have to go play
Matt: 30:59
What position?
Steve: 31:00
Defense. Partly because a lot of times nobody wants to volunteer, so I kind of ended up there. But also you tend to get to play a little bit more because there's a little less competition for it, I guess. So I like that. Plus, you're successful a lot more often. Every time you come down the ice as a forward and you don't score, you're like oh. That happens a lot more than when you do score.
Matt: 31:21
Yes especially, it's different from like hockey to basketball.
Steve: 31:27
Yes, exactly, exactly. But I love playing. It's a great sport and keeps the heart pumping.
Matt: 31:32
And did you play that back in Maryland too?
Steve: 31:34
I did. Back when I was growing up, most high schools didn't have hockey teams. Our high school started one when I was in high school, so I was on the very first team we had, which we had literally had some guys who played that had never skated at all. So not the same as high school hockey there now or here, certainly, but it was fun. It was great and I played same thing, University of Maryland started a club team and it was the first club team they'd ever had. I played on that, which was fun. But now I'm just playing beer league hockey, you know and having fun.
Matt: 32:05
Yeah, have you been over to the semi-pro hockey team here in Watertown?
Steve: 32:09
I dropped the ceremonial puck at their first game. It was fun. I haven't caught a lot of their games and I saw they were in the championship, which is pretty exciting.
Matt: 32:19
Yeah, doing well. Cool. Well, thanks for sharing your little bit there. Yeah, I think we've hit on a decent amount here. Thank you for sitting down to share your stories and thoughts of yourself and your job here in Watertown. And yeah, thank you,
Steve: 32:30
My pleasure, thank you. Appreciate you doing it.
Matt: 32:33
So that's it for my conversation with Steve. I'll put a link in the show notes to the city's community development and planning page, if you want to find out more information about what’s going on. If you like this episode and you want to find some more interviews, you can head on over to littlelocalconversations.com. There you can find all the interviews, upcoming events, and you can sign up for the weekly newsletter that I send out once a week to stay up to date on everything. There's also a support local conversation button on the website if you want to help support the podcast.
Matt: 32:59
A few things to wrap up here. I want to give a shout out to Arsenal Financial, podcast sponsor. It's a financial planning business here in Watertown owned by Doug Orifice, who is a committed community member. You can listen to my Watertown trivia episode I did with him to find out more about Arsenal Financial and learn a little bit more about Watertown in a fun little way. Or you can head on over to their website, arsenalfinancial.com, to reach out to them.
Matt: 33:23
I also want to give a thank you to the Watertown Cultural Council, who has given me a grant this year to help support the podcast. I want to give them the appropriate credit, which is, this program is supported in part by a grant from the Watertown Cultural Council, a local agency, which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency. Check them out at watertownculturalcouncil.org and massculturalcouncil.org. And I also want to give a shout out to a couple of promotional partners the Watertown Business Coalition and Watertown News. The Watertown Business Coalition is a nonprofit bringing businesses and people together to help strengthen the community. You can find out more about them at watertownbusinesscoalition.com. And Watertown News is a Watertown-focused online newspaper. You can keep up to date with a lot of things going on in Watertown there, watertownmanews.com. So that's it. Until next time, take care.
