April 25, 2025 by Tom Patch
To the members of our Hingham community:
My name is Tom Patch, and I am a candidate for the Hingham Planning Board open seat in the May 3rd Hingham Town Election.
I ask you for a few moments of your day to read and consider why.
The Planning Board is a Town board comprised of 5 members, each serving unpaid staggered 5-year terms, to provide the Town with oversight of community impacts and shaping arising out of or related to land use and development – i.e., planning. Further detail is provided on the Planning Board’s web page at https://www.hingham-ma.gov/166/Planning-Board.
There are 3 main reasons I am seeking the position.
First, to address the legitimate concern that since the COVID-19 pandemic our community engagement with Town government appears to be falling short of the standard articulated in the following statement of a former Hingham Town Moderator, Thomas L. P. O’Donnell: “Individual liberty works in a democracy because we talk things over together and do what seems right under the circumstances.”
Second, to put more substance into the meaning of the word “planning” in the title Planning Board to enable us to be as astutely farsighted and proactive as were our Hingham predecessors.
Third, to offer my institutional knowledge, expertise, perspective and voice in aid of building a consensus among all of the various interests of those who live, work or own property in our Town to successfully meet the inevitable challenges to our community in which we all have chosen to be a part.
I am proud to say that I am a born and raised Hinghamite with deep family roots in Hingham starting with my Irish immigrant great, great grandparents who came to Hingham in the mid-1800s in search of their American Dream. My father, Fletcher Patch, after completing his WW II Navy service, worked his way up from being a call firefighter to Town of Hingham Fire Chief. My son Neil is a graduate of Boston College and Harvard, and is employed as a manager of online learning at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
My education includes the Hingham Public Schools, K – 12, a Bachelor of Science in economics from the University of Maine and National University, Galway, Ireland, and a Juris Doctor (law) from the University of Maine.
The work of the Hingham Planning Board is in my wheelhouse. I am a practicing attorney with 25-plus years of experience in municipal law and land use/development law in multiple states. This includes extensive interaction with the Planning Boards of Hingham and other Massachusetts municipalities on behalf of private sector clients and me, as well as providing public sector Town Counsel services to the Town of Kingston, MA. This experience spans the full continuum of matters such as zoning and Subdivision Control permitting. I am also a member of the American Planning Association.
My Hingham generation was raised with an instilled understanding of and duty for the stewardship of the Hingham ethos – sense of community – that today has made Hingham such a desirable place to live and work. This includes several keys to successful governance of our Hingham community.
One is well expressed in the statement made in 1956 by Arthur Whittemore, former Hingham Town Counsel and Moderator, as well as an Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court: “It is an axiom of the Democratic system but in the 1950’s it sometimes appears forgotten by some people that only if full examination of all views is had will the better course be discovered and error exposed.”
A second is a recognition our Hingham ethos is product of the intertwined past, present and future in equal parts rather than from a focus on only certain parts to the exclusion or diminishment of others, however tempting or expedient that may seem to be in the moment.
A third is affirmed in Hingham’s Master Plan, which the Hingham Planning Board is required to prepare and update: “Those who know the Town well bring an invaluable perspective to the planning process.”
A fourth is the civic duty tradition of residents stepping forward to volunteer their time and diverse abilities to provide for the critical balance of voices among those serving on Town government committees and boards for the good of the community today and in the future.
My lived personal and professional experience has allowed me to know our Town well and enables me to understand what it takes to be a highly effective Planning Board member:
- Expertise
- Institutional knowledge
- Perspective
- Ingenuity
- Critical thinking
- Collaboration
- Sound judgment
- Care for community
In addition to these qualities, I am confident I possess a judgment that speaks a voice of reason and deep care for the Hingham community through listening to the concerns and ideas of all residents and others that appear before the Planning Board.
I will also contribute to composing a balanced and well-rounded Planning Board in its work to successfully address the challenges facing, and positively shape, our community today as well as in the future.
Honoring that duty of stewardship, I am stepping forward to seek the open position on the Planning Board by offering my attributes, abilities and time to serve the Hingham community as its next Planning Board member.
The following are “Ctrl button and click” or “web browser copy and paste” links to two candidate forums conducted to date. Each provides an opportunity to hear my thoughts on various important issues for our Hingham community:
- Republican Town Committee (4/13/25 starting @0:01)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xW1Tv9IcVaNaiEXPezG1lVMoIy8jSrv9/view?usp=drive_link - Hingham League of Women Voters (4/16/25, starting @26:20) https://my.lwv.org/massachusetts/hingham/candidate-forums/2025-hingham-candidates-night
It would be an honor to serve as your next Planning Board member and I ask for your vote in the May 3rd Town Election.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Thomas F. (“Tom”) Patch