Alex Hagerty worked to try to re-elect former President Donald Trump — and now he is seeking higher office in his hometown.
Hagerty, an elected member of the Abington board of health, is running for selectman in the upcoming Saturday election. The 26-year-old Republican, who works in human resources, was the director of Trump PRIDE Massachusetts in the 2020 election cycle. That was a pro-Trump LGBT coalition that Hagerty headed as an openly gay man.
Hagerty has served on the board of health since 2018 but sees being on the board of selectmen as an opportunity to help improve his hometown’s economy and improve its infrastructure.
“I’ve loved serving on the board of health, but after this year and seeing what’s going on as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic — the economic turmoil and things of that nature — I think it’s important moving forward that our board of selectmen really steps up to the plate to make sure we have a strong economic recovery,” Hagerty told NewBostonPost in a telephone interview on Tuesday night. “We need team players working with every aspect of the town so we’re not having an economic downfall in a year or two.”
Selectmen present an operating budget to Town Meeting for approval and decide whether or not to bring tax hikes through Proposition 2 1/2 overrides to the voters, so board members have a lot of influence over how high local property taxes get. Selectmen also decide what percentage of the tax levy burden falls on residential property owners versus commercial property owners.
“People in town are always talking about how taxes are really high and to lower the burden for taxpayers, I want to see us grow our commercial base,” he said. “We have a lot of empty commercial properties in town, so we need to let Abington know we’re open for business. And our part of Union Point is just commercially zoned, but there’s nothing there. We need to look at how we can put something there to help our local economy. We could be bringing in millions of dollars in revenue depending on what the projects are.”
Roads are often a focal point of a board of selectmen. A town gets a certain amount of money from the state for local roads through a law called Chapter 90, but that’s typically less than a town needs to keep up with maintenance.
“And I want to make sure we’re working on our infrastructure,” Hagerty said. “We always hear from people that driving down Lincoln Street is a disaster. Most of our road work is being paid for by Chapter 90 funding. That’s not nearly enough to fix the roads the way the DPW wants to.”
Hagerty noted that Congress may pass an infrastructure bill at some point this year, and if it becomes law, it would give Abington more funding for roads. He envisions consulting with the town’s congressman, U.S. Representative Stephen Lynch (D-South Boston), someone he has spoken to a couple of times before, to ensure that the town receives its share of funding to upgrade its infrastructure.
Last year Hagerty concentrated on federal politics. As the Trump Pride director for Massachusetts, Hagerty campaigned for the now-former president both within and outside of Massachusetts. He also helped campaign for an array of candidates, including ones in state legislature and Congressional races. He even went up to New Hampshire and door knocked for Trump.
“As a gay Republican, I was really proud to be a part of the first LGBTQ coalition for a Republican candidate for president — and a president that actually was a Republican,” he said. “I’m fiscally conservative somewhat socially liberal, but to see this coalition and the Republican Party embracing the LGBTQ community, I really wanted to do it.”
Hagerty said that he loved that Trump was the first president to take office being comfortable with same-sex marriage and said that he cried tears of joy during Trump’s 2016 Republican National Convention acceptance speech because Trump spoke positively about the LGBTQ community. (During that speech, Trump referred to a then-recent mass-shooting at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, saying the victims “were savagely murdered by an Islamic terrorist” and that “As your President, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBT citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology.”)
Hagerty said that he wants to promote inclusion in the Republican Party and send the message that the LGBTQ community’s home isn’t just within the Democratic Party.
Hagerty is one of three candidates running for a pair of selectmen seats in town. The others are incumbent selectman Tim Chapin and Christine Henrikson, a member of the board of sewer commissioners. The election is Saturday, April 24.
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