BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF CHARLES LYONS
CHAIR, BOARD OF SELECTMAN, ARLINGTON, MASSACHUSETTS
AND SECOND VICE PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL LEAGUE OF CITIES

Selectman Charles Lyons, first elected in March of 1981, is currently serving his seventh three-year term of office on the Arlington Board of Selectmen. Elected Chairman of the Board of Selectmen by his colleagues for the fourth time, he will become the longest serving elected Selectmen in the history of the Town of Arlington when his current term ends in April of 2002. Mr. Lyons is Chairman of the Town of Arlington's Affordable Housing Task Force and is also Chairman of the Massachusetts Municipal Association's Task Force on Housing and Land Use.

In December of 2001, Mr. Lyons was elected Second Vice President of the National League of Cities, the oldest and largest municipal organization in the country. The NLC serves as a resource and advocacy group in Washington D.C. for 18,000 cities and towns and all state municipal leagues. Mr. Lyons is the only Selectman ever elected as an officer of the NLC, and is slated to become the second Massachusetts local official to lead this eighty-year old organization when he is expected to assume the role of President of the NLC in December of 2003.

In his work with the National League of Cities, Mr. Lyons has served on the NLC Board of Directors and Advisory Council, was a member of the Infrastructure Task Force, and was a vice-chair of the Energy, Environment, and Natural Resources Policy Committee. Mr. Lyons chaired the NLC Advisory Council in 1999, coordinating the Advisory Council's year-long project that resulted in the publication of the NLC's most sought after document "Undoing Racism: Fairness and Justice in America's Cities and Towns."

Mr. Lyons was President of the Massachusetts Selectmen's Association in 2000. He served as a member of the Massachusetts Municipal Association Board of Directors from 1986-1990 and from 1994 to the present. He has been a member of the Governor's Local Government Advisory Council since 1994.

Mr. Lyons was one of the first 18-year-olds in the country elected to a town or city position when he was elected to the Arlington School Committee in March of 1972. He served on the Arlington School Committee through 1979 and was elected Committee Chairman in 1977. The Arlington Chamber of Commerce has honored Lyons as "Youth Leader of the Year Award" in 1972, "Citizen of the Year Award" in 1984, and "Community Service Award" in 1990.

For the past two decades Mr. Lyons has been Chairman of the Town of Arlington's Budget and Revenue Task Force. He has been a guest speaker and lecturer on local government in local colleges and has testified at numerous legislative hearings on the importance of local aid to cities and towns. In 1990 Mr. Lyons was co-chairman of the first successful override campaign to protect critical basic services and in 1998 served as co-chair of the successful debt exclusion campaign to begin the needed modernization of the Town of Arlington's elementary schools.

In the early 1980s he initiated a multi-year commitment to upgrade the Town of Arlington's water and sewer systems. He was instrumental in acquiring state and federal funding to repair the Dow Ave Pump Station, the Spring Street Pump Station, and the Brattle Street Pump Station. In the 1990s his efforts were instrumental in acquiring funding to make substantial repairs to the two water towers in the Town. Due in part to these sound infrastructure investments, water and sewer fees have not increased in Arlington for the past seven years. In 1985, the chief elected officials from fifty-three eastern Massachusetts communities appointed Mr. Lyons to the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) Board of Directors. This eleven-member board was established by the Massachusetts Legislature to clean up Boston Harbor and ensure safe drinking water to two and a half million citizens in Massachusetts. Re-appointed to the MWRA Board of Directors in 1988 and 1994, he chaired the Personnel Committee, the MWRA Retirement Board, and served on its Finance Committee. In 1989, he was a key organizer initiating the national 'Combined Sewer Overflow Partnership,' an organization of over 100 municipalities throughout the United States, effectively lobbying both Congress and the federal Environmental Protection Agency on CSO-related issues. He served as Secretary to the CSO Partnership from 1989 to 1997.

Due primarily to his engagement in these important environmentally related responsibilities, Lyons received the "Governor Francis E. Sargent Award" from the Boston Harbor Associates in 1985, and in 1988 was the recipient of the "Ten Outstanding Young Leaders Award" from the Boston Jaycees.

Professionally, Mr. Lyons has been the Superintendent/ Director of the Shawsheen Valley Technical School District, located in Billerica, Massachusetts, since 1987. Appointed by a ten-member elected School Committee, Mr. Lyons is responsible for a staff of approximately 200 employees providing critical vocational technical educational services for 1,200 high school students and 300 adults. As Superintendent/Director, he developed a decentralized fiscal management system, initiated a five-year capital budgeting system, and implemented an extensive technology improvement plan. In 1996, he served as President of the Massachusetts Association of Vocational Administrators and has served on the MAVA Board of Directors since 1988.

Mr. Lyons has spent most of his 48 years in the Town of Arlington. His service to the community spans four decades. In 1996 he was admitted into Arlington Catholic High School's Hall of Fame. He is a member of the corporation of the Arlington Boys and Girls Club, and a member of the Board of Trustees of Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge. He earned both his BS Degree in Political Science and his Master's Degree in Educational Administration from Boston State College. He is married to Robin Noyes Lyons, and they are proud parents of three college-aged children: Christine, Lisa, and Michael.