Arthur L. Doyle

Born	1933-04-15 East Boston, MA
Died	2023-04-17 Longboat Key, FL
Town Meeting
In Office	1970 - 2011
Planning Board
In Office	1972 - 1977
Select Board
In Office	1977 - 1998
Town Registrar
In Office	2006 - 2011

Arthur L. Doyle (1933 to 2023) was an engineer who served on the Billerica Select Board for twenty-one years, from 1977 to 1998, after five years on the Planning Board, and who sat in Town Meeting for some thirty-five years. He was born at home in East Boston on April 15, 1933, the son of Arthur H. Doyle and Mae (A'Hearn) Doyle, and graduated from East Boston High School and the Peterson School of Engineering. He worked for a few years as engineer in charge at Wakefield Hospital, then for twelve years as a machinist at a Boston shipyard and for twenty-eight years as a first-class engineer at Polaroid in Waltham. He moved to East Billerica in the 1960s and lived for many years on Whipple Road. A singer, he was often called on to lead the National Anthem at the opening of town meeting, first as a town meeting member in 1972 and later as a selectman, and he sang in the choir of St. Theresa Church and as a vocalist at the Billerica Elks Lodge.

He ran for a three-year seat on the Planning Board in 1971 and lost, and in March 1972 he won a five-year seat by eight votes, 2,593 to 2,585, over Paul F. Ford. The board's report for 1972 explained that "our newest member Arthur Doyle, elected in March 1972, was challenged to a recount and was not able to sit on the Board for a few months," although he attended every meeting. He became the board's chairman, chaired the Dolly Brook Reservoir committee formed in 1974 to study ways of adding water to the Concord River at times of low flow, and chaired the local Growth Policy Committee, which in 1977 reviewed the regional growth study of the Northern Middlesex Area Commission and appeared before the state's Special Commission on the Effects of Growth Policy at the State House.

Doyle was elected a selectman in March 1977 and re-elected in 1980, 1983, 1986, 1989, 1992 and 1995, serving through most of the 1980s as vice-chairman under Thomas H. Conway Jr. with Gordon C. Brainerd, Thomas Greenhalgh, George S. Gracie Jr., David F. Delorey Jr. and Stephen J. Lentine. For years he was the board's representative to the Northern Middlesex regional planning agency, and he chaired the town's Street Acceptance and Discontinuance Committee, reporting its recommendations to town meeting. In 1990 he explained to town meeting a user fee of 25 cents a month on the water bill to pay for a recycling program, and he was a founder of the town's Recycling Committee, which he later chaired. In 1991 his share of the board's subcommittees included Community Teamwork, the Cook Street, Cross Connection, Solid Waste, Recycling and Street, Traffic and Drainage committees and the Middlesex County Selectmen's Association.

After his re-election in April 1992 Delorey "handed over the Chairmanship of the Board to Arthur Doyle." That year, in the depth of the recession, the board dealt with a budget shortfall of about $1.5 million that brought the town's first layoff of public safety personnel, and in the late fall the long-sought traffic signals at Boston Road's intersections with Webb Brook Road, Bridge Street and Treble Cove Road went into operation; the board's report said that Conway and Doyle "deserve particular praise because of their commitment and tenacity in remaining prime proponents of these projects for the last decade." He was still chairman in 1993, when Paul F. Ford and Brion M. Cangiamila unseated Delorey and Mary V. Wiroll, and on March 1, 1994, as Billerica's representative to the Lowell Regional Transit Authority Advisory Board, he announced with the authority's administrator a new bus link for Billerica and Greater Lowell. He represented the town on the transit authority's board until 2012.

In April 1998 he finished third for two seats, with 2,154 votes behind Ellen Day Rawlings and Michael S. Rosa, and the board thanked "former Selectman Arthur Doyle for 21 years of dedicated service to our community." He remained active for another decade and more: as clerk and chairman of the Precinct 10 town meeting delegation, as chairman of the Recycling Committee, on the street renaming committee that renamed 217 streets, the Middlesex Canal Committee, and the building committees for the new library, the rebuilding of the Town Hall and of Billerica Center and the North Billerica train station, and from 2005 on the Board of Registrars, to which he was appointed to finish the term of Patrick Trainor. He was also secretary of the Billerica Little League and Senior League for nine years and a member of the Knights of Columbus for seventy years. He died at his home in Florida on April 17, 2023, aged 90, and after a funeral Mass at St. Theresa Church he was buried in Fox Hill Cemetery, Billerica.

Arthur L. Doyle

Arthur L. Doyle

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