Frederic R. Brown

Frederic R. Brown took an active part in Billerica town government from the late 1960s into the 1990s, as a Town Meeting member, as a member of the Planning Board, the Board of Health and the Finance Committee, and as the sponsor of a number of citizens' petitions to town meeting. He was first elected a Town Meeting member in 1967. That year he also ran for the Regional Vocational School Committee, finishing second to Kenneth L. Buffum, 1,330 votes to 1,270.

The petitions he filed for the town meetings of 1968 and 1969 asked for a five-day work week for all full-time employees of the fire department; for an East Billerica Fire Station Building Committee, with $1,000 for an architect's preliminary studies for a station to cost no more than $60,000; for removing the Village Residence Districts from the zoning by-law in favor of a single residential district with a minimum lot of one acre and 125 feet of frontage; and for requiring a deposit of up to five percent of the estimated cost of construction with every building permit. In 1970 he was elected to the Planning Board for five years, leading the poll with 1,108 votes, and served with Joseph Collentro, Albert A. Dickinson, Roger Biagiotti Jr. and Bernard A. McDewell. In 1971 he petitioned town meeting to have the Planning Board study a combined police and fire station and spend $3,000 on a complete set of plans for one, and he ran for an unexpired term as associate assessor, finishing second to Charles H. McNulty.

In 1978 he was elected to the Board of Health with 1,790 votes, ahead of John P. Murphy with 1,257 and Norman M. Menzies Jr. with 820, and served as its secretary under Paul R. Kelley until 1981. In 1979 he petitioned to rezone two lots on Tremont Road at Nuttings Lake from industrial to village residence. He ran for the Billerica Housing Authority in 1985 and lost to Walter F. Coakley, 1,515 to 1,074. Appointed to the Finance Committee in July 1987, he served until 1992. In 1990 he petitioned town meeting to ask the Middlesex County District Attorney to investigate the records of the tax collector's office from 1978 to 1988; after he spoke on the article the meeting voted unanimously to dismiss it. In 1991 town meeting adopted his article creating a five-member committee to study whether town departments could be privatized, regionalized or consolidated, and he sat on the resulting Privatization Committee as the Finance Committee's appointee. He remained a Town Meeting member into the mid-1990s.

References

1. Billerica Town Report 1968, warrant articles 148-153 submitted by Frederic R. Brown and others: fire department five-day week, East Billerica fire station committee, zoning, building permit deposits
2. Billerica Town Report 1971, warrant articles 53-54 submitted by Frederic R. Brown: study and plans for a combined police and fire station
3. Billerica Town Report 1985, annual election: Billerica Housing Authority, Walter F. Coakley 1515, Frederic R. Brown 1074
4. Billerica Town Report 1990, warrant Article 5 submitted by Frederic R. Brown: request for a District Attorney investigation of the tax collectors office, 1978-1988
5. Billerica Town Report 1991, warrant Article 25 submitted by Frederic R. Brown: committee to study privatizing town departments
6. Billerica Town Report 1991, town meeting action on the privatization study committee article: motion carried