Ralph T. McDonald

Ralph T. McDonald (died 2013) was a Billerica Town Meeting member for more than thirty years, twice a member of the Planning Board, and a Cemetery Commissioner from 1988 to 2005.

In 1970, as a Town Meeting member from Precinct 4, he was the lead petitioner of an article asking the town to establish a seven-member Planning Board under Chapter 41, Section 81A, of the General Laws. In 1971 he chaired the Apartment Study Committee until he resigned, and he ran for a four-year seat on the Planning Board, polling 1,719 votes to Gerald M. Finnegan's 2,232. He was elected to the Planning Board for five years in 1975 and served until he retired from it at the election of 1980. In those years he was vice-chairman of the Permanent Street Acceptance Committee and the Planning Board's representative on the committee on withdrawing from the Northern Middlesex Area Commission, and in 1977 he was lead petitioner of an article asking the Moderator to request the resignation of the members of the Finance Committee "in order to restore public confidence in said Committee." He was chairman of the Precinct 4 town meeting members in 1975, and that year the Cemetery Department welcomed him as its provisional superintendent.

On March 28, 1980, the assessors appointed him associate assessor, but he resigned on July 11 because of the demands of his occupation; the town later listed him as an associate assessor from 1989 to 2002. In April 1986 he was appointed to fill Ann Mulcahy's unexpired term on the Planning Board. He served on the Personnel Board from 1987 to 2000 and on the Cemetery Commission from 1988 to 2005, as its secretary in the mid-1990s; at a town meeting in 1994 he moved the transfer of $100,000 from the sale of lots account to repair and improve the roadways and entrances of Fox Hill Cemetery. By then he represented Precinct 7, and in 1993 he joined the Town Meeting's Rules Committee. He died on September 6, 2013.

References

1. Billerica Town Report 2013, In Memoriam: Ralph T. McDonald, deceased September 6, 2013; Planning Board, Town Meeting, Cemetery Commissioner, Associate Assessor
2. Billerica Town Report 1970 (1969-1971 volume), warrant Article 79: establish a Planning Board of seven members, submitted by Ralph T. McDonald et als.
3. Billerica Town Report 1975, report of the Cemetery Department: Ralph McDonald welcomed as provisional Superintendent
4. Billerica Town Report 1980, Board of Assessors: Ralph McDonald appointed Associate Assessor March 28, 1980, resigned July 11, 1980