TRURO — Harlen Howard, 38, thinks it’s time for a change on the planning board and is making his first run for local office. He’s challenging longtime planning board members Paul Kiernan and Jack Riemer, for a three-year seat on the seven-member panel.
Howard isn’t promising a revolution. He says he wants something simpler: a planning board that solves problems, works respectfully, and doesn’t get stuck listening to marathon monologues.
“The board needs to have a less adversarial relationship with the town,” he says. “Making it friendlier is a very big start. I’m going to be a fresh face. I’m going to treat people with respect.”
Howard was born and raised in Eastham and grew up visiting his grandparents, Leonard and Judy Howard, at their house in Truro. After his parents’ deaths, he and his siblings inherited the house. Howard bought out their shares and moved in about a decade ago.
His brother, Aaron, and sister, Jillian, live nearby. The house still bears the evidence of their childhoods: “Our heights are on the other side of the chimney,” Howard says. These days, he shares the house with his two dogs, Frank and Beans.
After graduating from UMass Dartmouth in 2010 with a degree in accounting, Howard returned to the Cape and worked various jobs, including a 14-year stretch bartending at the Wellfleet Beachcomber. A midsummer drinks rush is a lesson in service, he said.
In 2021, he and Truro resident Jonah Turner opened Salty Farmers, a cannabis dispensary in North Eastham. Through that work, Howard says, he’s gotten a ground-level view of the housing and staffing struggles local businesses face.
“I have a staff that I maintain year-round,” he says. Some of them commute from as far away as Plymouth. “We’re listening to people all day who are dealing with various things and trying to make them feel heard and comfortable.”
Housing, and the zoning rules that shape it, are at the heart of Howard’s campaign. He supported the proposed zoning overlay district for Truro’s 70-acre Walsh property, which would allow a mix of housing and commercial development under local control.
“Otherwise, it would just be a 40B property, and the developers would get to decide as opposed to the town having some say in what happens,” Howard says.
He says the overlay district offers a chance to build more “attainable housing” — meaning housing that middle-income workers can actually afford, not just units restricted by certain affordable housing thresholds.
“Local people who don’t necessarily qualify for affordable housing should benefit,” he says. “They might make more than the threshold, but it’s not enough to live out here.”
He has also flagged the need to update the town’s parking requirements for homes and businesses and to rethink the town’s use table, the zoning document that spells out what’s allowed where.
Howard’s main message is about tone. He wants the planning board to approach applicants as collaborators, not adversaries.
“It isn’t my property — it’s not my job to decide what people want to do,” he says. “As long as they have done the paperwork, followed the rules, and the information is credible, I don’t have any reason to stop people or get in their way.”
Howard criticized what he called the planning board’s habit of getting “sidetracked” by aesthetic debates outside of its charge, leading to meetings that drag on and wear down applicants and members alike. “Being direct saves a lot of time,” he says.
If elected, Howard says, he hopes to continue the slow but steady culture shift he’s seen on the planning board over the last few election cycles.
“The board has been starting to move in the right direction,” he says. “I want to work more to problem-solve rather than throw up roadblocks.”
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article, published in print on May 8, incorrectly stated that candidates were running for five-year terms on the planning board. The terms are three years.
