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Debi Bejot has been a Harvard police officer, a Harvard alderwoman, the Harvard bookkeeper and then finance director. Bejot is now Harvard’s city administrator. “I have been around for a long time, and with different roles in the city,” Bejot said. “It puts me in a good situation. I have the ability to see the city from many different perspectives.” She moved to Harvard for the police department job in 1995, and served on the City Council as a 2nd Ward alderwoman in the late 2000s. Then, in 2010, she left the Council to take on the city bookkeeper role. Bejot was promoted to finance director/treasurer as longtime Harvard Administrator Dave Nelson “was doing his succession planning” as he was set to retire after 35 years in the role, Gejot said. “Dave left the finance portion in my hands.” Since April, she has been the interim city administrator, stepping into Nelson’s successor, Lou Leone’s, role. The outgoing Harvard City Council did not renew Leone’s contract with the city in April, and he was then placed on administrative leave. Leone has sued Harvard, claiming unpaid benefits and severance, saying he was dismissed without cause. Bejot’s stepping into plans that began under Leone, including the road program. Harvard is set to sell $3.8 million in bonds in January. That 15-year bond will allow Harvard to give its road construction and maintenance plan a kick-start, leveraging the 1% sales tax approved by voters in Spring 2023. The plan is to sell construction bonds and use the sales tax income – estimated at about $1 million a year – to pay off the bonds. The road construction plan will allow Harvard to do major projects across its four wards in the first year, then maintenance projects in the following four years. “If we decide this is successful, we can do another 15-year bond and do more improvements in the 6th year,” Gejot said. Other projects that are high on Harvard’s priority list include a new strategic vision plan, parks master plan, and capital improvement plan. A downtown master plan is also in the works, in hopes to draw more business and investment into the Ayers Street corridor. “It is the hope that the downtown master plan will be able to identify ... some of the businesses and the owners to spark interest in filling” empty buildings," she added. Filling staff positions, including the now-vacant community and economic development director spot, will be crucial for that development, she added. Her experience and knowledge of Harvard “does a lot of good for the city,” said Harvard City Clerk Scott Logan. A former Alderman, he was on the Council with Bejot in the 2000s and has known her as both a city employee and socially as a friend. “She is a very intelligent woman who has taken steps to further educate herself on how city government works,” Logan said. Bejot received a master’s degree in public administration in 2019 and has undergraduate degrees in criminal justice administration and political science. “I think she will provide to be a great asset to Harvard as an administrator,” Logan said.
