For Brian Arrigo, the commissioner of the state’s Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), being on the other side of a faceless letter from the agency was a familiar experience when he was the mayor and a councillor in Revere, home to the state’s largest and oldest public beach, and its officials were at odds with DCR over one thing or another.

Now that he’s the head of that same agency, and its 450,000 acres of state property, which include tracts in Dorchester and Mattapan, Massachusetts residents and their local governments likely will encounter a new way of doing business that will be more of a kitchen table conversation than a discussion about a piece of paper filled out by a bureaucrat.

“We can’t just send a letter; we need to pick up the phone or go see people and talk to them,” he said during a recent visit to the offices of the Reporter.

“A core value for us and for me, especially having been a municipal official, is that municipal officials know best what’s going on in their backyard,” he said. “We may own the properties and we’re the largest landowner in a lot of different places, but we need to be able to listen to what’s happening. If we really, truly want to make an improvement in quality of life for the residents, we need to listen to the residents most impacted by our property.”

The 43-year-old Arrigo is one of just a few former municipal leaders to lead the agency. He came into the job in April, having been appointed by Gov. Healey after he served seven years as mayor of Revere, and before that, two terms on its City Council.

He grew up in a family long entrenched in that city’s civic and social life. His father was a ward councillor representing the Revere Beach area for many years, and his mother was a kitchen coordinator at the Revere Housing Authority. He graduated from Revere High School, attended Suffolk University, and worked in government at the state level and with former Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone.

Arrigo lived in Revere with his wife, Daveen, and their two sons until recently when they moved to Acton.

He knows what it is to watch his kids on a slide at a state park, what it is to knock on a strangers’ doors and ask for their vote, and what it is to listen to residents. In his experience, Revere Beach has been a central player, and the agency has not always been easy to work with.

“I’m coming to this job from a place where I joke that I was on the other side of the street,” he said. “I have the bumps and bruises and injuries, both internally and externally, to prove that I was a stakeholder and partner with DCR. Some of that was good. Revere Beach is awesome now. It wasn’t always that way and I felt it could have been more efficient and gotten ahead quicker if folks were more willing and more apt to take more of what we wanted to do into mind.”

Arrigo was a part of a consortium in his beach city home that spent years poking and prodding DCR to improve their beach, at a time when urban beaches and urban assets were often overlooked while resources were directed to suburban and rural sites.
In the past, Revere Beach was often empty and without programming. Now it features an international sand sculpting festival, and is seen as a desirable place for locals and visitors to spend an afternoon by the water.

Arrigo hopes that same transformation can take place under his watch at other urban waters, like Dorchester’s Tenean, Malibu, and Savin Hill beaches.

Arrigo called the money and work on Revere Beach a sort-of blueprint showing how the city used that investment to a point where people were scrapping among themselves just to get on it. “We were begging people to come for a long time, and then it turned into fighting people off and trying to create some competition, which was healthy,” he said.

He uses four core values, he said, when investing in DCR properties like urban beaches, spaces like Ryan’s Playground, and new greenways such as Edgewater Drive in Mattapan or Morrissey Boulevard at Commercial Point. They include equity, economic opportunity, public health, and climate change.

“The other part is making sure they are safe places,” he said, noting the fact of incidents on Revere Beach and other state properties around the Commonwealth. “The best-laid plans are great but if you have a riot on a property, you’re going to fall back from that momentum that can carry you to significant advancement.”

The task now, he said, will be to elevate DCR’s brand and its ability to invest in its often-overlooked properties so that Malibu Beach in Dorchester is as safe, serene, and desirable as Walden Pond in Concord.

“We always kind of look down our nose at other states like Alabama and Mississippi … meanwhile we spend less than them in our public park system,” he said. “Gov. Healey is going to change that.”