Hegarty and Kolenda re-elected; Braccio wins open BOS seat; Public Safety is a Go

The Town of Southborough tweeted the news. Town Clerk Jim Hegarty and Selectman Dan Kolenda won their re-election bids. The new addition to the Board of Selectmen is Selectwoman Lisa Braccio.

An exemption to prop 2 1/12 for the Public Safety Complex passed 1085 to 493.

I’ll follow up with more details tomorrow.

Updated (5/10/17 11:51 am): In looking at the headline again this morning – I wondered if anyone misinterpreted “2nd BOS seat” as meaning Braccio came in second.  (In fact, she won the most votes.)

To clarify – I meant that Kolenda kept his seat and Braccio won the seat left open when Paul Cimino chose not to run for re-election. At the time, I hadn’t looked at the results to see how anyone ranked. So, I’ve changed the headline to be more accurate.

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JIM FOLEY
6 years ago

Congratulations to all three.

SB Resident
6 years ago

The public safety complex override vote would feel a whole lot better if it didn’t feel like we were seemingly lied to in order to get it to pass.

Todd
6 years ago
Reply to  SB Resident

I don’t know what that means. Can you explain?

SB Resident
6 years ago
Reply to  Todd

This quote from the Board of Selectman Chair Brian Shea.

“By saying yes to this ballot question, the Town has a solution to its need for locating a Public Safety Facility, and has the opportunity to maintain control over this land.”

I used the word seemingly on purpose because it isn’t a flat out lie, but the wording of that quote implies that without the yes vote that the current Public Safety Facility plan would be derailed, which is not true. The entirety of the letter never even mentions what the ballot question was actually about.

The debate on the question should have been whether or not it is reasonable to exclude that money from the prop 2.5 Cap. I personally don’t think that it is reasonable, but would be more willing to accept that the rest of the town disagrees if I was confident that they knew what they were voting for. Everyone I talked to didn’t want to answer no in fear of losing all the progress that has been made so far.

There is clear public support for the new complex. I support the concept, but the current design is over the top for our community. It is obvious that several members of the board of selectman have strong ties to people in the public service departments and wish to give them the very best. I think we should simply give them the best of what they NEED. With the strong public support I fear the selectman will feel emboldened to not be responsible with our money as the final design of the facility progresses.

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