Special Town Meeting Overview (Updated)

Above: In fall 2016, the Special Town Meeting drew a crowd. Will voters show as much interest in the proposed MBTA Zoning and other Articles on the Warrant this Monday night? (image cropped from SAM video and town seal)

All registered Southborough voters are encouraged to act as the Town’s legislature on Monday night. If you are planning on attending Special Town Meeting (or thinking about it), here are the important details you may want to know in advance.

For the details on the Articles voters will decide on, scroll down.

How will participation work at this meeting?

The Town Meeting will open at 7:00 pm on on Monday, September 30th at Trottier Middle School. Extra handicap spaces will be set aside near the front doors.

Keep in mind in terms of timing that when high interest Articles cause a big turnout, the lot can fill up. There are times that voters have needed to park down the hill at Neary School and walk up. (I really don’t know how big or small the turnout will be this year.)

The main hall is in the school’s auditorium. (That’s where most Article presenters will make their case, either from mics on the floor or the Select Board’s table on the floor.) But voters who want to bring their children while still participating will be able to do that in the cafeteria. (Voters can also speak from mics in the auditorium, but no children are allowed there.)

Even voters without kids may choose the cafeteria if you want to eat while participating. (No food is allowed in the auditorium.) Girls Scouts will be selling snacks and drinks in the hallway (and/or you could bring a dinner).

Cafeteria details:

• The cafeteria will have full audio/video and microphone capabilities for full participations
  • When a voter wishes to be recognized, they’ll approach the microphone stand and a camera will display their image on a monitor at the Moderator’s podium.
  • When the voter is recognized by the Moderator, their image will be displayed on the main screen in the auditorium as they are speaking.
  • A Deputy Moderator will be present in the cafeteria to oversee the room and Town Clerk staff will also be present.
• Parents MUST supervise their children at all times – babysitting will not be provided.

Some parents are concerned the meeting will go too late for their kids. That obviously depends on bedtimes. And the Article that most of the public seems interested in weighing in on (MBTA Communities Zoning) is likely to have a long debate before final votes are cast. But the Articles that precede it (1-7) are likely to be quickly resolved (either through a consent agenda or quick votes).

The Moderator has commented on my initial description to of the plan for time limits on presentations and comments, which he described as “quite inaccurate”. Rather than risking inaccuarately summarizing his comments, I’ll point you to them directly below this post.

Most of these Articles will only require a simple majority. (I believe only Article 15, which includes borrowing funds, requires a super majority, over 2/3 approval, to pass.) If a vote is too close for the Moderator to call at a glance of raised hands, voters will be asked to use remote “clickers” to vote. (That will eliminate the long process of doing headcounts.)

What will we be voting on?

You can read the full Warrant here. Below is my summary, along with links to related coverage.

When voters are checking in, they will be pointed to a table with handouts that some Article presenters have submitted to inform or persuade voters. (A few have shared theirs with me, which are included in prior coverage of topics.)

The quick ones are up first.

Moderator Paul Cimino has announced that six of the first seven Articles will proposed to be approved through a single vote as a “consent agenda”. (Any voter can pull items he proposes from the list.)*

For the one that isn’t (Article 2) and any others that get pulled, I’m not expecting there to be much discussion before voting to approve. (Although, it’s not completely unusual for unexpected debates to pop up prompted by questions or objections from voters.)

1. Amend Personal Salary Administration Plan* — Adds to the list of Town employee jobs a DPW Laborer (Salary Grade 1), Health Agent (Grade 5 – to be split with Northborough), Health Director (Grade 8), and more seasonal fee-based personnel positions (including interns).
2. Amend Town Code – PILOT Committee — At committee’s request, to more easily meet quorum, reduces number of seats from 7 to 5, (eliminates designating seats for representative of Capital Planning Committee and the vacant Council on Aging rep)
3. Amend Town Code – Solid Waste Disposal Committee* — eliminates a committee that hasn’t been seated in years
4. Amend Town Code – Consumer Advisory Commission* — eliminates a committee that hasn’t been seated in years
5. Amend Town Code – Minutes* — Makes requirements for minutes of board/committee meetings clearer (like the inclusion of a list of documents used in the meeting), and calls for the Town Clerk to publish a monthly list of boards/committees that aren’t in compliance.
6. Acceptance of MGL c. 200A, §9A – Collection of tailings* — Allows the Town to collect unclaimed checks, which would be applied as revenue to the Town’s “General Fund”. Otherwise the funds go to the state.
7. Acceptance of MGL 53F3/4- Special Revenue Fund for Cable-related Revenue* — The fees that are collected from cable companies for funding public access media need to be put in a special fund based on recent changes to state law.

Articles 8-18 are more likely to require discussion

The following Articles are ones that will definitely have at least a brief presentation and are much more likely to prompt debate on the floor. (Although, the Moderator will suggest including Article 13 in the Consent Agenda.)* The first one up is the one that has been attracting the most public attention:

8. Zoning – MBTA Communities Overlay District — This is a bylaw to allow up to 15 units per acre of multi-family housing by right in specified sections of town. It is proposed by the Planning Board to meet the requirements of a state law. There are groups of residents vehemently opposed and enthusiastically in favor. Read my most recent overview here, and additional coverage including letters to the editor here.
9. Select Board Recommendation for Public Safety Dispatch Services — This is the Select Board’s follow through on prior promises that they wouldn’t act to enter a regionalized 911 system without first reporting back to Town Meeting voters. It is a non-binding request for voters to support their choice to join a Metrowest RECC. Read more here.
10. Citizen Petition – Appointments to CPC from boards and committees — This is a request from upset Community Preservation Committee members to give the authority of appointing its members designated as representatives of specific committees to those committees (taking that authority from the Select Board, which would still appoint the at-large members). Read more on the topic here.

The following two go together:

11. Amend Town Code – Establish Board of Trustees of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund  
12. Amend Town Code – Eliminate Southborough Housing Opportunity Partnership Committee

    The Select Board has publicly voiced frustration at the lack of progress in developing Affordable Housing projects despite having funds available for use. They decided that streamlining the committees that work on the issue would improve the situation.

    They wanted to merge the Affordable Housing Trust Fund Committee (AHTFC) and Southborough Housing Opportunity Partnership Committee (SHOPC) into a new, revamped committee. It appears they discovered that Town Meeting had already, approved revised language in 2005 that meets part of that need, but it was never followed through on for the state to approve. They are looking for voters to ratify that previously passed amendment to Town Code related to the AHTFC (Article 11), and also to eliminate SHOPC (Article 12).

13. Amend Fiscal Year 2025 budget* — This would add $17,068 of previously unbudgeted line items to the budget. It wouldn’t increase projected taxes for FY25 since the costs would be covered by “surplus overlay funds”. (Click on image right for the details from the Warrant.)
14. Appropriation for Economic Development Coordinator position — This asks voters to invest in making the EDC Coordinator a fulltime position, in hopes of better increasing and retaining businesses in town and expanding the commercial tax base (to offset residential tax burdens). Read more here.
15. Appropriation for Breakneck Hill Farm Dump Remediation — The Town is legally required to clean up an old farm dump on Southborough Conservation Land. Voters previously approved the cost, but the Town recently learned that the expense is double what was expected. Another $2,127,960 needs to be borrowed. (Requires a super majority to pass.) Read more here.
16. Appropriation for new Lieutenant position for Police Department — This asks voters to address a staffing “crisis” in the police department by adding the cost of an additional command position. That funding to cover January through June would add $76,733 to the amount of taxes that need to be raised for FY25. Read more here.
17. Amend Town Code – Annual Town Meeting date — Several years ago, voters approved a Citizen Petition to make scheduling of the meeting friendlier to families by opening it on the a Saturday in March (between most sport seasons). It’s frequently a schedule challenge for Town officials (especially for budgeting) and voter participation didn’t seem to increase. The Select Board is now asking for the authority to decide what makes sense for the timing each year, as long as it isn’t later than the last Saturday in April.
18. Citizen Petition – Recall Bylaw — The Petition asks voters to “require” the Select Board establish a law by which voters can recall elected officials, modeled on Hopkinton’s law. (Town Counsel has opined that it is non-binding as written.) Read more here.

For any possible updates on Special Town meeting, see the dedicated page on the Town’s website here and my past and continuing coverage here.

Updated (9/29/24 1:07 pm): Moderator Paul Cimino has commented on my initial description to of the plan for time limits on presentations and comments, which he described as “quite inaccurate”. Rather than risking inaccuarately summarizing his statement, I’ll point you to the text directly below this post.

*Updated (9/29/24 1:38 pm): Cimino also announced in his comment that he will suggest a Consent Agenda to approve Articles 1, 3-7, and 13. As always, it only takes a single voter to pull any of the Articles from the list to instead be discussed/voted on separately.