Annual Town Meeting on Monday night: Town asks “Will you attend?” & promotes details

Above: Unlike last fall’s Special Town Meeting, ATM attendance was low last spring. Now the Town Clerk is looking to promote attendance while a Town survey seeks to gauge how many plan to attend or why not. (images edited from SAM 2024 video and Town survey)

All registered Southborough voters are encouraged to participate in Annual Town Meeting this Monday, April 7th, 6:30 pm at Trottier Middle School. (Scroll down for a reminder of the details.)

A new 3 question survey this morning is asking the public, will they? And if not, why?

In this post, I’ll cover the survey, an overview of what Town Meeting is (for unfamiliar voters), this year’s logistics, and what’s on the ATM Warrant.

Town Meeting Survey

Taking the 1 minute survey is quicker than reading this post!

Those who won’t/might not attend can check off their reasons why (or type their own “other” reasons).

All participants are also invited to share any suggestions for improving participation. Click here to participate.

The survey is put together by the Municipal Techonology Committee. MTC is seeking for feedback before the meeting takes place. They plan a follow up post-Town Meeting survey. (Participants in the pre-meeting survey can provide an email if they want to be notified of the post-Town Meeting survey.)

Overview of Southborough’s Town Meetings

This section is for those who haven’t been paying attention or are new to the Town Meeting concept. Other readers can scroll down.

Town Meeting is voters’ chance to act as the Town’s legislature. Instead of voting on bills, voters approve, reject, and even amend Articles in the Warrant. Before the votes, voters are able to ask questions and advocate for their positions on the Articles.

The Articles cover requests for funding budgets and projects, changing Town bylaws (including zoning), granting authorities to Town officials, and Citizen Petition Articles. (The petitions are sometimes “advisory” requests for Town officials to take specific actions.)

How well attended the meetings are depends on what Articles are on the Warrant. The “Annual” meeting each spring has the longest Warrant since it includes most of the Town’s funding and administrative requests for the year. In recent years, voting on a proposed “Consent Agenda” has allowed quickly taking care of many at the outset so that time isn’t wasted on standard, non-controversial Articles.

The elected Town Moderator runs the meetings. To avoid a free-for all, voters must be “recognized”, and identify themselves, in order to make comments, etc. There are rules/formalities in how the meeting is run and the Moderator has some discretion on what is/isn’t allowed (and how long presenters and commenters can speak).

Special Meeting are sometimes called later in the year for one or two topics. Usually, other Articles get tacked on that weren’t ready for the spring annual but proponents feel can’t wait for the following spring.

This year, two “specials” are planned. The one scheduled for May will be dedicated to the Neary Building Project. (That’s Saturday, May 10th at 9:00 am at Algonquin.) Another one is expected in the fall with those details and topics TBA.

Logistics for Annual Town Meeting 2025

Town Clerk Jim Hegarty asked me to promote the Monday, April 7th meeting and his overview of details. Happily, that overview specifies that IT vendors will be there to help make sure close votes can be tallied using the “clickers” instead of head counts.

Families with Children are Welcome: The main hall for voters and officials will be in the Trottier Middle School auditorium. But, the Town will repeat an effort launched last fall to welcome families through a busy room in Trottier’s cafeteria. (There is no need to sign up in advance for that, but there isn’t babysitting provided. Parents must stay with their kids.) The A/V setup will allow voters in that room to see and hear what’s happening in the main hall, plus make comments and vote. (Read the details on how that will work in Hegarty’s overview here.)

As usual, extra handicap spaces will be setup near the front doors.

The meeting is scheduled to open at 6:30 pm, with check-in opening at 5:30 pm. (To get through business quicker once the meeting convenes, some informational presentations will be made starting around 6:15 pm. None of those are directly related to Articles on the Warrant.)

If there is an issue meeting quorum the Moderator will wait until it is met to open the meeting. (He could also choose to wait if there is a line of voters still checking in.)

ID isn’t required to check in, but having your license out is recommended to speed things up.

There will be food and beverage sold by the Girl Scouts in the hallway. (I expect that to just be snack food.)

Food is not allowed in the auditorium.

What Voters Will be Deciding this Monday

There are 36 Articles on the Warrant, but many of those will be consolidated into a “Consent Agenda” vote.* I’m guessing only about 16 of the Articles will be individually discussed, and far fewer will be debated. In the case of any close votes, voters’ “clickers” should allow much quicker counting than in the past.

The 2025 ATM Warrant covers changes to the Salary Administration Plan for non-union Town employees, all Town and school budgets, and requests to fund capital expenses. (Plus, fairly standard administrative articles.) This year, there are three zoning bylaw amendments proposed and two new proposed uses for Community Preservation Act funds. There is also one non-binding Citizen’s Petition Article.

I previously covered that the Town’s Articles (if passed as proposed) were projected to cause a 7.5% tax increase in 2026 for average single family homeowners. I learned yesterday that Advisory might project a slightly lower figure. But that report isn’t available yet. (Neither figure includes the Citizen Petition Article, since it isn’t part of the Town’s proposed spending.)

A recent presentation by Kathy Cook (Select Board Chair and Chair of the Neary Building Committee Financial Subcommittee) projected a 7.9% increase. But that figure is only if voters later also approve the school building project. (Those votes would be through the May 10th Special Town Meeting and May 13th Annual Town Election.)

Below is the full list of Articles in the Warrant. The Town Moderator still hasn’t posted which Articles will be on his proposed Consent Agenda, but I used gray font for those that I think are likely to be.¹ I bolded the Articles that I’m assuming will be individually explained (even if briefly and undebated) prior to a vote.

Below, I’ve also added links to the items I’ve previously written about. (Stay tuned for more coverage of others.)

1. Acceptance of Monies from Contributors*
2. Borrowing Authorization*
3. Authorize Select Board and Supt. of Schools/Three Year Contracts (allows them to sign contracts with terms up to 7 years)*
4. Amend the Personnel Salary Administration Plan (Updates to position grades, salary schedule and stipends)
5. Collective Bargaining Agreements
6. Fiscal Year 2026 Budget (click here for the budget, here for my dedicated post, and here for an update on the police staffing issues related to some of the increases requested in the budget)
7. Fiscal Year 2026 Water Budget
8. Annual Appropriation for OPEB Trust Fund
9. Rescind Unused but Authorized Debt for Breakneck Hill Farm cleanup
10. General Government Capital Items (non-borrowing) (Funding $400K for Road repairs, $55K to replace Trottier Middle School’s curtains & rigging and over $80K for a new police cruiser. Plus additional items to be funded for Facilities, Fire, the DPW and schools but paid using “Free Cash”² or the Ambulance Fund.)
11. Schematic Design for Trottier Middle School Roof ($100K for a Feasibility Study and Schematic Design for the roof replacement)
12. Pay & Classification Study for Non-Union Employees ($25K)
13. Authorize Borrowing from MWRA Loan Program for Lynbrook Road water main replacement ($1.5M 0% interest loan)
14. General Government Capital Items (borrowing) ($4M for replacing a failing culvert and fixing problems related to sinkholes)
    
15. General Government Capital Items (New Leases) (Over $74K for 1st year of lease for DPW equipment to replace a Loader and Dump Truck)
16. General Government Capital Items (Existing Lease payments) (Over $120K for continuing annual payments on items previously approved to leased)
17. General Government Capital Items (Hiring Consultants) ($10K)*
18. Insurance Deductible Account ($10K)*
19. Payment to Retirees for Accrued Leave Time ($35K)*
20. Appraisal Services for Cyclical Inspections ($14K)*
21. Facilities Maintenance Fund ($100K)*
22. Recreation Facility Maintenance Fund ($25K)*
23. Annual Authorization of Revolving Fund Amounts*
24. Appropriation from CPA Funds – Administrative (Designating amounts in funding buckets)
25. Appropriation from CPA Funds – Adjustments
26. Appropriation from CPA Funds – Town Common Fence Rails
27. Appropriation from CPA Funds – Transfer to Affordable Housing Trust (click here for the Town’s posted presentation)
28. Amend Town Code – Zoning – Accessory Dwelling Units (click here for the Town’s posted presentation, and here for my dedicated post)
29. Amend Town Code – Zoning – Unprotected Accessory Dwelling Units (click here for the Town’s posted presentation, and here for my dedicated post)
30. Amend Town Code – Zoning – Parking and Loading Regulations (click here for the Town’s posted presentation, and here for my dedicated post)
31. Award Contract for Valuation Services in Excess of Three Years (This allows the Board of Assessors the ability to sign an up to 5 year contract for this specific purpose)*
32. Accept MGL for Assessor Certification Stipend
33. Allowance for Substitution Labor for Senior Tax Work-Off Program (Would allow senior residents who qualify to participate in the program to designate a volunteer to do the work on their behalf)
34. Accept MGL to Reauthorize Other Post Employment Benefits (OPEB) Fund (This is a recommended administrative action to adopt the state’s updated language around the fund that the Town already established years ago)*
35. Accept MGL for Treasurer-Collector Certification Stipend
36. Accept MGL for Investment of Trust Funds
37. Citizen’s Petition – Appropriation for Counsel for Breakneck Hill Farm cleanup (click here for dedicated post)

You can view the official Warrant here and look for details and more handouts to be posted to the Town’s dedicated website page here.

Stay tuned for separate posts on the May Special Town Meeting.

1. *The “Consent Agenda” list of Articles is prepared by the Town Moderator to expedite the meeting. If the hall agrees, they are voted on as one bundle near the start of the Meeting. (Those that I have marked as likely to be on the list are based on observing lists in past years.) Any single voter can call to pull any (or all) Articles from the Moderator’s list before the Consent Agenda vote. If that happens, those Articles are later presented and discussed in the order originally numbered in the Warrant.
2. Free Cash is “The amount of the Unreserved Fund Balance (Surplus Revenue) account over and above uncollected taxes of prior years”