About 4% of Southborough voters participated in making decisions on Town budgets, spending, authorizations, zoning and more at Monday’s Annual Town Meeting.
The 341 residents approved most of the Articles on the Warrant as proposed. (Note: The peak figure was 341. It was far fewer by the end of the meeting.)
In context of a Warrant covering over $69M in FY261 expenses, the only spending debated was relatively small potatoes. Although, voters did reject a bigger spending request made by a Citizen’s Petition Article.
Plus, there was one proposal for long term savings rejected as too soon to count on.
Here are my highlights from the Discussions and Debates.
Town Budgets
Residents “held” five budgets to ask questions or propose amendments. Only a few of those led to proposed amendments to change the figures. None of those panned out. All budgets were passed as originally proposed.
Planning Board Budget
Claire Reynolds made a motion to remove from the budget $2,600 for membership in the MAPC (Metropolitan Area Planning Council). Reynolds referred to MAPC’s value as helping members access grant funds. Based on the reasons MAPC recently gave for rejecting a recent grant application, she believed that Southborough would better off joining a different committee. She asserted CMRPC (Central Mass Regional Planning Association) would better align with the Town’s values.
Planning Board Member Debbie DeMuria, the Town’s representative on MAPC, explained that the council’s assistance extends beyond grants. She said they provide Planning Boards with access to legal policy, “all kinds of tools”, and a set of priorities that can be emulated.
But it was a member of the Affordable Housing Trust that changed Reynold’s mind. Ellen Marya explained that MAPC was working with them for potential support on the Town’s Housing Production Plan. After learning that, Reynolds withdrew her motion.
Economic Development Coordinator
Meme Luttrell asked to lower the amount in the Economic Development budget for the Coordinator. Luttrell reminded that Special Town Meeting voters had approved appropriating funds to cover the cost of shifting the EDC Coordinator from a part time to full time position starting January 1st.
According to Luttrell, Coordinator Leah Emerson had been notified on December 30th that her position wouldn’t be turning to full time on 1/1/25, so she resigned.
Luttrell followed that when she reached out to Select Board members, they told her they didn’t know how that happened. She questioned how the board could defy the voter’s approval of spending the money.
In the discussion that followed Select Board members asserted that Emerson was still serving in the role just under a contract rather than as an employee. They weren’t sure whether her contract would be extended after June 30th or the position advertised.
Select Board Chair Kathy Cook said that she believed Emerson hadn’t been able to increase her hours to full time and was happy with the contract which was based on the rate, hours, and end date that she wanted.
Surprising news that came out in the discussion was that Cook believed that Emerson is currently only working 10-12 hours per week.
Back in September, voters agreed to the budget ask after being told that the 19 hours she had been working as a part-time employee weren’t enough to do the job. And the pitch was the Town’s hope that investing in the position would help bring in commercial tax revenue to offset residential taxes. In this case, the taxes were raised but the investment wasn’t made.
There was no clear explanation for why the board chose to grant the contract, rather than advertise for a full time coordinator. But upon questioning, Cook asserted the board does intend to turn it into a full time position starting July 1st, which is why they didn’t decrease the budget item.
Town Counsel Jay Talerman confirmed the executive branch’s right to not fill a position Town Meeting approved the budget for. Town Meeting can’t dictate the board’s hiring decisions even if they were the reasons given for the spending.
The motion to reduce the budget failed.
Police Staffing and Benefits
In contrast to the prior two asks, Bonnie Phaneuf asked to increase the budget for the Police Department by $27,720 and Benefits by $9,133. The request was to allow the Police Department to hire two “desperately needed” new officers effective July 1st. Phaneuf said this would allow for a School Resource Officer and Detective position that were “long overdue”.
Select Board member Andrew Dennington said the budget as proposed by the Select Board included hiring those positions next year. That was based on the staffing study showing the need. The difference was that the board budgeted staggering the start dates over the course of the year to be fiscally responsible.
Phaneuf’s son Adam asked for confirmation that the department is overburdened and understaffed, but the Select Board chose to delay fixing that to save $27K.
Chair Kathy Cook responded that they believed that given the SPD’s current vacancies it was unrealistic to think that the Chief could fill the positions on July 1st. The board didn’t want to raise taxes if the jobs couldn’t be filled. She followed that it was a small enough amount that she wouldn’t be upset by Town Meeting making the increase.
Bonnie Phaneuf countered that she was confident Chief Newell could fill the positions now that Town Meeting ratified the new Collective Bargaining Agreement “that’s more competitive with our neighbors”.
Without first asking for a vote by hand, Town Moderator Paul Cimino instructed voters to use the “clickers”. The Motion failed 135 to 153. Reaction in the hall indicated apparent surprise at the result. The subsequent vote on the benefits failed by a larger margin. Between and following the votes there were questions raised about some voters’ clickers not confirming their votes were registered.
About 8 minutes was taken to test and troubleshoot the clicker. At that point, Cimino shared that the vendor confirmed a resident’s suggestion that the 20 second voting window had been too short for the system to accept all of the votes through the wi-fi.
Drumhil Shah asked “in fairness” shouldn’t the Police Budget amendment be revoted. Cimino rejected that, saying the margin wasn’t close enough. Jim Waddell pointed out that the number of votes not included in the total exceeded the vote margin. Cimino responded that its possible not everyone voted and that some voters had left, so it would be “absolutely unfair”. (Read more about voters’ reactions to clicker use in a future post.)
Pay & Classification Study
The majority of voters chose not to spend $25K on a Pay & Class Study of Town jobs in FY26.
Personnel Board Chair Jason Malinowski introduced Article 12 to fund contracting the study covering all non-union Town employees not under contracts. While the state requires the Town to conduct one every four years, the board was requesting to move it up by a year.
Doug Peck questioned why it was worth spending that much after only three years, and how many employees were covered by the Salary Administration Plan. When later in the discussion he learned the number was about 40, he sounded incredulous. Malinowski clarified that was only counting the full time personnel. (The number of part-time jobs also impacted was never stated.)
Malinowski said the last survey was done “coming out of the Covid years”. Based on the “number of items we are dealing with for a variety of different positions” the board felt this was a better approach then to “cherry-pick” or deal with “one-off situations”. They recommended the study, “so that we don’t have basically a line at our door”.
Reynolds asked if there would be financial effects if this was being done because people are underpaid. Malinowski answered, “potentially” and confirmed that the results of the last study “had a cost to it”.
Reynolds asked if the Town was losing people because they are underpaid. Malinowski answered that there had been significant turnover. Reynolds countered that isn’t necessarily due to pay.
Upon questioning by Patricia Burns Fiore, Malinowski confirmed the Personnel Board hadn’t been pleased with the last study’s results. Fiore asked if the had gotten money back. Malinowski responded that he believe they “got what they paid for” from the study which he believed was only a $10-12K contract. He believed the new study was needed to avoid the “risk of potential turnover”.
The motion failed.
Un-rescinded Debt for Cleanup
Earlier in the meeting, under Article 9, the Select Board asked the Town to rescind borrowing authority for $627,960 of the previously approved $4.3M to clean up the Breakneck Hill Farm Dump. According to Cook, the project was “done” and these funds weren’t needed.
Upon questioning, Cook explained that the Mass Dept of Revenue advised that borrowing authorization should be “cleaned up” and closed out when it is no longer needed.
That prompted questions from Carl Guyer who described the area as looking “like a bomb went off there”. He said that the huge crater hadn’t yet been restored.
Members of the Stewardship and Conservation Commission echoed to say that there was still significant restoration work needed. Stewardship member Freddie Gillespie stressed that the unrestored area creates a vulnerability for an infestation of invasive plants which would be more costly to fix in the long run.
After consulting with the Finance Team, Cook clarified that there would still be $275K remaining after rescinding the $628K, which was believed sufficient for the remaining work. She explained that the figures and status came from Conservation Agent Melissa Danza. Since Danza is on maternity leave, she wasn’t there to answer questions.
Commenters felt it was premature to rescind the funds without having full confidence they wouldn’t be needed. The motion was indefinitely postponed.
Opposition to Funding Potential Investigation
Guyer’s Article (#37) was also related to the Breakneck Hill Farm Dump. Pointing to the expense the Town incurred from the situation, Guyer asked voters to pay to hire an attorney to ask questions about “what went wrong” to possibly avoid a future repeat.
Stewardship Chair Joyce Greenleaf commended the Conservation Commission and Agent, and voters, for supporting the cleanup. She was looking forward to it being restored but did not support the Article. Guyer later rebutted that as and “overly optimistic version”. He stressed it was his pushing, and not actions of the Conservation Commission (which he formerly served on) or other committees that led to the cleanup. He blamed the Town’s desire to “look the other way” for getting “us into this problem”.
Dennington said that the Select Board didn’t feel it was a wise investment. Based on statutes of limitation there didn’t seem to be a path to recover funds. And the Town would be appropriating funds to potentially sue itself.
Gillespie said she had been advocating for cleanup of the dump for 25 years. She opined there are many reasons it wasn’t done. She was glad that Guyer made a big enough stink to get the clean up done. But she couldn’t see value in an investigation pointing fingers at committee volunteers who served over the course of 30-40 years. To avoid repeats, better due diligence is needed before buying property. She said the Open Space Commission has been vetting potential parcels to ensure the Town doesn’t accept land that has a farm dump.
The Article failed.
CPA Article to Restore Town Common Fence
Note: This topic, which is about questions I was the only voter to raise, is awkward to cover. But it would seem like sin of omission to not include it.]
The CPA (Community Preservation Act) Article (#26) asked to borrow $121K to fund restoring the historic fence on the Town Common. The money is for a restoration company to disassemble, repair and paint the iron rails, repair granite posts, and fill in missing posts and rail sections. You can read more about the project here.
I explained that the railing sections at the bottom appear to have disappeared during the Main Street Reconstruction project. Google maps shows them there before (Oct 2018), then gone when the stone wall was reconstructed (Nov 2029 view). The work was prior to the current DPW Superintendent Bill Cundiff being hired. I had reached out to him to find out if the DPW had kept those sections of railing and they would be restored. He responded that he didn’t know what had happened to them.
I expressed upset that the Town appeared to have neglected caring for the railings but was now asking voters to spend on fixing the fence. Plus, I noted that there had been discussion that historic preservation funds were being tapped out. And while the board wasn’t aware of projects in the pipeline, they hadn’t sounded confident that there wouldn’t be future ones brought forward.
Then I referred to a comment that Select Board member Al Hamilton made on a post in which I had noted that the project wouldn’t directly impact taxes since it is paid for using CPA funds. That had included:
If you believe that the CPA does not effect your tax bill, I have bridge that connects Brooklyn to Manhattan that I can let you have for a song.
(You can read his full comment here.)
I also highlighted Hamilton’s past opposition to the amount of CPA funds being spent on the historic downtown district. I asked if he was willing to explain why despite those concerns, he had recommended that this was a project that should be brought to Town Meeting voters.
Cimino called the question “out of order” for singling out one member. He instructed that I could ask for the board’s position but not poll individuals.
So I asked the board to explain why they weren’t concerned that funding this project could lead to future tax impacts.
Hamilton responded. He clarified that there would be a question of whether it would be the best use of the money if the CPA funds weren’t segregated. But since they were segregated, they supported the project. And he noted that it was the Community Preservation Commission’s job to vet and bring forward the funding requests.
Select Board member Marguerite Landry followed up that the Select Board members supported the Article but it was up to Town Meeting voters to decide if that’s how they want to spend the money.
CPC member Lisa Braccio indicated she was confused by some of the board’s comments since it was the Select Board that proposed the project.
The project had been proposed by Dennington on behalf of the board, who also worked with the Historical Commission Chair Kevin Miller.
Early on in the discussion, Miller enthused about the project to restore the fence that he felt “embodies when you look at it broadly the entire 300 year history of the town”.
Miller highlighted that in 1866, the “Civil War obelisk” on the Town Common was built, along with the retaining wall and granite steps directed toward the memorial monument. Then in 1887 the Town voted to erect a fence. Then in 1926 Town Meeting was asked to authorize paying to repair the fence or to remove it. He followed:
I think you know to their everlasting credit earlier generations of this town said yes to their history and voted to fund the repairs. And a 100 years later we have that . . .
I hope that a 100 years from now voters at a town meeting will look back on what we did tonight and said that we did the right thing
After my comments, Jim Colleary said that the CPA funds had long been a “bee in his bonnet”. He objected to some of the past uses related to private properties and said that he hadn’t originally been sure how he would vote. But this was “a project finally for the Town”. And if we weren’t going to fix it we should tear the fence down “because that looks like heck”.
He opined the spending was worth it to beautify the center of town.
The motion passed overwhelmingly.
