Above: Over 1½ years after withdrawing from an IMA with Westborough and Grafton, Southborough is signing back on to join them in forming a RECC. (image edited from agreement and of Town seal)
On Tuesday night, the Select Board voted to sign an amended agreement with Westborough and Grafton to form a public safety dispatch center.
The three towns will work towards opening the Metrowest Regional Emergency Communication Center (MRECC) in Westborough by the summer of 2026.
The board made clear there is still a lot of work to do in order to meet that goal. Chair Kathy Cook said she still had questions about how the center will work, but those could be answered later.
Board members stated that the Agreement was essentially the same as the version the Town had agreed to in 2023. (Scroll to the bottom for details on one change.) That spring, the board withdrew from the agreement during an opt-out period. The vote was on the heels of a Town Meeting in which voters made clear their opposition to the RECC.
Cook referred to the new decision as “done”, since there won’t be an election to change board members until after this opt-out period expires. Earlier this fall, the board successfully secured support to proceed from Special Town Meeting voters
The agreement does have an exit clause for towns who decide to withdraw later in the future, but it comes with potential financial penalties.)
The future center will be run out of the Harvey Building at 20 Phillips Street in Westborough — a historic former school and municipal building. The relocation from the originally planned site on a former toxic superfund site eliminated one of the main public objections to the original agreement.
There had also been objections by dispatchers and their supporters worried about the impacts to their jobs, and community members who worried about the concept of a regional center and having our police station “go dark”.
At the Special Town Meeting, Select Board member Al Hamilton presented the board’s case for the need for entering an agreement for a RECC to improve community safety without exploding costs for taxpayers.
He described going dark as a misnomer. He explained that if you enter the station today, the dispatcher remains behind the glass window and “will not come out”. A member of a RECC on a video screen would have “pretty much the same” abilities as current dispatchers to “summon the required resources to deal with the crisis” and even lock and unlock the doors.
Hamilton made clear the board would probably reenter the MRECC agreement rather than join a different RECC or 911 center. Voters overwhelmingly voted yes on the non-binding article of support.
The agreement still includes a term that, Hamilton had opposed in 2023 as taking away budgetary control for the Town’s share of the costs from Town Meeting voters. At Tuesday’s meeting he quipped:
I would prefer a different funding mechanism but you can’t always get what you want. . . you try sometimes you get what you need.
Hamilton pointed out that there was one significant change since the original agreement. Instead of a member of the Select Board having a seat on the MRECC’s administrative board, that will be designated for the “Chief Administrative Officer”, Town Administrator Mark Purple. Purple will designate Town Treasurer Brian Ballentine to act as Southborough’s CFO on the board.
Cook noted that they’ll expect Purple to provide regular updates in Select Board meetings.
Both the Fire and Police Chief will also be part of the governing organization.
To read the agreement, click here.
