Wellesley’s Select Board has approved the list of 46 articles to be discussed and voted on at Annual Town Meeting starting on April 1.
Town Meeting is the 240-member voting body that serves as Wellesley’s legislative arm (the Town Meeting roster should be filled out come the annual town election on March 5). Town Meeting members will receive recommendations ahead of the meeting from the town’s appointed Advisory Committee, which vets articles and the motions within them (Advisory will hold a public hearing on the articles on Feb. 12.). Advisory’s report on Town Meeting articles is much easier reading than the warrant itself.
The first batch of articles are largely procedural, followed by those focused on funding town operations and capital investments. Zoning articles and citizen petitions, those filed by individuals rather than town bodies, round out the warrant.
The big one: Approving the FY26 budget. The Town and School Department have both been working to finalize their budgets for pre-Town Meeting vetting.
All about personnel
The town’s Human Resources Board will get in on the action early, with articles 4 and 5, having to do with overdue revamps of Wellesley’s job classification and compensation plans. The Select Board at its Jan. 14 meeting (See Wellesley Media recording) heard from the Human Resources Board on this matter. Article 7, from the Select Board, seeks to adjust the elected Town Clerk’s salary.
Later in the warrant, Article 31 would give the Select Board permission to hit up the state’s General Court to approve a special act that would allow police and fire personnel to live further away from town than currently stipulated. While lots of Wellesley public safety officials are compensated quite well, those starting out may not be able to afford housing in or near Wellesley.
Schools and play
Article 18, from the School Committee, tackles the sweaty topic of funding design, engineering, and bidding services to bring new or improved air conditioning to the middle school as well as Bates, Fiske, and Schofield Elementary Schools. AC has been an issue raised at the past couple of Town Meetings, with some members vowing not to vote for other capital expenditures until the AC situation is addressed at schools.
Under Article 22, the town would gain funds to upgrade playgrounds at Fiske and Upham Elementary Schools, plus Ouelette Park.
Under Article 19, the schools look for funding to bring team rooms to the Hunnewell Track & Field, as that facility undergoes a continued makeover highlighted by the lights introduced last year. Under Article 21, funding is sought to upgrade the field irrigation system.
Continuing on the theme of Hunnewell recreation area upgrades, the Board of Public Works under Article 24 aims to get funding to upgrade the Hunnewell tennis courts along Rte. 16/Washington St. The twist here is that the town may convert one of the eight tennis courts into a few pickleball courts.
Zoning and housing
The articles in this category look to be a tad less controversial than those from some past Annual and Special Town Meetings.
The Wellesley Housing Development Corp. was established in 1998 with a mission “to sponsor and assist in the development of affordable housing opportunities for persons of low, moderate, and middle income in the Town of Wellesley in order to implement the Town’s Affordable Housing Policy.” The appointed body, which has been reconstituted in recent years with an active roster of members, is revving up to convince Town Meeting under Article 34 to approve a change to the organization that would make it an affordable housing trust with much more flexibility to get things done. The Housing Development Corp., has attempted to address all concerns raised a few years back by the Select Board and other town bodies as it makes a renewed pitch, which is supported by the Select and Planning Boards.
Other zoning/housing related articles hit on topics such as syncing the town’s accessory dwelling unit rules with new state ones as well as updated flood plain and mobile home rules.
A citizen petition seeks to return the residential incentive overlay (RIO) bylaw to its original state in an effort to discourage development of big multifamily housing projects in residential neighborhoods. Lots more people in town became aware of what RIOs where during Special Town Meeting in the fall, when two motions related to zoning map changes (and possible RIO projects) failed to pass. The Advisory Committee had plenty of questions and suggestions for the proponent during a session earlier this month; the Planning Board didn’t appear to favor this approach to revising the RIO bylaw during its Jan. 27 meeting, though indicated potential for changes after the town’s Strategic Housing Plan comes out and further discussion is had (see Wellesley Media recording, about 3.5 hours in).
Morses Pond, fire truck, Weston Road, veterans, Skip the Stuff, and PFML
We’ve run out of ways to categorize articles…
The article on the Community Preservation Committee always offers a variety of topics for Town Meeting to mull, and this year is no different. The CPC, by way of the Community Preservation Act, disperses funds, raised by a surcharge on property taxes, to support open space, affordable housing, and historical preservation. This time around funds are being sought to support the transfer of a 6-acre Wight Pond parcel near the Wellesley Farms train station from trustees who have held it since the 1950s to the town. Also on the list is funding for a $170K Morses Pond Beach Project Supplemental Feasibility Study based on a request from the Natural Resources Commission.
Article 17, if approved, would facilitate a new fire truck coming to town.
The Board of Public Works also looks to give Weston Road an overdue facelift via Article 20 with a $4M construction project that would start right after school ends. A hearing about the project took place earlier this month, with people raising questions related to pedestrian and cyclist safety.
Articles 28 and 29 would up Wellesley’s support for the state’s HERO Act that would give veterans more of a break on property taxes.
Article 35, known as the Skip the Stuff article, would require local restaurants to establish customer opt-in for single-use utensils and single-serving condiments in the name of reducing waste. The Climate Action Committee, Select Board, and Board of Health have all thrown their support behind this effort, which would be in line with similar rules in nearby communities as well as big cities and some states across the U.S. The thinking is that most people wind up tossing this stuff, and that restaurants could save a few bucks by not doling it out willy-nilly (some already adhere to this opt-in practice).
Article 42, a citizen petition, would have the town adopt the Paid Family & Medical Leave (PFML) program that went into effect in Massachusetts in 2021. While most companies are required to support PFML, no municipalities have yet adopted it (nearby, citizen petitions to adopt PFML have been filed in Natick). Wellesley educators are behind this article—if it winds up not making it through Town Meeting, don’t be surprised to hear about it during the next round of school contract negotiations in town.
Our personal favorite: Article 32 could modernize legal notices
Under Article 32, the town will look to get the General Court’s permission to publish legal notices on digital platforms without having to post them in print publications. The current state law is badly outdated and requires municipalities to fritter away tax dollars by posting legal notices in print newspapers that few people see these days (the town can currently post legal notices on sites like Swellesley as long as it also posts them in a print publication). We’ve worked over the years with Rep. Alice Peisch’s office to try to get the state law updated.
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