Article 17 itself asks Fall Town Meeting to tighten the Groundwater Protection District, the part of the town’s zoning bylaw (p. 60) that controls what can be built and run on the land feeding the five public wells, by adding commercial feedlots, dry cleaners, auto businesses, chemical labs, metal plating, paint shops and large stores of pesticide to the uses barred there. Town Meeting takes it up Monday, October 19, at 7 p.m. in the high school auditorium, and as a change to the zoning bylaw it needs a two-thirds vote. A subcommittee of Envisioning Future Holliston wrote it, and that committee sponsors it together with the Select Board and the Planning Board.

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What the article would change

The bylaw already keeps a number of uses away from the wells, including landfills and junkyards, most businesses that handle hazardous waste, underground storage of toxic materials and unprotected storage of road salt. Article 17, as printed in the warrant, adds seven more to the list for Zone II, the main recharge area for the wells, and through it to the two stricter zones closest to them:

• commercial animal feedlots, unless inside a structure built to keep runoff from escaping

• dry cleaners, laundromats and other coin or commercial laundries that clean on the premises

• commercial chemical or bacteriological research and development labs

• commercial businesses that sell, service, fuel, wash, lease, rent, repair, solder or weld “automotive vehicles, machines, and equipment”

• storage of 250 pounds or more of herbicides or pesticides on one lot, unless kept in a weatherproof building with an impermeable floor

• commercial plating, finishing, etching or polishing of metals or semiconductors

• commercial painting, wood preserving or paint stripping

The Select Board’s summary counts the same seven. The feedlot limit joins a 2013 rule that already bars storing animal manure in Zone II unless it’s inside a structure built to keep runoff from escaping, and Article 17 defines a feedlot as a commercial operation keeping 25 or more livestock per acre to prepare them for slaughter.

The article changes several definitions too. One describes “automotive” as anything “of, relating to, or concerned with motorized vehicles or machines,” so the auto entry above is worded to reach past car dealers and repair garages to businesses dealing in other motorized machines and equipment. Another defines petroleum products and leaves out propane, butane and liquefied natural gas. A third lengthens the definition of solid waste, which now covers garbage and rubbish, to take in scrap materials, junk, refuse, inert fill, landscape refuse and asphalt grindings, and that matters because the bylaw already bars disposing of solid waste other than brush and stumps in all four zones. And the article drops the word “liquid” from the existing ban on storing petroleum products in Zone II, which keeps its exceptions for household use, heating and emergency generators.

What the Planning Board wants changed

The board closed its public hearing on October 14 and voted 4–0 to recommend that Town Meeting adopt Article 17 with three revisions, which its staff planner restated just before the vote (Recording, 1:08:09):

1. Drop the feedlot limit. Strike “animal feedlots or” from the Zone II prohibitions, and the new definition of a feedlot with it, which would leave the 2013 rule on manure storage as it stands.

2. Take out “landscape refuse.” Keep the rest of the longer definition of solid waste, but without landscape refuse, so that the existing disposal ban doesn’t reach piles of yard waste.

3. Allow the six new business uses with safeguards. Let the dry cleaners, labs, auto businesses, pesticide storage, metal finishing and painting uses in items q through v operate in Zone II if they use technology that keeps stormwater and other material on the site and out of the groundwater.

Members pointed to sealed holding tanks, often called tight tanks, which collect a building’s runoff and spills so they can be pumped out and hauled away, and the owner of an auto body shop on Jeffrey Avenue, one of the businesses on the subcommittee’s list, told the board his shop has collected its rainwater and everything from inside the shop in holding tanks since 2021 (Recording, 0:39:26). The staff planner said the exact wording would need Town Counsel’s review, because state law limits how far a zoning proposal can change once it has been advertised; she said loosening a proposal is generally less of a problem than tightening it, and the board kept the safeguard to the six new uses rather than extend it to every Zone II prohibition (Recording, 1:00:37). Just before the hearing closed, a resident asked who would make sure such systems keep working, saying the town doesn’t have the staff to monitor them, and the board closed the hearing without taking up the question (Recording, 1:10:45). (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved)

James Read made the motion and David Thorn seconded it, and Courtney Black and Barbara Peatie, who ran the meeting, voted with them (Recording, 1:14:38). Jason Santos was absent but sent an email, read into the record, saying he supported the limits on auto businesses, dry cleaners and metal plating, opposed any new restriction on agriculture or landscape debris, and would support the bylaw without those two (Recording, 0:15:52). The staff planner said she would write the board’s report to Town Meeting from the discussion and send it around to members. (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved)

Where the zones are

The district is drawn in four zones, working outward from the wells, and the bylaw spells out each one:

• Zone I is the 400-foot circle around each public well, land the town owns or controls.

• Zone IA is a zone Holliston created for itself, the area each well draws down when it pumps at full capacity for five straight days.

• Zone II takes in the Hopping Brook, Jar Brook, Lake Winthrop, Dopping Brook and Bogastow Brook aquifers, other thick water-bearing sand and gravel, and the land the state has mapped as feeding the wells in a long drought, which it models as 180 days of pumping at the full rate with no rain.

• Zone III is the land beyond Zone II that drains into it.

The new limits apply in Zones I, IA and II, since each stricter zone inherits the prohibitions of the zones around it, and not in Zone III. Zone III gets one change: a commercial or industrial business there that makes, stores, transports or disposes of toxic or hazardous materials already needs a special permit when that is its principal activity, and Article 17 extends the requirement to businesses for which it is an incidental one. The subcommittee’s slides put the protection zones at 26 percent of the town’s land and 1,064 homes. The official maps, drawn in 1996 and approved by the state Attorney General in 2000, are on file with the Town Clerk and the Building Inspector, where an owner can check whether a particular lot is inside, and where a map line and the bylaw’s written description of a zone disagree on a property, the written description controls.

The town’s project page shows the protection zones shaded on a map.

The five wells, numbered 4 through 8, are off Washington Street, Central Street, Brook Street, Mohawk Path and Maple Street, and together they pumped more than 400 million gallons in 2025, according to the town’s 2025 water quality report. The state lets Holliston pump up to 1.16 million gallons a day, the facilities director told the Select Board in February (minutes). The same report shows no contaminant over its state limit last year, with quarterly readings for the six PFAS chemicals the state regulates ranging from 4.58 to 10.1 parts per trillion against a limit of 20.

Who would be affected

The Select Board’s summary says the new limits are meant for future changes in how land is used, and that existing permitted uses, along with businesses outside the zones, are not affected. The subcommittee’s slides list 22 businesses inside the zones that would continue under the new rules: nine that store pesticides, eight auto businesses, three paint or printing businesses, one laboratory and one metal manufacturer. According to the slides, no feedlots, dry cleaners or laundromats operate in the zones now.

How that protection works comes from the zoning bylaw’s general rules in Section I-C, which Article 17 doesn’t change. A use that is lawfully in place, or that holds a building or special permit issued before the town first published notice of the Planning Board’s hearing, isn’t subject to the new limits. The Zoning Board of Appeals can let an owner change or extend such a use by special permit if the change isn’t substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood, and in Zone II an expansion also turns on whether it would be substantially more detrimental to the water supply. A protected use that is abandoned or goes unused for three years loses its protection, although the Zoning Board can restore it by special permit. The town’s project page says the limits “will only apply to permitting changes in land use” and that parcels with existing permits “will not be affected.”

Selling one of those businesses came up at both Planning Board sessions. Town Counsel Jay Talerman told the board on October 8 that a sale doesn’t end a business’s protected status, which carries over to the new owner, unless the business’s original special permit says it can’t be transferred (Recording, 0:48:31). On October 14 the owner of the Jeffrey Avenue auto body shop said he hadn’t known about the hearing until a friend told him, that his shop’s special permit isn’t transferable, and that he worried the change would put off buyers when he sells, and the sustainability coordinator said the subcommittee had mailed invitations to its August question-and-answer session to every affected business it could find, some of which came back undeliverable (Recording, 0:06:45). (from the meeting recordings; minutes not yet approved)

For homeowners, six of the seven limits are written for commercial businesses, and the seventh, on pesticide storage, starts at 250 pounds on a single lot.

A resident raised the proposed housing development at 194 Lowland Street when the Select Board took up the wellhead bylaw on February 25, according to the board’s minutes, and MassDEP says that site lies in the Zone II of three town wells (letter). Article 17 wouldn’t apply to that project, because it is before the Zoning Board of Appeals as a Chapter 40B comprehensive permit, which state rules judge against the town’s bylaws as they stood when the application was filed in January, and housing isn’t among the article’s new limits in any case. The project’s water questions are being decided in that hearing and in MassDEP’s review of its wastewater discharge permit.

How it got to the warrant

Holliston has had a Groundwater Protection District in its zoning bylaw since 1983, and in more than four decades only three permits have been denied under it, according to the subcommittee’s slides. The subcommittee, which the Select Board appointed with members from sustainability, planning and conservation, compared Holliston’s rules zone by zone with those of 11 towns it considers comparable, among them Hopkinton, Medfield, Millis, Natick and Sherborn, and drew the new limits from their bylaws, the town’s project page says. Its slides give two kinds of reasons: new information about contaminants and other towns’ recent revisions, and public concern, citing what they call the top priority in the survey for the town’s Strategic Plan, to “protect and conserve the Town’s water to preserve it for future generations,” along with the discussion over where to put a new DPW facility.

Article 17 amends that bylaw. The wellhead protection plan MassDEP recommended in 2002 would be a separate document, and [add the DPW’s answer on whether the town has one, or that it hadn’t answered by publication]. The sustainability coordinator told the Planning Board on October 8 that the bylaw is meant as “the first step in many,” and that the group hopes next to bring in the Water Department and the Board of Health, seek state money for a study of the town’s aquifers, and take up the septic systems at the homes in the zones (Recording, 0:20:41). (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved)

The record, in order, with the bylaw’s own history drawn from the notes printed with it in the warrant:

• October 1983. A Special Town Meeting adopts the Groundwater Protection District as Article 20.

• 1996 to 2000. Whitman & Howard draws the district’s maps in 1996. The May 2000 Annual Town Meeting revises the bylaw under Article 35, and the state Attorney General approves the maps on September 21, 2000.

• February 26, 2002. MassDEP issues its Source Water Assessment and Protection report on Holliston’s wells (report, pages 614 to 626 of the Central Region file). It ranks the recharge areas for four of the town’s six wells at the time highly susceptible to contamination, listing an auto body shop, an auto repair station, a machine and metalworking shop, an industrial park and hazardous materials storage among the high threats inside them. It recommends that the town develop a wellhead protection plan, which it describes as a way to coordinate community efforts, identify protection strategies and set “a timeframe for implementation,” and that it form a wellhead protection committee, noting the town had neither.

• October 2013. A Special Town Meeting amends the bylaw under Article 19, including the rules for house lots in Zone II and the limit on manure storage.

• December 2017. Researchers from Clark University and Boston University, working with three Holliston residents, publish a peer-reviewed study of the town’s very shallow aquifers, which they rate highly vulnerable to contamination. It documents metals and solvents reported in the groundwater at several sites, and of the wellhead protection plan the 2002 report recommended, it says “none seems to have been developed” (study).

• October 20, 2025. At Fall Town Meeting, during a $508,766 article to study treating the town’s water for PFAS, a resident says a state environmental report about 20 years earlier had recommended a wellhead protection plan for Holliston that was never carried out (minutes), although Article 17 itself doesn’t mention PFAS.

• January 20, 2026. Marcus Partners files a Chapter 40B application with the Zoning Board of Appeals for 250 rental units, 63 of them affordable, on 42 acres at 194 Lowland Street (presentation, MassHousing letter), and the Zoning Board opens its hearing on February 11 (agenda).

• February 25, 2026. The town’s sustainability coordinator tells the Select Board the subcommittee has no draft language yet and is aiming for the October Town Meeting, and in public comment a resident asks about the bylaw and reads a statement about 194 Lowland Street into the record, according to the board’s minutes.

• June 11, 2026. MassDEP conditionally approves the groundwater study for 194 Lowland Street’s wastewater discharge of up to 48,060 gallons a day for 425 bedrooms, finding the site inside the Zone II of Wells 5, 6 and 7, about a mile from Well 5, and requiring its stricter effluent limits.

• August 12, 2026. The subcommittee presents its proposal at a public question-and-answer session (agenda).

• August 19 to October 8, 2026. The subcommittee meets five more times, going over the public’s comments at its August 19, September 24 and October 8 meetings (agendas for Aug. 19, Sept. 2, Sept. 3, Sept. 24 and Oct. 8), and posts its August 19 draft and its October 1 draft online.

• September 10, 2026. The Planning Board discusses the amendment as a possible Town Meeting article (agenda).

• October 8, 2026. The Planning Board opens its public hearing and continues it to October 14 (agenda).

• October 14, 2026. The Planning Board closes the hearing and votes 4–0 to recommend Article 17 with three changes to be offered at Town Meeting (agenda). (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved)

• October 19, 2026. Town Meeting takes up Article 17 at 7 p.m. in the high school auditorium.

What it takes to pass

State law requires a two-thirds vote of Town Meeting to change the zoning bylaw (M.G.L. c. 40A, § 5). The same law says Town Meeting can’t vote to adopt a zoning change until the Planning Board has given it a report with recommendations, or until 21 days have passed after the board’s hearing without one. The board voted its recommendation when it closed the hearing on October 14, and its staff planner said she would write the report for Town Meeting.

Town Meeting can adopt the article, reject it, or amend it and adopt it. It takes up any amendments, such as the Planning Board’s, before the article itself, and the article, amended or not, still needs two-thirds to pass. If Town Meeting rejects the article, the same proposal can’t come back for two years unless the Planning Board recommends it in its final report. If it passes, it takes effect as of the vote once it has been published, though the state Attorney General’s office reviews it afterward and can disapprove parts of it.

Where the boards stand:

• Planning Board: recommends adoption with its three changes, 4–0, with one member absent. (from the meeting recording; minutes not yet approved)

• Select Board: the warrant prints no recommendation; its comment says it approved the article for the warrant.

• Finance Committee: none, since it makes recommendations only on financial articles, according to its report in the warrant.

If Town Meeting turns it down, the subcommittee’s slides say it would look for a compromise with the Board of Health, the Water Department and the town’s economic development officials.

How to weigh in

• Town Meeting is Monday, October 19, at 7 p.m. in the Holliston High School auditorium, 370 Hollis Street, where registered voters can speak and vote (warrant).

• The subcommittee takes comments by email at Envisioningfuture@holliston.k12.ma.us.

• The subcommittee’s October 1 draft shows every change to the bylaw, with new text in bold italic and deletions struck through. The warrant prints the article too.

• The subcommittee’s August 12 slides list the 22 businesses and the comparison towns.

• The Planning Board’s hearing is on the record: the recordings of October 8 and October 14, and the agendas for October 8 and October 14.

If you spot something wrong here, reply to the email or leave a comment, and the correction will run in the next issue with the date.

I use AI to transcribe meetings and to help pull details out of town documents, and I check every figure against the source before publishing; everything in this post links to where it came from.

• Article 3, where the Finance Committee recommends putting $3.3 million into the Capital Expenditure Fund, $1.2 million more than the warrant’s estimate, to rebuild a fund that fell below the town’s minimum after an accounting error

• Article 11, a $3.2 million capital budget, about $1.3 million of it from that fund

• Article 12, three Community Preservation projects, including $125,000 to expand and renovate the Senior Center’s outdoor space with a sensory garden

• Article 14, a second vote on the Placentino and Miller school roof project, which the state requires before it will share the cost

• Article 17, seven new limits on land uses near the town’s five public wells, among them businesses that sell, fuel, wash or repair cars

• Article 18, the Constitution Village citizens’ petition for street lights

Where the money comes from. Articles 1 through 3 would use all of the town’s free cash, the money left over when the last fiscal year closed, which the Finance Committee expects to be $2,709,670 once the state certifies it: $150,000 to the general reserve, $250,000 to the pension reserve and $2,309,670 to the Capital Expenditure Fund, along with $1 million moved from money Town Meeting set aside for DPW facility design in May 2025. Article 11 spends $1,272,030 from the Capital Expenditure Fund, $100,000 from the water system’s retained earnings and $1.8 million from its infrastructure account; Article 12 spends $334,000 in Community Preservation money; Article 13 redirects money Town Meeting set aside for the Central Fire Station in May 2024; and Articles 14 and 18 don’t name an amount.

The Capital Expenditure Fund, which pays for vehicles, equipment and building work, is the money story at this meeting. The Select Board’s message says an independent review traced a reporting discrepancy back to fiscal 2022 and found the fund about $750,000 below the target in the town’s financial policies, and the Finance Committee’s report puts the fund’s uncommitted balance at $758,918 below the policy minimum. In May, Town Meeting put $2,125,611 into the fund and approved $3,455,000 in spending from it. The Finance Committee’s recommendations would leave the fund at $2,812,103, about $1.28 million above the minimum, and the committee warns that without the additional buffer it recommends, the fund would be left “near its policy minimum and ill-prepared to handle an unanticipated expense.”

Two things you may have heard about aren’t on the warrant. The Select Board’s message says a new DPW facility is still in the works: the town has owned 20 Cross Street, the site voters approved in 2023, since August, and is waiting on a federal brownfields assessment expected by the end of the year. And a proposed master plan bylaw that was on the draft warrant was removed by the Select Board on October 5, according to the Finance Committee’s chair (from the meeting recording).

How the votes are counted. Town Meeting decides most questions by a majority of those voting. State law sets a two-thirds threshold for a few kinds of votes, and two of them can come up here: changing the zoning bylaw, which is Article 17 (M.G.L. c. 40A, § 5), and borrowing, which would apply to Article 14 if the motion borrows the money (c. 44, § 2). The warrant doesn’t print the vote each article needs, and the Moderator announces it before each vote.

Articles 1 through 10: reserve funds and personnel rules

Article 1: General Stabilization Fund

• A yes vote: moves $150,000 of free cash into the town’s main reserve, which the Select Board says held $10.96 million on July 1 and would end at $11.11 million, or 14.49 percent of this year’s budgeted spending, inside the town’s policy range of 12 to 18 percent.

• Cost and source: $150,000 from free cash

• Vote needed: majority

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board; the Finance Committee recommends $150,000 from free cash, unanimous

Article 2: Pension Stabilization Fund

• A yes vote: moves $250,000 of free cash into the fund Town Meeting created in May 2021 to pay down the town’s unfunded pension liability, taking it from about $1.92 million to about $2.17 million. State law requires pension systems to be fully funded by 2040, and the Select Board says both systems Holliston pays into are about 60 percent funded.

• Cost and source: $250,000 from free cash

• Vote needed: majority

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board; the Finance Committee recommends $250,000 from free cash, unanimous

Article 3: Capital Expenditure Fund

Worth watching.

• A yes vote: puts money into the Capital Expenditure Fund. The warrant estimates $2,100,000 from free cash, which the Select Board says would leave the fund at about $1.60 million after Article 11, above the $1.5 million minimum (2 percent of operating spending) set by the town’s financial policies. The Finance Committee recommends more (below).

• Cost and source: $2,100,000 from free cash as printed; $3,309,670 under the Finance Committee’s recommendation

• Vote needed: majority. Last October, Town Meeting redirected the same May 2025 DPW money on a voice vote, and in September the Town Manager told the Finance Committee that the state Department of Revenue had agreed with Town Counsel that a majority was enough for the 2025 DPW articles (minutes · town site).

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board. The Finance Committee unanimously recommends $3,309,670: $2,309,670 from free cash plus $1,000,000 from Article 19 of the May 2025 Town Meeting, money set aside for feasibility, engineering and design work on a new DPW facility. Its report says the deposit would bring the fund back into compliance with town policy, pay for Article 11 and leave a buffer for unexpected needs, ending at $2,812,103, about $1.28 million above the policy minimum.

• Background: The report says the committee learned after the May Town Meeting that an accounting error had made the fund figures it was given by the town’s finance team inaccurate, and that the fund’s uncommitted balance turned out to be $758,918 below the policy minimum; the committee says it looks forward to the Town Manager’s and Select Board’s findings on the cause and the fix. At the committee’s October 6 meeting, members agreed Town Meeting should be told plainly that no money is missing, and chair Ken Szajda said “things weren’t properly binned in the buckets.” He called the $1 million transfer temporary, since the DPW money won’t be spent until the town cleans up the property for that project, and said he hoped to put it back before the DPW needs it (from the meeting recording).

Article 4: New job title in the Planning Department

• A yes vote: adds the title Permitting Coordinator, grade 400, to the town’s job classification plan, so the Administrative Clerk who supports the Planning Department can take that title. The clerk’s job is already grade 400, so the Select Board says there is no cost, and it calls the change part of a larger effort to define the role’s responsibilities.

• Cost and source: none

• Vote needed: majority

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board; the Finance Committee, which recommends only on financial articles, made none

Article 5: Personnel bylaw, definition of immediate family

• A yes vote: adds a definition of “immediate family” to the town’s personnel bylaw: father, mother, a relative living in the same household, father-in-law, mother-in-law, sister, brother, spouse, child, grandparents and grandchildren. The Select Board says it mirrors the town’s union contracts, and Article 9 applies it to bereavement leave.

• Cost and source: none stated

• Vote needed: majority

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board; no Finance Committee recommendation

Article 6: Personnel bylaw, background checks

• A yes vote: rewrites the bylaw’s background check section so that job candidates can be required to undergo a sex offender registry check (SORI) as well as a criminal record check (CORI), with the Town Administrator still deciding whether a check affects the hiring decision. The Select Board says the change is meant for positions with potential unmonitored contact with vulnerable people.

• Cost and source: none stated

• Vote needed: majority

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board; no Finance Committee recommendation

Article 7: Personnel bylaw, vacation

• A yes vote: starting July 1, 2027, full-time employees would earn vacation month by month from their date of hire instead of receiving it each July 1, at two weeks a year for up to 5 years of service, three weeks for 6 to 10, four for 11 to 15 and five for 16 or more. In the text being struck, three weeks start after five years and four and five weeks both after twenty, so the new schedule also reaches the top two levels sooner. Carryover stays at 10 days, and departing employees are still paid for unused vacation they have accrued.

• Cost and source: none stated in the warrant

• Vote needed: majority

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board; no Finance Committee recommendation

• Background: The Select Board calls the current policy out of date and not competitive, since an employee hired in July doesn’t receive two weeks of vacation until after the first year of work, and says the town has lost highly qualified candidates in recent months as a result.

Article 8: Personnel bylaw, personal days

• A yes vote: raises personal days for permanent employees from two a year to three and grants them by fiscal year instead of calendar year, with 1.5 days credited on January 1, 2027 and then 3 days every July 1 starting in 2027. Unused personal time would expire at the end of each fiscal year. The Select Board says three days is comparable to nearby towns.

• Cost and source: none stated

• Vote needed: majority

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board; no Finance Committee recommendation

Article 9: Personnel bylaw, bereavement leave

• A yes vote: rewrites the bereavement section, up to five days at full pay at the department head’s discretion, to use Article 5’s definition of immediate family, and extends it to parents who suffer the loss of a pregnancy. The new definition names “a relative residing in the same household” where the current one names “domestic partner” and “significant other residing in the same household.”

• Cost and source: none stated

• Vote needed: majority

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board; no Finance Committee recommendation

Article 10: Personnel bylaw, Town Manager

• A yes vote: replaces “Town Administrator” with “Town Manager” throughout the personnel bylaw and updates the position description, to match the Town Manager Act passed by the state legislature and the October 2024 Town Meeting.

• Cost and source: none

• Vote needed: majority

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board; no Finance Committee recommendation

Articles 11 through 15: capital spending, preservation, the fire station, the school roof and the opioid fund

Article 11: Capital budget

Worth watching.

• A yes vote: spends $3,172,030 on the items below and lets the Select Board trade in or sell old equipment toward them.

  • Schools ($605,000): Woodland Street campus exterior doors, $300,000; Chromebooks, $175,000; Middle School dishwasher, $50,000; high school supplies for a schedule change, $50,000; science curriculum updates, $30,000

  • Public Safety ($287,030): two police cruisers and a hybrid administrative vehicle, $207,100 ($135,000 for the cruisers and $72,100 for the administrative vehicle, per the Finance Committee); fingerprinting system, $40,000; structural firefighting gear, $39,930

  • Public Works ($202,000): 1-ton dump truck, $121,000; sander body replacement, $51,000; grounds equipment, $30,000

  • Facilities ($128,000): a Chevy Blazer EV replacing a Nissan Leaf, which the Finance Committee’s list assigns to the Building and Assessors offices, $52,000; door access controls at 1750 Washington Street, $37,000; wastewater treatment plant SCADA controls, $24,000; door access controls at the library, $15,000

  • Information Technology ($50,000): wireless network access points

  • Water ($1,900,000): water main replacements at Concord and High streets, Northway (the Select Board’s comment says Norland Street), and Goulding Street and Adam Wheeler Road (Lane in the Finance Committee’s report), $1,800,000; lead and copper service line replacements, $100,000

• Cost and source: $3,172,030, of which $1,272,030 comes from the Capital Expenditure Fund, $100,000 from water retained earnings and $1,800,000 from the water infrastructure account

• Vote needed: not printed in the warrant; the Moderator announces it before the vote. Last October’s capital budget, paid from the same fund, passed on a voice vote (minutes · town site).

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board; the Finance Committee recommends the full list, unanimous, and its report notes that the $1,272,030 from the capital fund is below the committee’s usual October spending level

• Background: The service line money is for federal lead rules that require the town to dig down and confirm that every water service connection is free of lead and galvanized steel. The Select Board says 50 excavations are done and 3,038 public-side services of 5,018 connections still need one, the next EPA deadline is November 1, 2027, and more money will be requested. On October 6 the Finance Committee chair passed along the DPW director’s account that the town tests its water for lead routinely and has no lead problem, and that the digging is required wherever a line’s material isn’t on record (from the meeting recording). The water mains cover about 2,500 feet of 8-inch ductile iron pipe at locations chosen for frequent breaks, leaking or broken valves, and repeated service disruptions.

Article 12: Community Preservation projects

Worth watching.

• A yes vote: spends Community Preservation money on three projects:

  • an engineering study of ADA accessibility, erosion control and horizontal infrastructure at Stoddard Park, $94,000

  • window and stucco restoration at the Central Fire Station, $115,000

  • a sensory garden at the Senior Center, $125,000

• Cost and source: $334,000: $94,000 and $125,000 from the Community Preservation general reserve and $115,000 from its historic resources reserve. The warrant prints the total as $209,000, which leaves out the Senior Center project, but the Finance Committee’s recommendation and its fund table both use $334,000.

• Vote needed: majority

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Community Preservation Committee; the Finance Committee recommends all three, unanimous, describing the Senior Center project as the expansion and renovation of outdoor space there

• Background: At the Finance Committee’s October 6 meeting, Frank Chamberlain of the Community Preservation Committee presented the Senior Center money as contingent on the center’s septic system passing a Title 5 inspection. He described the Stoddard Park study as the first phase of a longer project that could add a paved walkway to the beach, a splash pad, a retaining wall to keep sand out of the lake, and eventually new changing rooms and restrooms. The fire station money would restore the stucco and the historic front windows on the 1930 portion of the building, with the rest of the windows to be replaced through a Green Communities grant the town already has. For the garden, he said about $90,000 of the cost has been identified, roughly $38,000 for plants and $52,000 for hardscaping including a new patio, with the rest for irrigation, a pergola and benches, and that the Senior Center says it can maintain the garden with its own budget and volunteers (from the meeting recording).

Article 13: Buying the solar panels on the Central Fire Station

• A yes vote: lets the town use money from Article 22 of the May 2024 Town Meeting to buy the solar array on the fire headquarters at 59 Central Street from the company that owns it, take it down while the roof is replaced, and put it back up.

• Cost and source: an estimated $421,500, moved from the May 2024 appropriation; the Select Board gives the purchase price as $111,283

• Vote needed: not printed in the warrant; the Moderator announces it before the vote.

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board; the Finance Committee recommends reallocating $421,500 from that 2024 article for the roof repair and the solar array purchase, unanimous

• Background: The town signed a power purchase agreement in 2018 with a company that built and owns the array. Town Meeting set aside $300,000 in May 2024 for the roof, which the Select Board says is “in dire need of repair,” but the agreement would charge the town more than $100,000 to disconnect and move the panels during the work, and that has held the project up. The Select Board says buying the array costs about the same as keeping the current arrangement and lets the town keep all of the energy savings. At the Finance Committee meeting, members said the $421,500 is what remains of two fire station lines in that 2024 article, $300,000 for the roof and $135,000 for improvements including windows, and that it would now cover the roof and the solar purchase because a grant covers the windows (from the meeting recording).

Article 14: Placentino and Miller roof, second vote

Worth watching.

• A yes vote: provides money, spent under the School Committee’s direction, for a feasibility study and schematic design for partial roof replacements at the Miller and Placentino elementary schools at 235 Woodland Street. The article states that any cost beyond what a state grant covers is the town’s alone.

• Cost and source: no amount stated. The article allows the money to be appropriated, borrowed or transferred, so the amount and its source will be in the motion made at the meeting.

• Vote needed: two-thirds if the motion borrows the money, since state law requires two-thirds to authorize debt (c. 44, § 2); a majority if it uses money the town already has

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board; the Finance Committee recommends favorable action, unanimous; the warrant prints no School Committee position

• Background: Last October, Town Meeting approved $1,350,000 for the flat sections of these roofs as one line of the capital budget (minutes · town site). Since then the Massachusetts School Building Authority has invited Holliston into its Accelerated Repair Program, which pays part of the cost, and the Select Board says the authority requires its projects to be approved in a standalone article, so the project needs a second vote in that form.

Article 15: Closing the opioid settlement fund

• A yes vote: closes the Opioid Settlement Stabilization Fund that Town Meeting created in October 2023 and moves what is in it to a special revenue account. The Select Board says a state law signed in December 2023, and later Department of Revenue guidance, allow settlement money to be kept that way, and that money in such an account can be spent “without further appropriation, at the direction of the chief executive officer,” only on what the settlements allow: prevention, harm reduction, treatment and recovery. Town Meeting would no longer vote on how it is spent.

• Cost and source: none; the warrant doesn’t say how much is in the fund

• Vote needed: not printed in the warrant; the Moderator announces it before the vote.

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board; the Finance Committee recommends favorable action, unanimous

Articles 16 through 18: sewers, the wells and the street lights

Article 16: Sewer Commission report

• A yes vote: none is taken; Town Meeting hears the Sewer Commission’s report on bylaws for a sewer district.

• Recommendations: sponsored by the Select Board, whose comment says only “To be heard at Town Meeting”

Article 17: Groundwater Protection District

Worth watching.

• A yes vote: amends the Groundwater Protection District section of the zoning bylaw to prohibit seven more uses in Zone II, the aquifers and main recharge areas that feed the town’s five public wells, and therefore in the stricter zones closest to the wells as well:

  • animal feedlots, defined as 25 or more livestock per acre raised for slaughter, unless inside a structure built to contain runoff

  • dry cleaners and coin or commercial laundries that clean on the premises

  • commercial chemical or bacteriological research and development labs

  • businesses that sell, service, fuel, wash, lease, rent or repair motor vehicles, machines and equipment

  • storage of 250 pounds or more of herbicides or pesticides on one lot, unless kept in a weatherproof building with an impermeable floor

  • commercial plating, finishing, etching or polishing of metals or semiconductors

  • commercial painting, wood preserving or paint stripping

  It also adds several definitions and drops the word “liquid” from the existing ban on storing petroleum products in Zone II, which keeps its exceptions for household use, heating and emergency generators. The Select Board says the new limits apply to future changes in land use, and existing permitted uses are not affected.

• Cost and source: none

• Vote needed: two-thirds, which state law requires for zoning changes

• Recommendations: sponsored jointly by the Select Board, the Planning Board and Envisioning Future Holliston; the warrant prints no Planning Board recommendation, and the board’s public hearing on the article was continued to October 14; no Finance Committee recommendation

• Background: The town’s project page says the rules haven’t been significantly revised since 2000, and the full redline is on pages 18 to 29 of the combined warrant (PDF · town site). The proposal comes from Envisioning Future Holliston’s Wellhead Protection By-law Subcommittee, to meet goals in the town’s Strategic Plan, and at last October’s Town Meeting a resident pointed out that a state report about 20 years earlier had recommended a wellhead protection plan for Holliston that was never carried out (minutes · town site).

Article 18: Citizens’ petition, Constitution Village street lights

Worth watching.

• A yes vote: as printed, has Town Meeting vote to install street lighting on the Constitution Village roads, paid for from available municipal funds or other sources. The motion expected on the floor is narrower. The Finance Committee’s report supports a motion “to request that the Select Board develop a comprehensive plan for street lights in areas where there are deficiencies,” and on October 6 the committee heard that the petitioner, working with the Town Manager, plans to move that Town Meeting ask the Select Board to identify streetlight deficiencies across town, Constitution Village included, and to work with the Finance Committee on a funding source and financing plan, with no money attached. Committee chair Ken Szajda said he expects Town Counsel to tell Town Meeting the motion is advisory only (from the meeting recording).

• Cost and source: no amount in the article or the planned motion. At the Select Board’s September 28 meeting the petitioners gave a working estimate of about $250,000 for 27 lights on foundations and conduit already in the ground, a figure they said still needs confirming.

• Vote needed: majority

• Recommendations: brought by citizens’ petition; the Finance Committee supports that motion, unanimous; the warrant prints no Select Board recommendation; its comment is summarized below

• Background: The petitioners told the Select Board that street lighting was part of the subdivision’s original approval and was never finished. In its comment on the article, the board says that on October 5 it asked the Town Manager to set up a town-wide process for evaluating streetlights on public ways, new lights included, as part of the FY2028 budget work that begins in January 2027, and that the process would take in Constitution Village. The Town Manager told the Finance Committee the board would likely act on a streetlight prioritization plan before the end of November (from the meeting recording).

If you’re going. The town asks people to arrive 15 to 25 minutes early to check in, and there is preferred parking for seniors and closed captioning (town notice). I’ll post the results after the meeting from the HCAT video and the Town Clerk’s certified votes. If you spot something wrong here, reply to the email or leave a comment, and the correction will run in the next issue with the date.

I use AI to transcribe meetings and to help pull details out of town documents, and I check every figure against the source before publishing; everything in this guide links to where it came from.