Fall Town Meeting took up all 18 articles on its warrant on Monday, October 19, in the Holliston High School auditorium, and was done in a little over an hour and a half. The largest vote moved $3,040,544 in free cash, the money left over from last year’s budget, into the Capital Expenditure Fund, after town officials told voters that an accounting error going back to fiscal year 2022 had left the fund’s uncommitted balance more than $758,000 below the minimum the town’s financial policies require. The longest debate was over amendments to the Groundwater Protection District zoning bylaw, which limits certain land uses near the town’s public wells, and they passed on a hand count of 123 to 25, above the two-thirds a zoning change needs.
How each article came out
Article 1, General Stabilization Fund: $150,000 from free cash, passed
Article 2, Pension Stabilization Fund: $250,000 from free cash, passed
Article 3, Capital Expenditure Fund: $3,040,544 from free cash, passed after an amendment correcting where the money goes
Articles 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10, personnel bylaw updates: approved together as a consent agenda, unanimously (two-thirds needed)
Article 7, vacation accruals for town employees: indefinitely postponed
Article 11, capital budget: $1,272,030 from the Capital Expenditure Fund and $1.9 million from water accounts, passed on a voice vote (two-thirds needed)
Article 12, Community Preservation projects: $334,000 in Community Preservation money for three projects, passed
Article 13, Central Fire Station solar array: $421,500 reallocated from a May 2024 appropriation, passed
Article 14, Miller and Placentino roof study and design: $900,000 and $450,000 from amounts approved in October 2025, passed
Article 15, opioid settlement fund: fund dissolved and its balance moved to a special revenue account, unanimously (two-thirds needed)
Article 16, sewer district bylaws: report heard, with no vote on the bylaws
Article 17, Groundwater Protection District: passed 123-25 on a hand count (two-thirds needed)
Article 18, Constitution Village streetlights: amended, then passed as a request to the Select Board
The capital fund and the accounting error
Select Board Chair Damon Dimmick opened the evening by explaining what went wrong. The Capital Expenditure Fund pays for the town’s and the schools’ larger needs, such as vehicles, equipment and building improvements, and Town Meeting approves every dollar spent from it. Dimmick said the Town Manager found this summer that, starting in fiscal year 2022, the amount reported to Town Meeting as available to spend from the fund had been calculated incorrectly. He called it “an administrative reporting problem” and said the Finance Committee and the Select Board, which rely on the figures they are given, should not be faulted for it. The town notified the state Department of Revenue’s Division of Local Services and took its guidance, and independent auditors have looked at the error, he said.
Finance Committee Chair Ken Szajda explained what the error meant in practice. Money that Town Meeting appropriates from the fund stays in it until it is spent, so the fund’s cash balance includes money already committed to approved projects, and the unencumbered balance is what remains free for Town Meeting to spend. That unencumbered balance, he said, turned out to be more than $758,000 below the policy minimum, which the Select Board’s comments in the warrant put at $1.5 million, or 2% of operating spending. “The good news is it all seems to be a mistake,” Szajda said. “The bad news is it shouldn’t have taken four years for us to find it.” He said the committee expects a report on the root cause and corrective actions, and that he has told the Town Manager the investigation should also look at why the auditors the town pays every year did not find an error that large.
The amount that went into the fund changed on the day of the meeting. Free cash was certified at $3,440,544 at 4 p.m. that afternoon, well above the $2.1 million the warrant had assumed. Szajda noted that the Finance Committee must give voters its recommendations seven days before Town Meeting, and that for the second year in a row it has had to change them on the floor because the free cash figure came in so late, which he said, speaking for himself rather than the committee, he found unacceptable. The committee’s printed recommendation had been to put $2,309,670 of free cash into the fund and take another $1 million from a 2025 appropriation for the public works project. With the higher figure, the committee voted before the meeting to put all of the free cash left after Articles 1 and 2 into the fund instead, leaving the public works money untouched; the certified amount, less the $150,000 and $250,000 in those two articles, comes to exactly $3,040,544.
When Article 3 came up, the motion as read sent the money to the General Stabilization Fund, and voters approved Szajda’s amendment correcting it to the Capital Expenditure Fund before passing the motion, which Szajda said restores the fund to compliance with the town’s financial policies.
The two smaller transfers passed without discussion. Article 1 put $150,000 into the General Stabilization Fund, the town’s main savings account, which Szajda said brings it to 14.5% of the budget, within the policy range of 12% to 18%, and he tied that to keeping the town’s AAA bond rating as it prepares to borrow for several large projects. Article 2 put the usual $250,000 into the Pension Stabilization Fund, bringing it to just over $2 million; Dimmick described the fund as protection for the budget against rising pension costs, which he noted must be fully funded by 2040.
The groundwater bylaw
Article 17 amends the town’s Groundwater Protection District, the part of the zoning bylaw that limits land uses in the areas that feed the town’s five public wells. In the warrant, the Select Board described the amendments as adding seven restrictions, covering animal feedlots, dry cleaners and laundries, laboratories, automotive businesses, storage of 250 pounds or more of herbicides or pesticides, metal plating and finishing, and painting and wood preserving, and applying to future changes in land use. The amendments came out of more than 18 months of work by a subcommittee of the Envisioning Future Holliston Committee, and the Planning Board, after hearings on October 8 and 14, voted unanimously to recommend them with revisions that were printed in a handout given to voters at check-in.
Those revisions matter most to businesses. Barbara Peatie, who presented the Planning Board’s report, said the board changed some of the new prohibitions so that a business can continue if it meets protective requirements. The text the town has posted, dated October 15, allows six of the newly listed uses (dry cleaners and laundries, laboratories, automotive businesses, pesticide storage, metal finishing, and painting and paint stripping) where the site meets MassDEP’s stormwater standards, the business has coverage under the federal stormwater permit for industry and keeps a pollution prevention plan, and any industrial wastewater goes to a sewer, a holding tank or a state-permitted discharge, never to a septic system or storm drain. Pesticide storage, metal finishing and painting must also be kept in weatherproof buildings with impermeable floors.
Several residents asked about the effect on business. Mark Ahronian asked whether anyone had studied whether the changes would hurt small businesses, and Sara Zarrelli said the maps suggested most of the town’s industrial areas would be affected, which could effectively end the town’s ability to host those kinds of businesses, and asked what that would mean for the tax base. Peatie answered that most things can still be done if they are done safely and that the building inspector will identify what each permit requires. The Planning Board’s written report, which the moderator read, said the board had engaged a peer-review engineer to set stormwater standards that are established best practice and do not place an undue burden on businesses and property owners. No one offered an estimate of the effect on tax revenue.
Ed Daniels, who said he has lived in town since 1978, urged a no vote. He said the bylaw would cost the town the ability to attract good business neighbors and would hurt the few businesses already in those areas, at a time when, by his figure, residents carry about 87% of the tax burden and the town faces a new highway department and a high school project. He argued that those businesses are already regulated by MassDEP and the EPA, and that the state’s source water assessment for the wells points instead to older septic systems and roads close to the wellheads, which the town could address in other ways, such as salting those roads less. “I urge you to vote no on this bylaw,” he said.
Keefe Bailey spoke in favor. He said all five of the town’s wells are classed as threatened under state guidelines, and he pointed to the 250-apartment proposal at 194 Lowland Street, describing its on-site sewage plant as a giant septic system that would send waste into the Zone II area around Well 5, the town’s largest. The developer and MassDEP’s review describe a treatment plant whose discharge limits DEP will set in a permit the developer has not yet applied for, and the Ledger’s 194 Lowland Street page has the details. Bailey said the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, the regional system that supplies Boston, should not be counted on as a backup, and that “you better darn protect what you’ve got,” because fixing a contaminated supply costs far more.
Select Board Vice Chair Tina Hein offered context on both points. She said the subcommittee was formed in response to residents’ concerns about water during the search for a site for a new public works facility, and that a 2023 MWRA study estimated it would cost Holliston about $60 million in infrastructure to connect to the authority’s system, and then only if the town were accepted. She also said she was confident that “any existing business today is grandfathered” and is not affected by the amendments.
Homeowners’ questions got direct answers. Szajda asked whether switching to geothermal heat, which means drilling into the ground, would count as ordinary upkeep of a home, and Peatie said the building commissioner had told her closed-loop geothermal systems raise no issue. He also asked about oil tanks in basements; Peatie said she believed existing basement tanks are fine, and Sustainability Manager Amelia Landau added that a part of the bylaw the amendments do not change already exempts petroleum stored for home heating, even below ground. Asked by Leslie Randall Dooley whether other towns have similar rules, Landau said the new prohibitions borrow their language from about 10 comparable towns whose bylaws the state has approved.
Nicole Smith raised a problem with the text itself. She said the version she had read online showed only strikeouts, with no additions marked, so she could not tell what had changed. Peatie said what was online was an earlier version, that the Planning Board made its changes on October 14, and that the revised text would be posted once it passed, because there had not been time to put it online before the meeting. “It would be nice to have the most updated version online for those of us that aren’t printing everything out,” Smith said. As of October 20, the town’s wellhead protection page links a copy of the amended text dated October 15 (amended text, town page).
The vote took a hand count, during which voters seated in the section reserved for non-residents were asked to move so their hands could be counted and that section was recounted. The final tally was 123 in favor and 25 opposed, 148 voters in all. Like other bylaw changes, the amendments go to the state Attorney General’s office for review.
Readers following 194 Lowland Street may wonder whether the amendments reach that project. At the Planning Board’s October 14 meeting, Sarah Scott, the town’s director of planning and community development, said that in general an application is protected from zoning changes once it is filed.
Capital budget, preservation projects and school roofs
Article 11, this year’s capital budget, appropriates $1,272,030 from the Capital Expenditure Fund for public safety, school, public works, facilities and technology purchases, along with $100,000 from water enterprise retained earnings for lead and copper service line replacements and $1.8 million from the water infrastructure account for water main replacements, which Dimmick said are mostly mains that break often. The fund’s share includes two police cruisers and an administrative vehicle ($207,100), $300,000 for exterior doors on the Woodland Street school campus, $175,000 for Chromebooks and a one-ton dump truck ($121,000), among other items.
A resident asked why the administrative vehicle costs $5,000 more than a cruiser. A town official explained that because Holliston is a state-designated Green Community it must replace vehicles like for like, so the administrative vehicle, which is already electric, has to be replaced with another electric vehicle to keep the town eligible for Green Communities grants, which are paying for projects at the fire station and library this year; the warrant lists the new vehicle as a hybrid. After a motion to end debate passed, the moderator declared the article carried on a voice vote; it needed two-thirds.
Article 12 spends Community Preservation Act money, which comes from a local property tax surcharge and state matching funds rather than the general tax levy, on three projects: an engineering study of Stoddard Park for accessibility, erosion control and infrastructure ($94,000), window and stucco restoration at the Central Fire Station ($115,000), and a sensory garden at the senior center ($125,000). The warrant printed the total as $209,000, while the three projects add up to $334,000, and the mismatch led to a few minutes of confusion on the floor. Szajda moved to change the motion to $209,000, Fire Chief Michael Cassidy did the arithmetic aloud, and Szajda withdrew his amendment once the original motion was read back: $219,000 from the Community Preservation general reserve, which covers the park study and the garden, and $115,000 from the historic preservation reserve for the fire station, for $334,000 in all. That motion passed.
Article 13 moves $421,500 from Article 22 of the May 2024 Town Meeting, money already approved for roof work, to buy the solar array on the Central Fire Station roof, take it down and reinstall it, and repair the roof. The array sits on the roof under a 2018 power purchase agreement whose terms, the Select Board said in the warrant, would bring more than $100,000 in charges if the panels were temporarily moved during roof work. The board said the town can instead buy the array for $111,283, about the same cost, and keep the full benefit of the power it produces. The article passed with no questions.
Article 14 appropriates $900,000 for the Fred Miller Elementary School and $450,000 for the Placentino Elementary School, both at 235 Woodland Street, for a feasibility study and schematic design for partial roof replacements. The October 2025 Town Meeting approved the project as part of a larger list, and the motion lets the School Committee use those previously approved amounts; the Select Board said in the warrant that it came back as a separate article because the Massachusetts School Building Authority’s Accelerated Repair Program, from which the town is seeking a grant, requires a standalone vote. Any costs above the grant fall to the town, and the article passed without discussion.
Personnel bylaws, the opioid fund and the sewer report
The six personnel bylaw articles approved together at the start of the meeting, which govern non-union town employees, include adding a Permitting Coordinator title to the town’s classification plan at no added cost, raising personal days from two to three a year and counting them by fiscal year, and extending bereavement leave to parents who suffer a pregnancy loss. Article 7, which would have changed how town employees earn vacation, moving from a single grant each July 1 to monthly accrual from the date of hire with more weeks for longer service, was indefinitely postponed, which sets it aside for this meeting. The Select Board’s comments in the warrant said the current system makes some new hires wait as long as a year for their first vacation and has cost the town job candidates. Dimmick had said at the start that a motion to postpone the article was coming, and no one explained the reason when it came up.
Article 15 dissolved the Opioid Settlement Stabilization Fund, created by the October 2023 Town Meeting, and moved its balance into a special revenue account, as a 2023 state law now allows. According to the warrant, money in that account can be spent for the purposes the settlement agreements allow without a further Town Meeting vote, and the article passed unanimously.
Under Article 16, voters heard a report from the Sewer Commission and voted on nothing else. Stacia Gelineau of the commission said the town is developing a small opt-in sewer district for a limited number of eligible downtown properties, not a town-wide system, pairing upgrades to the wastewater treatment plant on Woodland Street, where the first phase of work is complete, with a new collection system that the commission aims to put out to bid before the end of 2026 and begin building in 2027, subject to funding and readiness, and hopes to pay for entirely with grants. The commission adopts its own bylaws without a public vote, and it is asking for comments on its first draft, which it will post online and make available at the library and downtown, before it considers them, which it hopes to do by the end of the year. Its next meeting is Thursday, November 19, at 6 p.m.
Constitution Village streetlights
Article 18, a citizens’ petition, asked the town to put streetlights on Constitution Village roads. The petitioner, Kalyana Pingali, said the petition had 24 signatures from registered voters and documented support from 50 households, and that “Constitution Village has been living without streetlights for approximately 10 full years.” The motion as the moderator read it asked the Select Board to work with the Finance Committee on a funding source and financing plan; Pingali read a version naming the Town Manager instead, which the moderator treated as an amendment, and voters approved the amendment and then the amended motion. The moderator reminded voters that the vote is a request, since Town Meeting cannot order the Select Board to act. Dimmick had said earlier that the Select Board voted that same evening for a broader effort to identify missing streetlights across town and plan for them in the next budget cycle.
What the Finance Committee sees ahead
Szajda said state aid came in about $50,000 above the committee’s model, but that inflation is still above target and diesel rose 77% in September, an increase no one planned for in May. He said he understood that the sidewalk projects on Goulding, Norfolk and Central streets, paid for by an override voters passed several years ago, are trending well over their estimates, and that the committee will want to hear the Select Board’s plan for the overruns, noting that the tax increase for those projects is not yet on tax bills. The town also faces possible borrowing for the public works facility, which is already approved, for Holliston High School depending on its feasibility study, and for a share of a Keefe Regional Technical School project now in the state school building process. He urged growing the town’s yearly capital allocation again in fiscal 2028, since the town is spending more than $4 million a year on capital needs. The committee now turns to the fiscal 2028 budget and meets virtually on Tuesdays, and the next Town Meeting is May 10.
Also from the Select Board
Dimmick said the town took ownership in August of 20 Cross Street, the site Town Meeting approved in 2023 for a new public works facility, and that the EPA will do a targeted brownfields assessment of the site at no cost to the town, with results expected before the end of the year that will show when, how and where a facility can be built. The town’s DPW project page says the Land Court awarded the town the property on August 12, and that the Select Board paused the project on April 27 pending further due diligence. Dimmick listed the board’s priorities for the coming months as simpler business permitting, affordable housing, open space and clearer communications policies.
This report is based on the recording of the October 19 meeting and the posted warrant. Minutes had not been posted at the time of writing. Warrant · Recording · Groundwater bylaw page · Amended groundwater text, October 15 · New DPW facility page