Fincom and Select Board Split Over DPW Request

         The town of Westford will conduct its fall 2025 special town meeting on Monday evening October 27, 2025 at the Westford Academy gymnasium.  The meeting will convene at 7.00PM. Although the agenda is relatively light, there will be interesting food for discussion among some capital requests.

           The special town meeting, that is traditionally held in the fall, generally serves the purpose of plugging budget holes which emerged during the fiscal year.  It does not usually address major funding proposals.  These are generally deflected to the spring’s Annual Town Meeting, so that the Select board,  the Finance Committee and town voters can examine them within the context of other budget priorities. Additionally, the funding sources with the revenue to pay for items is fixed at the fall special town meetings, funds are drawn from free cash, bonds, retained earnings accounts and in rare cases directly from the stabilization.  Fall Town meeting does not generally deal with proposition 2 ½  overrides.  It involves a process of making due with the resources at hand.

           There are three capital proposals on the special town meeting warrant this year, which involve significant funding requests.  The DPW is looking for 300K to purchase what is called “ a sidewalk tractor”. This would be funded out of the “Free Cash” account.  This equipment is for the purpose of clearing sidewalks of snow.  DPW Director Kyle Fox explained that the vendor who previously cleared sidewalks for the town, shut down his business. Fox disclosed that there is an alternative which costs 40K a month during the winter.  He is urging the purchase of the “sidewalk tractor”.   Concerns were raised over the size of the purchase; that it should be included in the full DPW budget proposal to be presented in the spring so that priorities can be examined. The Finance committee and the Select Board were at odds over this issue with the former voting unanimously against the purchase and the latter approving it.

             A second major expenditure is the proposal to replace the athletic fields at Nutting Road with turf as opposed to grass. This proposal is to be funded by a 1.5M bond appropriation, which requires a two thirds vote of the town meeting. This has been a long-standing issue and has been before the town meeting on another occasions.  The proponents are claiming that the cost to the town will be cheaper with the turf fields and that previous concerns over environmental impacts have been resolved.  You will have to wait and listen to the discussion to see what you think.  The Finance Committee recommended the turf field installation on a 4 to 3 vote.

             Finally, the Fire Department is requesting 2.45M to replace two fire trucks.   One truck should be replaced immediately and another is expected to be replaced in four years.  The Fire Department is laboring under constraints imposed by the current state of the fire apparatus manufacturing industry. Large manufactures such as LaFrance and Mack are no longer in business.  Today, fire apparatus has to be custom made and because of the limited number of manufacturers available there are significant delays in delivery.   Fire Chief Mike Dennehy wants to purchase the trucks now to lock in the prices at the current rates.

             The only remaining article of any concern is Article 6 which is an amendment to town’s MBTA zoning map.  This article involves Gutierrez property located at Tech Part east. It seeks to allow that developer to exchange two parcels in order to support the construction of a restaurant and approximately 80 condominium units.  It does not expand or shrink the MBTA zone. It is essentially a land swap.