News and events in Southborough, MA

Community Advocate staff covered a discussion in a recent Select Board meeting and several topics from recent school committee meetings that I haven’t had a chance to cover. Here are highlights and links. 

For the first story, I’m adding some context that wasn’t included in the weekly paper’s article.

Chestnut Hill Road residents’ request

Chestnut Hill residents want portions of road closed to traffic

Earlier this month, I wrote about the discussion scheduled between Chestnut Hill Road residents and the Select Board on the petition to close the one way section of the road. I haven’t had time to write a follow up story, but the CA did. 

The bottom line is that the Board wasn’t convinced to take action but is willing to consider the request. First, residents need to address the Fire chief’s concerns and assess how much resolving the issues would cost:

If portions of the road are closed to through traffic, [Fire Chief Steven Achilles] said the fire department would require an appropriate-sized cul-de-sac or turnaround for fire apparatus at the point of closure on both ends.

At the meeting, the fire chief noted that fire trucks must have the ability to turn around on dead-end roads.

“It’s not practical to back down to Main Street,” he added.

Beals mentioned there is a parking lot across from where he lives as a potential spot to turn. If roadway improvements are made, rather than the closure, it would only result in more speeding vehicles, he said.

Braccio questioned where fire apparatus would turn when the parking lot has cars in it.

Select Board member Martin Healey said he is against the proposal and that residents had not made a “compelling case” about the need for a closure.

Beals and other residents said that the road is dangerous for pedestrians, children getting off school buses, bicyclists and people walking dogs as well as individuals pushing baby carriages. In addition, vehicles sometimes drive the wrong way down the road—creating a hazard for other cars.

Beals said the board should “welcome the opportunity to avoid serious accidents and prevent collisions from happening.”

Resident Brian Dugdale noted that finding an engineering solution for the turnaround was doable. (read more)

Worth adding that wasn’t in the story. . .This summer, the Select Board discussed a similar potential plan for Northborough Road – a road closed to throughway vehicle traffic but open to passive recreation.

In discussing the potential closing of Chestnut Hill Road, residents and officials seemed to assume that Northborough Road’s culvert will be repaired and the road reopened as an alternate route. The pass through road has been closed off since late spring when the culvert was determined to be unsafe for vehicles to continue using.

Chestnut Hill Road residents submitted a petition in September (that was started in May) to turn a section of their road into a paved passive recreation area. A month prior, Public Works Superintendent Karen Galligan presented to the Board the concept of converting Northborough Road into a paved passive recreation area.

In August, Galligan posited that money could be saved on repairs to the deteriorated culvert by converting it into a stream bed, creating two dead end roads. Select Board members voiced support for the concept. The idea was floated of creating a footbridge instead of one to support cars and trucks. The Board asked Karen to flesh out what the cost difference would be between a full repair and the alternative. There’s no record of that being updated in public meetings since.

An Article to fund work on Northborough Road was proposed to be included on the Special Town Meeting Warrant earlier this fall. Updated details apparently weren’t available at the time of Select Board discussions and it eventually fell off the list. The concept wasn’t raised during the November 3rd discussion of Chestnut Hill Road.

In the Board’s November 16th meeting, Town Administrator Mark Purple told the Board that State Senator Jamie Eldrige earmarked $70K of the state’s ARPA funds to be used for the culvert repairs. That wasn’t included yet in the House version. Since then, state congress failed to reconcile the House and Senate versions before their long recess. (Even if the earmark makes it into the version that ultimately passes, earmarked funds don’t always translate to actual funding.)

School Updates

The following stories all relate to Southborough schools and/or Algonquin.

Northborough/Southborough school official recommends no flexible masking before Jan. 15

Despite Algonquin being one of a handful of schools with the 80% vaccination rate qualifying it to opt out of face masks, the district’s Director of Wellness Mary Ellen Duggan is advocating to keep students masked through the holidays. She recommends reevaluating the situation two weeks after December break, when the state’s mask mandate may end:  [click to keep reading…]

Tagged as: chestnut-hill-road, road-safety-concerns, tomahawk-mascot

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