[Ed note: My Southborough accepts signed letters to the editor submitted by Southborough residents. Letters may be emailed to mysouthborough@gmail.com.
The following letter is from Karen Hanlon Shimkus.]
To the Editor:
Comrades, hang on to your voter rights and wallets:
The Select Board is at it again with forming yet ANOTHER committee you didn’t ask for or want WITH SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES: With little discussion or input, here comes ARTICLE 11.
They can’t manage spending and skyrocketing taxes so they are seeking to “reform” government under the guise of this seemingly innocuous article, as always, conveniently lodged at the end of the 10-27-25 TOWN MEETING WARRANT as Article 11. DON’T BE FOOLED. STAY TO THE END AND VOTE “NO.” Only in Southborough would there be ANOTHER committee to see if we have too many committees. Unbelievable. But another serious undercurrent is the appalling and inappropriate power struggle between the Select Board and YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS on Planning Board. The underlying question of the day is this: Is this SB seeking to take away your VOTER VOICE AND LEGAL AUTHORITY via the persons YOU EQUALLY ELECT to Planning Board by making that a board of THEIR APPOINTEES. If so, that needs to be remedied with a BIG NO VOTE on 10-27-25.
The SB worded article seeks to:
- “Adjust” (what??) elected positions (only if we can vote to recall Select Board)
- Transition to a town “manager” form of government (what??)
- Move from OPEN town meeting to a representative town meeting (Beware Comrades, VOTE NO!! You will be left holding the bill literally with no voice.)
The Select Board is attempting to fully overhaul the governance of the town to take YOUR VOTE, VOTER VOICE AND WALLET completely away from you. READ THE ARTICLE CAREFULLY. Here is the link to the DRAFT WARRANT:
https://www.southboroughma.gov/884/Town-Meeting-Information
NOTE: With little to no public discussion or input (Open Meeting Law violation?), the wording of this article CHANGED from the “Town Moderator” as the appointing authority to this NEW proposed committee to the “SELECT BOARD” members themselves. Talk about greedy audaciousness. Also, the real upshot could well be that Select Board proposes to APPOINT the Planning Board members THAT YOU ELECT TO PROTECT YOUR INTERESTS.
Consider this: two of the five persons on this select board are sitting in their seat by UNDER 10 VOTES, AND one person by TWO VOTES in the last election, with roughly 1,000 voters leaving the choice blank. Just a handful of BARELY ELECTED members ARE PROPOSING THIS SWEEPING GOVERNMENT CHANGE. It takes chutzpah.
There has been a steady erosion of freedom of speech and diminished voter input over the years. See the recent Supreme Judicial Court decision against Southborough, foolishly appealed with an insurance company attorney at the helm and higher premiums to taxpayers possibly to follow. Aside from the proposed “clickers” use (which has been riddled with problems and is dubious to begin with—show me the hand count please), this attempt is the most blatant, dangerous, and outrageous. PAY ATTENTION TAXPAYERS: YOUR LEGAL AUTHORITY IS ABOUT TO BE ATTEMPTED TO BE STRIPPED FROM YOU. So why is this happening?
Over recent years, the town budget has ballooned from $50m to $65m, with tax bills skyrocketing. The town has a spending problem. So this group of SB members are looking to simply takeover and run it whatever which way, with YOU THE TAXPAYER stripped of voter rights and legal say-so, BUT LEFT PAYING THE BILLS. Where is the money going? Many roads are in poor condition, so not roads.
One place it isn’t going is the $120m for NEW PROPOSED NEARY SCHOOL located next to a degrading former town dump. The voters said “NO” loud and clear, but the Select Board persisted, with five people telling 10,000 to go fly a kite. BTW, a quick read of the environmental reports (those that are posted) speak to serious deficiencies in testing, with missing monitors and “no post-closure permits on file” for the “athletic field” / dump. The state has photos of broken testing monitors with grass growing out of them. A public records request to the state revealed “no responsive permit on file.” The monitors are part of the required annual testing. Why is this testing important? Per NEWMOA, best practices call for old landfills to be properly tested AT LEAST TWO TIMES A YEAR and managed due to possible contamination of water resources, explosive methane gas production (which can travel 1,000 feet or more from a landfill), and liability risk over uncontrolled leaching (particularly with unlined bottoms and/or uncapped tops). See the following links:
NEWMOA – Northeast Waste Management Officials’ Association
Please see the very important YOUTUBE video by NEWMOA:
Closed Landfills Hazards & Best Practices What You Need to Know
So the real takeaway is this: Would you take major investment advice or real estate advice from this SB? Thankfully, the answer was a resounding “NO” at the last town meeting.
How about the committees of ONE that the Select Board sends out and about acting as your “liaisons” to various towns and private entities. These singletons are out negotiating who knows what, all out of the public eye. This town and taxpayers deserve better. The taxpayers don’t have to look far to see the serious rebukes by the Attorney General’s Office for “egregious” Open meeting law violations, too many to address here, resulting in mandatory training by the AGO. (See Worcester Telegram & Gazette: Southboro selectmen found in violation of Open Meeting Law) The town lost the legal case referenced at great cost to taxpayers.
While paring down may be appropriate somewhere, this article doesn’t cut it. TOWN MEETING IS YOUR VOTER VOICE AND LEGAL AUTHORITY TO SAY NO TO RIDICULOUS SPENDING, TAXES, AND MISMANAGEMENT OF GOVERNMENT. Consider this: In some communities, tax bills actually go down. This article needs to be voted down in its entirety and the discussion of merits, if any at all, held out loud and in public in the SPIRIT OF OPEN MEETING LAW. Not a brief discussion at the end of a Town Warrant.
VOTE NO ON ARTICLE 11 (AS CURRENTLY NUMBERED) and
STAY TUNED FOR A STANDARD RECALL PETITION that many towns have as standard operating procedure in running local government, and this town should have had long ago. INCREASE voter rights and voice, not lessen them.
Sincerely,
Karen Hanlon Shimkus
8 Lynbrook Road
I’m not going to opine on Shimkus’ stance or the Article. But I need to post a couple of Fact Checks.
1. The margin for select board members in elections: Only one currently sitting Select Board member was most recently elected with the narrow margin referred to. The most recent election was a tight one between the three candidates for two seats (Tim Fling beat Sam Stivers by 50 votes, but Kathy Cook only beat him by 2 votes). But the other members won their elections in 2023 & 2024 by about 140 votes and by over 300 votes.
2. The appointing authority: The draft Article discussed at the Select Board’s Sept 16th meeting specified the Select Board would be the appointing authority for the proposed committee. In the meetings prior to that, the draft Warrant only had a placeholder to insert an article on the topic (no details included).