Above: If you want to cast votes at an upcoming Town Meeting, or get the chance to persuade other voters to vote for your “side” of an argument, make sure you’re registered to vote in Southborough. (images cropped from video of Sept 2025 STM)
All Southborough voters are invited to vote at the March 2nd Special Town Meeting.
The Town Clerk asked me to remind readers — you need to register to vote in Southborough in advance to participate. I’m sharing those details, along with a primer for voters unfamiliar with how our Town Meetings work.
If you’re new to Town or aren’t on the voter rolls — the deadline to register as a Southborough voter is Friday, February 20th at 5:00 pm.
You can register to vote or change your address (or political party) through the Mass Secretary of State’s Voter website here. Voters can also visit the Town Clerk’s Office in person to complete the paperwork. (You can find their hours and contact info here.)
Upcoming Meeting Specifics
This spring’s Town Meetings will be held at Trottier Middle School, 49 Parkerville Road. The March 2nd Special Town Meeting is scheduled to open that Monday at 6:00 pm.
The Annual Town Meeting will open Saturday, April 11th at 10:00 am. (That registration deadline is Monday, March 30th at 5:00 pm.)
The March 2nd meeting will focus on funding to replace Neary School’s failing roof, and to contract the studying of potential school building renovation projects.
To read about precisely what voters will be asked to decide in three weeks, read my latest update posted on Friday here. (Stay tuned for the final Warrant for March, and for an overview of what will likely be up for a vote in April.)
For each meeting, the auditorium will be the main hall. But a secondary hall open to parents with children will be offered again in the gym. (Participants in that room will have all the same options to participate. And commenters in that room will be shown on screen to the main hall.)
[Note: There will also be an overflow room in the cafeteria for voters without children that can’t fit in the auditorium.]
According to the Town Clerk, parents can bring food and drinks to the gym. There will be 350 chairs for voters, and several tables form the cafeteria so children can play, read, do homework, etc.
Southborough Town Meeting Primer
Southborough’s open Town Meeting is direct democracy in action. Southborough voters act as the legislative branch of Southborough’s Town government. (Essentially, Town Meeting is our version of Congress.)
Through Town Meeting, voters authorize (or limit) government spending and adopt/revise/rescind the Town’s laws (called bylaws).1
Every year, the Town holds an Annual Town Meeting in the spring. Special Town Meetings are sometimes called to address items that don’t align well for that timing, or to allow more focus on specific topics.
The “substance” for the legislation being voted on in a specific Town Meeting are printed in the pre-posted meeting Warrant. Instead of bills, the topics are listed as “Articles”.2
Voters are able to directly vote on the Articles. But before that happens, they can also ask questions, try to persuade the hall to support/oppose Articles, and even propose amendments to Articles. Between meetings, voters can even submit their own legislation to be added to a future Warrant. (Scroll down for more on that.)
Voters and officials’ comments and motions are through the (elected) Town Meeting Moderator. His discretion does include deciding that some comments are “out of bounds” or that amendments aren’t allowed (for instance, not within the “four corners” of the Article that the public had fair notice would be considered).
There are specific rules for how the meeting is run (consistent with the traditional Town Meeting Time.) You can read the Town’s rules here (which are always printed in the front section of each Warrant).
Citizen Petition Articles
To add your own Article to the Warrant requires collecting signatures of support from registered Southborough voters fora Citizen Petition Article. But for the Annual Town Meeting, the threshold is unbelievably low — 10 signatures.
The Articles with must be submitted by at least 30 calendar days prior to the meeting. This year, that would be Thursday, March 12th.
Plus, if you get 100 signatures, you can even compel the Town to schedule a Special Town Meeting (within 45 days) to vote on your Article. (If you want an Article to be added to the next Warrant, but not to force the Town to spend money on a special meeting between planned meetings, be careful how you word a petition.)
Updated (2/10/26 10:44 am): I initially misremembered and incorrectly referred to the rules as being based on Robert Rules of Order. The Moderator, Paul Cimino, corrected me in a comment below with more details on that.
Updated (2/12/26 12:55 pm): The Town Clerk provided more detail on the overflow room for parents, which will be in the gym (not cafeteria as I had originally written.)
Updated (2/25/26 6:39 pm): The Town Clerk provided more detail on setup of the rooms, which includes an overflow room in the cafeteria and a dedicated family room in the gym.
- Note: If Town Meeting approves borrowing or funding that, under state law, requires an override of, or exemption from, Proposition 2½, a majority of voters in the Town election would also need to approve that. And, for bylaws, the state Attorney General’s Office does need to vet that they don’t conflict with state or federal laws.
- Note: The final motion made on the floor by the Article sponsors may not be the same language as printed in the Warrant. But it needs to be close enough, that the Warrant was considered to be “fair notice” about the topic to the public.
I suspect you meant to say that the Annual Town Meeting will start at 10am, not 10pm.
Whoops – that’s correct
As Town Moderator, I am glad that Beth has offered a lot of good information in this post about our Town Meeting tradition and process, but one small clarification is in order. Our Town Meeting is not actually governed by “Robert’s Rules of Order” (although this is a common misconception); rather, the primary guidance for the conduct of our Town Meeting comes not from Robert’s Rules, but from “Town Meeting Time” — the authoritative publication issued by the Massachusetts Moderators Association, which is now in its 4th edition and originally launched in the early 1960s. A copy is available at our Town Library.
Regardless, this is a great time to remind every registered voter in our Town that your presence and participation at Town Meeting is welcome and encouraged. The name “Town Meeting” tells the literal truth — at least once each year for almost 300 years the whole Town meets, in a “direct democracy” where every individual voter has equal agency to participate, deliberate and vote to take our Town wherever we want it to go. (The importance of Town Meeting is reflected in the fact that attendance once was legally mandatory, and missing it was a fineable offense… pretty compelling.)
I am looking forward to our next time! — 6:00pm on March 2 at Trottier Middle School. In the meantime, I monitor ‘moderator@southboroughma.com’ every day. I’ll see you all at Town Meeting.
Paul Cimino, Town Moderator
Thanks for that clarification about Town Meeting Time. I misremembered that and will correct it.