For years, Town officials touted the importance of investing in Economic Development. But after convincing voters to increase that investment in 2024 and 2025, the Select Board failed to use the dedicated funds. Instead, they allowed the committee and department to quietly fall by the wayside.
I’m detailing that, along with other economic development news.
The Select Board apparently decided to rely on a future Costco project and other strategies for making the area around Route 9 more attractive to businesses. But they never had a public dialogue about that shift or how the Town should communicate with the business community.
The board may have met legal public meeting requirements — but neither they nor the Town administration publicly explained or made a case for a changed strategy. In fact it’s not clear how thoroughly board members understood what was happening and the implications of their decisions. And, according to the EDC Chair, no one kept informed the members of the committee they cut the legs out from under.
In the wake of that decision, the Town’s communication channels and online information for interested businesses weren’t properly updated. Businesses looking to connect about opportunities were likely to be directed to a dead phone number and unanswered emails. (Scroll down for more on that.)
At annual Town Meeting last month, the Select Board Chair briefly referred to the EDC staffing change to answer a budget question. It was the first truly public acknowledgement of a change that dates back to a staffing and strategy decision made behind barely open doors last year.
(Note: For economic news not fully focused on the EDC, scroll to the bottom of this story.)
Voters convinced to invest in full time Coordinator
At the Special Town Meeting on November 1, 2024, Select Board member Andrew Dennington convinced voters to double the hours of the EDC Coordinator from 20 to 40. His explanation included:
we want to attract and retain more businesses, and better businesses, particularly along route 9. . . We know a lot of our surrounding communities have full-time positions, they’re devoted just to this. We think we’re at a competitive disadvantage. I think there’s a lot that can be done in terms of having one person who is responsible for regular outreach [to] businesses in town. Staying in touch with them. Connecting them with local [resources] to help their businesses stay and thrive and grow. And also looking out for economic development grants that can address some of our longer-term challenges
Voters learn investment wasn’t made, but assured it will be
At Annual Town Meeting in 2025, Meme Luttrell held the EDC budget, seeking to lower the amount budgeted for the full time coordinator. She told voters that after EDC Coordinator Leah Emerson was informed in December that she her job wouldn’t be increased to full time, she quit. Select Board members responded that was inaccurate and that Emerson was working for the town as a part time contractor. According to then-Chair Kathy Cook, the contract Emerson had for fewer hours was based on what she wanted.
Claire Reynolds questioned why the Town hadn’t advertised for the full time employee as Town Meeting approved paying for. Select Board member Al Hamilton pointed out that Town Meeting can’t dictate the Town follow through on hiring under approved budgets. But he indicated that was up to the board. Yet, the decision about not hiring for the job hadn’t been publicly discussed by the board.
Julie Connelly, a former EDC member, said she supported spending on a full time coordinator, “I think we need it”. She then asked how many hours were being used.
Cook believed that Emerson was only working 10-12 hours/week at that time. But she followed:
we fully intend to hire a full-time person. As you know, the select board was very much in favor of trying to get this to be a full-time position. It’ been a long haul. We need this. We need to expand the commercial tax base in this town as we all know. So we fully intend to hire a full-time person effective July 1st.
Board reverses course without notice or public dialogue
The board’s mindset changed later that spring. The Town didn’t advertise the position. And Emerson’s contract was allowed to expire.
By that time, the board appeared to have learned behind the scenes that a property off of Route 9 was being developed to become a Costco. Members would later publicly refer to Costco as a “magnet” for other businesses.
The next time the board spoke about the EDC in front of an audience was this year’s Annual Town Meeting. (And, again, that was only after the budget was held for questioning.)
The EDC’s budget was slashed 93%, from $78,091 down to just $5,000. Doriann Jasinski questioned why they were keeping money in the budget, when the Committee hadn’t met since November 2024.
Dennington explained that when Emerson left, the board didn’t fill her position, in part because they were going into a “much tougher fiscal year”. But he also noted the significance of Costo “the most important economic development improvement opportunity in a long time” and ” just kind of happened organically”. He followed that it caused them to rethink how much money to devote “thinking about bang for the buck.”
The $5,000 was left in EDC’s budget in case a grant opportunity came up that required some matching funds.
I reached out to EDC Chair Michael Nordstrom about the committee’s inactivity (before they lost quorum at the end of June). He explained that the committee had stopped meeting since the coordinator was bringing them anything to work on. The three members that had remained on the committee were inexperienced ones that relied on the Coordinator to bring them information and issues to deal with. (That narrative was consistent with what I heard from former member Karen Anglim, who didn’t renew her spot on the committee when it expired last June.)
Nordstrom’s impression was that when Emerson’s hours were cut, her time was dedicated to non-EDC work. (He was unsure what, but believed she may have focused on grant writing. That’s a detail the town has not confirmed or denied. But Select Board minutes from early 2025 indicate that Emerson was credited with working on multiple grants.)
The Select Board’s decision not to replace Emerson was discussed in a meeting last summer. But the topic wasn’t listed on the agenda.
The only evidence I could find of a discussion by the board last year was the minutes for June 11. That day, the board held a meeting that was legally public, but not welcoming to public participation. It was their annual working session to set strategic goals for the year. Unlike their regular public meetings, this one wasn’t recorded for public viewing.
The minutes from that meeting include the following goal:
Ask the Town Moderator to create a Charter Committee to investigate potential ways to streamline the Town’s organizational structure to increase efficiency and reduce costs. The Board agreed to pursue a Community Compact grant for this purpose. The Board discussed the structure of the Economic Development Committee (EDC) and the role of the EDC Coordinator. They will await any recommendations on the EDC from the organizational review.
Those minutes don’t make clear that Emerson’s job was about to be vacated. It also didn’t specify that the EDC wouldn’t have a quorum after June 30th. And when the board publicly issued its strategic FY26 goals from that June 11th meeting, the streamlining goal made no mention of the EDC or the coordinator.
According to Nordstrom, no one had kept his committee informed of what was going on. He followed up and tried to meet with then-Chair Andrew Dennington to discuss the EDC, but never heard back.
When the Select Board failed to get Special Town Meeting to approve a committee to study changes to Town government in the fall, they didn’t publicly discuss that impact on the EDC and Coordinator position.
Between the summer decision and this Annual Town Meeting, the only time the EDC and budget were publicly raised was another off camera meeting — their FY27 Budget Summit with the Advisory Committee.
Town doesn’t have a clear public contact for interested businesses
I tried looking at the Town website through the lens of a business seeking support for staying in or moving to town. The website directs anyone looking to learn, “How Can I Find Out More About Expanding or Relocating in Southborough?” to extremely outdated contact information that doesn’t work.1 When I called the Coordinator’s extension last week, a recording informed me the extension was invalid. When I checked to see if the Town followed up on my alert about the problem, that had changed. Calls this morning were routed to an unidentified voicemail box. (I left a message but haven’t heard back yet.)
And emails I sent to both former EDC email addresses last week are still unanswered, (without even an auto out-of-office response redirecting inquires.)
Meanwhile, the Coordinator’s extension is still promoted in multiple places on the website — including the Business Permitting Guide for those interested in “Establishing and Growing [a] Business” in town and the “Business, Nonprofit & Community Guide”, and under Contact Us.
The EDC’s page on the website does also have an email link to the committee chair. But the committee is essentially defunct these days without coordinator support or a quorum. (Nordstrom indicated that after not hearing back from Dennington, he essentially gave up.)
The page also notes, “If you have any questions, please contact the Select Board Office” with a link. There’s no way to know how many didn’t follow up to find that info after their initial outreach failed.
Notably, the EDC’s page still pitches the importance of paying for a coordinator. Under linked FAQS, it answers:
Does the EDC need a Coordinator?
Yes. Many Town Boards and Committees have coordinators or paid employees . . .
In the modern economy, economic development has become a core government function, evidenced by the widespread establishment of economic development organizations at the local, state, and national levels. . .
The EDC needs a coordinator to provide consistency of effort on numerous EDC objectives and projects, and to coordinate the scheduling, outreach, and support of the Committee to over 600 businesses and non-profits in Southborough.
Town’s Response
One week ago, I informed the Town Administrator and Select Board about my findings. I offered them the option to add the item to their (light) agenda for last night, to discuss as a board and get back to me. They chose not to.
I did hear directly from two of the five members. Dennington’s response focused on the fiscal rationale and defending the public notice of the budget change for FY27:
One thing I’d add is the budgetary reason for this. As I mentioned in my remarks at the April 11 ATM, Select Board and Advisory knew heading into the FY27 budget planning cycle that it would be a tight year and we were in potential override territory. (Unlike many other towns, we were successful in avoiding an override for FY27).
By later part of 2025, it did not make a lot of sense to recruit and fill this position given doubts about the ability to fund it long term.
The draft FY27 budgets prepared in December 2025/January 2026 did not fund the vacant EDC coordinator position. At the budget summit in February 2026, which was a public meeting, SB and Advisory discussed and agreed not to fund that position due to fiscal constraints.
In a phone call, Cook made similar points as Dennington. She also stressed that funding the position had previously not had strong support. Advisory had rejected the request in the past as had some former Select Board members. She also told me (as she had during a prior conversation) that Emerson had not been able to commit to the full time job for personal reasons.
But neither addressed why the board hadn’t publicly discussed the situation in 2025, or what their strategy is for communicating with businesses and attracting development.
One strategy the Town clearly hopes will help attract development is the newly passed Industrial Park zoning bylaws. Perhaps, officials assume that impacted property owners will have kept tabs on the zoning changes and are incentivized to market their own properties.
[Editor’s Note: I had hoped to get enough answers to not waste Town staff time on a public records request. But since I didn’t get all the details I was looking for, I put one in this morning. If I learn anything useful, I’ll share those results.]
On related economic development notes. . .
Route 9 Wastewater — One of the strategies that the Select Board has been looking at for attracting development is creating a wastewater system to address the septic constraints for potential businesses along Route 9.
The Town failed to get a grant for that effort. In a recent update, the board was informed that was unlikely to come through in a future round. State officials told the Wastewater Committee that co-funding was unlikely the expensive effort until the Town had enough details to be close to shovel ready. But without grant funding to support for a study, working through details on the actual sites needed is challenging.
The committee hopes to bring an Article to Special Town Meeting this fall and start raising funds next year for a project to be completed in 2030. They will ask to create a special district for the properties that would benefit from a wastewater project. Using District Improvement Financing (DIF), a portion of new growth revenue from taxes on those properties would be reallocated and dedicated to the wastewater project.2
(Stay tuned for more a future dedicated post on this topic.)
Costco — Developers have demolished the old building on the future lot. They’re still waiting for the state legislature to OK their alcohol license. And they will still need to go before the Planning Board for Major Site Plan hearings.
Project Abandoned/Lot for Sale — The Community Advocate shared less happy news about a delayed business project that is confirmed to have fallen through. The old Andrea Restaurant property and its adjacent lot won’t be be the site of a Parkhaus car clubhouse after all. Owners are now looking to sell the lot. There is some good news for residents who had complained about the hazards or eyesore of the old vacant building at the corner of Route 9 West and Parkerville Rd. Before putting it on the market, the owners tore down the old restaurant.
- The EDC’s website lists the coordinator as Marijke Munsiff — the staff member who was replaced by Leah Emerson years ago. I tried emailing both and received neither auto replies, nor follow up replies. The coordinators’ extension didn’t work, and their names are no longer in the “search by name” directory.
- Wastewater Committee Chair Sam Stivers described the DIF as taking a percent of the “increased revenue” on properties after a baseline date. But the state guide clarifies that it is solely from “new growth”, which is based on increased value after owners have invested in property improvements.
