On Tuesday night, the Select Board cast votes allowing a long time Southborough conservationist to resume her work as a member of the Stewardship Committee.
The votes resolved an issue that the board had created when they refused to allow Freddie Gillespie to continue serving on the Open Space Preservation Commission earlier this summer.
As I previously covered, in June, the majority of the board seemed in favor of allowing Gillespie to continue working on the Stewardship Committee. But the seat she had been serving in was dedicated to a representative of the OSPC. And the At Large seats were already taken.
The board discussed the intent to take up potentially revising the membership charge at their July 7th meeting. The topic wasn’t taken up at the meeting, and instead postponed to this week.
At their August 11th meeting, the board voted on converting the OSPC seat to an At Large seat. The majority supported the change. Dissenting member Sam Stivers spoke against it, advocating a vote on the charge wait until the Town received results from a Government Structure Study. (Stay tuned for a separate post on that initiative.)
Stivers restated his belief that the OSPC and Stewardship Committees have overlapping areas of concern and should likely be consolidated/restructured. (It’s a position that members of the committees and the Conservation Commission have argued strenuously against.)
Select Board Vice Chair Andrew Pfaff said that he agreed with Stivers on the need to study the charges. But he believed that the membership issue could be dealt with now and the other changes could be made after the study results come back.
Immediately following the vote to change the seat composition, the board unanimously voted to appoint Gillespie to the vacant seat.
Unlike OSPC, which has 5-year terms, Stewardship seats expire at the end of each June. That appeared to be one reason the full board was willing to make the appointment.
At the board’s June 16th meeting, members gave varying reasons for their opposition to reappointing Gillespie to her longtime position on OSPC. Some referred to issues with the committee’s charge and the potential that the committee would be revamped. Cook specified that her issues were specific to actions/statements by OSPC Chair Gillespie and the committee under her leadership.
Cook later acquiesced that she didn’t have the same qualms about Gillespie’s work on the Stewardship Committee. And given the impassioned pleas from Stewardship members and the public for Gillespie, she was persuaded by Pfaff to support allowing her to continue in that role.
But, since an At Large Stewardship seat wasn’t available, and the committee’s charge wasn’t on the agenda, the board postponed making a decision until their next meeting. For unspecified reasons, that topic was not included on the July 7th agenda, and postponed to the August meeting. In June and July, the board heard from passionate officials and members of the public pushing for Gillespie’s reinstatement.
In a public comment at the July meeting, Stewardship’s Chair’s statement on behalf of the Committee included:
Freddie is a critical member of the Stewardship Committee. The Stewards are in the midst of major projects that benefit enormously from Freddie’s input and experience. . .
Furthermore, Stewardship’s effectiveness will be undermined without Freddie, and Breakneck Hill Conservation Land will suffer.
(You can read more details here.)
While the Stewardship issue is resolved, it appears that unless the future results of a government structure study convince them otherwise, the board won’t be appointing new members to the OSPC. That committee is charged with acting as “facilitators for protecting and preserving open space in the Town”.
Since June 30th, the OSPC has been lacking a quorum. That means that, in addition to not being able to vote on other matters, the two remaining members can’t meet to vote on approving the still outstanding minutes for most of the meetings November 2023 through April 2026.
In the OSPC’s last meeting held on June 26th, the agenda included approving “minutes”. That appeared to cover minutes from March of this year, but only a draft version for April 9th and no minutes from April 17th. And spot checking older meetings, the minutes were still unposted. And since the meetings were in-person without use of zoom, there are no recordings of what occurred.
I believe that Freddie Gillespie is an invaluable resource in town, and I am glad she was appointed to the committee. However, I also believe that the OSPC is an invaluable resource for the town and needs to be re-seeded with people so they can do their work.
SOLF asked me to post the following comment here:
The Southborough Open Land Foundation (SOLF) would like to congratulate Freddie Gillespie on her appointment as the at-large representative to the Stewardship Committee. Her voice is essential. We are relieved that the Select Board realized her importance to the work that the Stewardship Committee undertakes. We believe that the Select Board should reconsider its actions concerning the Open Space Preservation Commission (OSPC). Whereas there may be some overlap between the Stewardship Committee and the OSPC, their missions are different. The OSPC has played an important role in protecting properties such as Chestnut Hill Farm and the Southborough Golf Course from widespread development, helping to maintain open space in town. The OSPC has also played a role in helping educate people about the value of open space as well as other conservation topics There is still valuable open space in town that should be protected. SOLF has worked with Freddie and the OSPC on various projects and recognizes how invaluable her efforts are in helping protect open space and the environment in Southborough.
The Trustees of the Southborough Open Land Foundation