Above: The three candidates for the two seats on Southborough’s executive branch answered voters’ questions at the annual forum moderated by the Southborough Library’s Trustees last night. (image cropped from SAM video)
On Thursday Night, at a lightly attended forum, three candidates answered questions and made their cases for why voters should choose them to serve on the Select Board. Two of the candidates focused on why they should be re-elected to continue the work they’ve begun. A third pitched the need for a change.
All three spoke about the need to improve the financial situation for Southborough residents. There wasn’t much space between them on their overall vision for the Town. The biggest differences were their talking points on Town budgets and their answer on the question on the same ballot that will elect two of them.
Below are my highlight from the event. (You can watch the forum courtesy of Southborough Access Media here.)
Vote for Me
All three candidates agreed that, as incumbent Kathy Cook put it, “the main issue currently facing in Southborough is its affordability”.
Cook and incumbent Sam Stivers spoke about their many years in town and extensive experience working in Town government.
This would be Cook’s second three year term. (She has served as Chair for two of those years). Before serving on the Select Board, Cook’s experience includes serving on the Capital and Advisory Committees.
In her opening remarks, she highlighted her longtime support for Friends of the Southborough Youth Commission which supports Southborough Youth & Family Services. She credited that experience for prompting her to get involved in Town government. She said the work:
provided me with a deep understanding of the needs of some of our residents that can get easily overlooked.
Referring to the “significant projects” she wants to continue her work on, he explained something she didn’t understand before getting involved, she said
The wheels of our local government do turn, but they turn slow
Challenger Tim Fling countered with the narrative that he represents Southborough’s future.
Fling has two young children (a 2 year old and 9 month old). In 2018, he moved to Southborough with no prior exposure to how New England’s form of local government. He was shocked one morning when he discovered that trees all along the area of Main Street where he lives were cut down for the big road reconstruction project. No one had told him about when he bought his home. After that he realized he needed to “start to pay attention to what we were doing in town and how local government works up here”. He volunteered to serve on the Noise Bylaw Committee and then the Community Center Exploration Committee.
He stated:
I represent the next generation of what we are doing in town. Where our money is going, and cannot. What our involvement will look like over the next 30 years for those of us that would like to stay here and put our roots down. I’m running because Southborough, in my mind, needs a little bit more long term financial planning.
This would be Stivers’ third term. His prior experience also includes the Master Planning Committee, Advisory, and the Zoning Board of Appeals. He appeared to agree with Fling’s stance on long term planning. It was one of the three things he said he prioritizes as a member, and something he believed “we have been short on historically”. Through the Master Plan process he confirmed:
residents have a lot of wants. Things like recreation, senior services, sidewalks, trails, library expansion, etc. We need to find a way to balance those wants with our limited resources
His other two priorities were “close financial oversight of our 70+ million dollars annual budget” and “creating housing opportunities, particularly for seniors and young families”.
He highlighted that he works to stay informed on what is going on in town by attending several meetings per week of various town committees.
Talking Town Budgets
Fling argued that the board hasn’t done enough to trim budgets that keep pushing taxes up each year. He noted that at the Annual Town Meeting in 2024 he made a motion to cut 1% from the budget. He said it would have cut $750,000 from the Tax Levy. He wanted to “pull the levy down a little bit”:
I believe firmly that if we all take a little bit away from a couple of things in a couple of places we can get to a number a little bit more sustainable in the long term growth plan, and then look at long-term projects and not have 80% of the tax burden on the homeowners.
Cook and Stivers who have worked on and voted to support the Town budgets for many years had a different take. They described making more cuts as tougher than it seems.
Cook highlighted that the process begins in December, always with a high number. Then they “work, and we work, we work, we work again” to bring that down. She told the audience the board tries to keep increases down to something like inflation. She said this year was a “not a great year” due to some issues with the police and fire budgets.
Stivers said:
you can’t cost cut your way to success with this one, unfortunately. You’d like to be able to, but there’s just not enough there to cut that without cutting off. . . teachers, public safety officials, etc.
Cook later noted that 80% of the budget is staff salaries with most of it dictated by Collective Bargaining Agreements for union employees. She followed:
So there is not much you can do about those salaries. They’re dictated by the state groups that control it.
As an example, she said that changing teacher salaries would cause the town to lose teachers. She explained that years ago, she and Stivers had gone to former Superintendent Charles Gobron to pitch that he save money by proposing for the teachers’ CBA a different form of compensation “with bonuses instead of the steps and lanes”. She said he just smiled at them. (Given that Gobron retired 11 years ago, that would have been back when Cook and Stivers were on the Advisory Committee.)
Voter Joanne Pearson complained that the Select Board has a history of bringing projects to voters to approve or deny rather than bringing them choices to decide what is worth spending money on.
Fling appeared to agree, opining “once the number makes Town Meeting, it’s almost always passed, especially when you have Advisory and Select Board backing up what those numbers are”. He noted the Town Meeting voters are a small subset of all Town voters.
He argued some projects shouldn’t be brought forward to Town Meeting. He pointed to a $75,000 budget approved two years ago for “the Tricentennial Committee when we were raising taxes 4.5% a year”. He said that would have been 10% of the 1% figure he wanted to cut from the budget:
It’s a great thing for the town, but the question is, if we have to give up a compromise. . . every time you start to cut something, you get the higher tax bill down a little bit.
Cook and Stivers disagreed, referring to times that Town Meeting has lowered budgets and the public process with many public meetings the boards and committees have leading up to the final budget. Cook said that if someone has an issue with an expense or budget, getting involved sooner in the process is a more effective way to make a difference.
Clarifying Positions on Neary Building Project
[If the Neary Building project is approved through tomorrow’s Special Town Meeting and Tuesday’s ballot, the candidates’ difference of opinion on this issue may not matter much to voters. But, if at least one of the votes fails, the Select Board will play an integral role in determining the next steps the Town takes.]
School Committee and Neary Building Committee member Roger Challen asked Fling his position on the project. (He noted that the incumbents have publicly supported the project, but offered that they could clarify if that has changed.)
Fling said that as things currently stand, he’s a No Vote. He pointed out that unlike Cook and Stivers, he has children that would be among the first grades to attend and benefit from the school, which he would “love”. But he’s worried about the costs which he described as the “tip of the financial iceberg that we’re up against.”
He noted the other properties that need to be maintained including the Senior Center. Based on recent projections, his home’s property tax would go up 43% within a few years.
Fling asserted a wider tax base is first needed to fund building projects. He would like to look at ways to compromise to “maybe get through” 10-15 years. Hopefully the town would then be in a better situation when they then “re-approach what is best for the town”.
Cook defended her longtime work on the school building project, which was also supported by Stivers. Cook was on the initial school research committee that led to a building project, and is on the Neary Building Committee and Chair of its Financial Subcommittee. Cook referred to the forecast cost of the project as a “relatively small” 3.1% of the taxes for Fiscal Year 2031.
Stivers said he’s even more in favor of the project now that he’s seen the updated, detailed projected tax impacts. Both members pointed to the overall tax projections as the real issue causing residents pain and the need to fix that through addressing the underlying problem. . .
Commercial Development
All three candidates stressed the importance of attracting more businesses to help offset the tax burden for residents. Cook and Stivers blamed residents’ ever increasing taxes on the continuing “shift” in property taxes in Southborough caused by increasing house values at a time when commercial property values and revenues have been decreasing.
They spoke about the steps the Select board has taken by creating a committee to study and recommend a wastewater treatment project for businesses on Route 9. (Southborough is the only town on Route 9 between Boston and the western Mass town of Goshen that relies on septic and doesn’t have a system businesses can hook up to. Businesses can build their own system, but that costly investment is an impediment to development.) Cook acknowledged the investment cost would be expensive.
Referring to the findings of another Select Board member (Al Hamilton), Stivers noted the purported potential for generating about $150M in additional development. He highlighted that to do that also requires making zoning changes.
Fling agreed with their comments. He followed up on the zoning, saying:
I would like to see something similar to what we passed for downtown, that multi-zone capability where you could have some apartments at the top, you could have walkabilities from restaurants.
He believed that if that could attract $4 million more revenue, it would basically cover the cost of the new Neary school building.
Cook also highlighted the potential opportunities at the underutilized former Dell EMC property off Route 9. She referred to an “envisioned” project that she couldn’t say “much about”. She believes that property “could generate significant commercial tax revenue”.
Affordable Housing
The three candidates were also in agreement that the Town needs more affordable housing that goes beyond the potential 40B projects in the pipeline. (Scroll down for more about one of those under “Flagg Road and Park Central”.)
Upon questioning from a member of the Affordable Housing Trust board about what they would like to see, Cook referred to the need for “truly affordable housing” like a $250,000 or $300,000 house, or a duplex. But she said the point of the Select Board’s work to help revamp the AHT structure was to put people who know what they’re doing on its board.
So, I’m not going to tell you guys how to do your business. That’s what we’re hoping you guys would come back with. But I’m just hoping you can take that pot of money and end up with, you know, some projects that really do generate multiple units and not. . . one at a time like we had done 15 years ago.
Stivers agreed with her that the key is using $1M in the AHT to make it go further by helping developers finish projects rather than trying to fully fund them. And he highlighted that the state’s definition of affordable is actually much less affordable for residents than projects he would want to see. Earlier in the meeting, he also pitched that his experience on the ZBA equipped him to be an “effective” participant in working with other boards on affordable housing options.
Fling said he would want to ensure that whatever projects are developed are appropriate for their location. That could be a two or three family homes and Accessory Dwelling Units in certain neighborhoods or denser projects on Route 9. He noted that there might be property opportunities, including buildings that might “come off the Town roster”, depending how votes go in the next couple of days.
Flagg Road and Park Central
Voter Tom Gittens reminded that years ago the board planned to do a safety study of Flagg Road. Given potential development on Capital Group’s property (Park Central) he wanted to know if that was something the board would be looking at. And he wanted to know whether the Select Board is still supportive of a decision prior members made years ago stating that if the big 40B project as Park Central was built, no left turn would be allowed onto Flagg Road, and whether that was legally enforceable.
Cook said that the project (which was rejected by the ZBA) is currently in court and they’ll have to see what happens. But she stressed that she has been publicly clear that she is adamantly opposed to the project as inappropriate due to its location on Flagg Road.
Stivers stated that back in 2016 the prior Select Board voted that if the project was passed they would make that section of the road one-way, which is in the board’s authority. [Editor’s Note: That’s not accurate, but the Select Board could choose that path in the future.]1
Referring to Gittens’ question about the safety of Flagg Road, Fling said that he advocates for investing in making the road safer:
I’m a big advocate for sidewalks. We look at what we did downtown. We look at how that has helped that area greatly. . . You try to walk to the school today and you don’t have sidewalks that literally connect from Main Street all the way over to the school safely. It would be in our best interest for our kids for the town to figure out how to do that, and it might mean that we have to look at properties. . . it’s going to need to be a priority some way or another to think about
- The Select Board’s October 2016 vote on Flagg Road was to disallow any egress from the Park Central housing development. (The legality of that has been questioned.) The intent was to force the property owner and state to collaborate on an egress solution. Member Bonnie Phaneuf was outvoted on her suggestion of a two pronged approach that would have included prohibiting left turns onto Flagg if the state denied the development’s access to Park Central Drive. Later that month, Special Town Meeting voters approved a non-binding Article to install a gate for that section of the road: “At the future time when traffic from the currently proposed Park Central development or any development may begin to access Flagg Road”
