On Wednesday, the Rail Trails Advisory Committee (RTAC) met after recently completing a walk of the proposed route of Phase 3 of the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail. That's the section that runs from the intersection with the Mass Central Rail Trail at Union Road and Station Road and continues south to the Framingham border.  …

On Monday the Sudbury Public Schools School Committee met, and MCAS results were back on the agenda. You can watch the presentation at 1:20:00, but the slides were also included in the packet for the meeting.  A big focus in the presentation was a comparison to 2019 results. Apparently something happened in 2020 that may have…

The State passed legislation commonly referred to as "MBTA Communities" back in 2021. The specifics of that legislation are not exactly common knowledge, and that's likely because zoning legislation is insufferably boring quite technical and requires a good deal of context to understand exactly what the impact will be in the real-world. Here's the best we can…

In their last meeting, the Community Preservation Committee (CPC) sent a warning to applicants. They wanted more detail and more substance. In this week's public hearing it was clear that several applicants got the memo, and they brought the thunder.   The two applications with the broadest interest are probably the Community Gardens…

Sudbury Town Clerk, Beth Klein, recently requested that the Select Board vote to opt out of vote-by-mail/mail-in voting in the upcoming 2024 Annual Town Election (ATE). (Page 30) The VOTES Act of 2022 gives the Select Board the authority to opt out of mail-in voting. Klein joined the Select Board meeting on Tuesday to explain…

On Tuesday, Sudbury Town Manager Andy Sheehan presented the financial condition of the Town. The short version is that forecasts aren't perfect, but the Town is forecasting some possible challenges in the coming fiscal years. You can jump to page 36 here to review the slides. (1:12:50) Sheehan noted that budget guidance in future…

Sudbury Public Schools (SPS) and Lincoln-Sudbury (L-S) were set to present their 2023 MCAS reports during each district's school committee meeting this week. SPS postponed until their next meeting, and Superintendent Crozier cited the need to make substantive changes to the SPS presentation. (01:48) You can access the L-S presentation via the link on the…

On Monday the Finance Committee met to discuss lessons learned after Special Town Meeting and to gear up for the FY25 budget cycle. Their takeaways from Special Town Meeting were pretty standard fare, mostly relating to getting more information and getting that information earlier in the process, but it was acknowledged that Special Town Meetings…