Boxborough Finance Committee unanimously rejects extra $6 million for alternate fire station site

BOXBOROUGH -- September 9, 2025, Boxborough Finance Committee votes unanimously against recommending up to $6 million in extra fire station site spending. The committee cleared all eight articles on the fall special town meeting warrant at its September 9 meeting, voting 7-0 on most but rejecting the sense-of-the-meeting article on paying a site premium for a non-Stowe Road location by a vote of 0-6. Chair Tony Newton read the committee's written position: "spending an additional $6 million on a Mass Ave location is not fiscally responsible if an efficient and cost effective fire station can be built somewhere else." On a separate green-building sense-of-the-meeting article, the committee split 4-2 in favor of recommending up to $1 million in geothermal and green features, with Newton and John Graven dissenting on fiscal grounds. A School Committee member attending remotely warned the committee its FY27 budget model underestimates the ABRSD assessment growth, which she put at 10 to 13 percent rather than the 6 percent placeholder, a gap that bears directly on the scale of an operating override the town is weighing.