Boxborough Select Board Reviews Draft Town Meeting Warrant and 2024 Goals

BOXBOROUGH — January 8, 2024 — Boxborough Select Board kicks off 2024 with warrant preview, insurance transition, and holiday display expansion. At the January 8 meeting, Town Administrator Michael Gowing walked the four-member board through a draft Annual Town Meeting warrant that includes a new $50,000 fire recruit academy training fund, a $50,000 supplemental appropriation to complete the library roof after bids exceeded prior authorization, and a roughly $65,000 replacement truck for Animal Control Officer Phyllis Tower shared with Stowe and Littleton under an inter-municipal agreement. Gowing reported that the town's health insurance consortium dissolves July 1, 2024, and that the Insurance Advisory Committee is evaluating two vendors, with a vote expected by March; he has conservatively budgeted an 8 percent premium increase, though both proposals have come in below that figure. The board voted unanimously to authorize Assistant Town Administrator Rajan Bhatt to cast the town's vote at the MIIA annual business meeting January 20, and adjourned into executive session on fire chief contract negotiations and active litigation in Ronald Cisco v. Town of Boxborough. A resident request to install a town menorah prompted broader discussion about relocating the holiday tree from Middle Road — where DPW's bucket truck cannot safely reach the upper branches — to the fire and police station area.