I live in this town, I pay taxes here, I voted for this project and so did everyone I know who was at town meeting. Your assertion to the contrary is not based on fact. There is nothing slimy or underhanded about bringing up a warrant article at town meeting. I also voted to not end debate to make sure all people who wanted to speak on this article had an opportunity to do so. What people voted down last spring was an override to fund the project. The project is now being funded within the levy limit.

Andy (et al) – I am interested in your opinion from this perspective:

Remember a couple of days after the Oct 15 vote, you posted a blog on how the new Fire Station was the right thing for Westboro? I brought up whether the residents would be given input to the design at open meetings, and you noted that at Town Meeting, on tape, the Municipal Building Committee said they would have meetings to give the public the opportunity to give their input?

With this announcement that the construction will be starting next Summer, do you think – even if there are open meetings about the Fire Station design – that any recommendations (especially any of significance) the public makes will not be met with “It’s too late for that”?

Since June (that’s about 5 months), a number of people have been trying in various ways to get a public meeting and to give their input on scaling back unnecessary or questionable items, and making better use of space for the Fire Station. The result was only that a couple of Selectmen informally heard our concerns; there were no open meetings and no input was formally taken since the May vote. Frankly, I feel slighted by how the process was handled. Will this happen again for the Town Hall Project, Forbes/Police Dept project, etc.?

Steve -

I am the wrong person to ask. The building committee members can answer that question. Also, Leigh Emery stated specifically that the buck stops with the selectmen as they have final approval of the design (also on tape - I was sitting about 25 feet from her when she said it). I encourage you to contact them directly - Selectman George Barrette is also a member of the building committee.

Steve - I think we will have input into the final design but it is up to us to hold our local politicians and administrators accountable for the promises they made at Town Meeting. The construction has been scheduled but the final design is only starting. First thing I would suggest to you is to go to a selectmen's meeting and during the public comment period - tell the selectmen that you want to see and participate in any design hearings and demand that the hearings be at a time when people can attend. By law, any meetings or work sessions held by any town committee or board must be public and notification of the meeting must be posted at minimum a week before the meeting.

Townie -

The fire station would not be usable if we had a large earthquake (magnitude 5.5 +) nearby, nearby being defined as within 25 miles or so based on what I have read and discussed with geophysicists. The area around Littleton MA is considered seismically active by New England Standards and seismologists think that these very small quakes are aftershocks of a large earthquake greater than magnitude 6 that occurred between 500 and 900 years ago. The magnitude 4 quake in Maine is a reminder that we do get earthquakes in New England. Larger quakes have occurred in MA, 1727 in Newburyport, 1755 off of Cape Ann, 1638 near Concord NH. The 1727 and 1755 quakes were felt here in Westborough and substantial shaking lasted over a minute. In the 1755 quake, buildings were damaged as far away as Hartford, CT.

No seismologist can tell you when an earthquake will occur - they can only estimate probabilities and risk. The MA buiilding code reflects this risk estimate for emergency structures.

Townie - My response was to your snarky, and what I consider, ill informed, comment. I was attempting to explain the facts here and the facts are that the seismic hazard in New England is something not to be dismissed. Second of all, if we do have a natural disaster - not having emergency response available only compound the problems caused by such a disaster. That is the reason for the standards required by the IBC for category 4 public safety buildings and that is why any renovation of the firestation would end up costing a significant portion of what a new building would cost.

As I have said before - there was fair public announcement that the fire station would be on the warrant for the special town meeting for the purpose of funding the project within the levy limit, as opposed to the exclusion vote last spring. With 14,000 some odd voters in this town, people opposed to the funding the station could have come to town meeting and voted down the article. It was near the very top of the list and would have cost just a couple of hours time to show up and vote.

If you think it is unfair that Town Meeting should be the legal method by which the town makes budget decisions, then really - your only choice is to do the work to change how we govern ourselves and get the town to agree to such a change. Barring that, the only other thing you can do is muster the votes to defeat warrant articles you do not agree with.