Published June 5, 2025
By MAUREEN DOHERTY
NORTH READING — If this past Monday night’s five-hour Select Board meeting is any indication, you may want to bring a seat cushion to the annual spring Town Meeting on Monday, June 9 at NRHS.
First, there will be a meeting within a meeting. Town Moderator John Murphy will call the Annual Town Meeting to order at 7 p.m., which will then be recessed to address a one-article Special Town Meeting at 7:05 p.m. This portion of the meeting requires a quorum of 150 voters and concerns the potential request for the town to purchase 97 Main Street — the old Stop & Shop location now housing Ocean State Job Lot — for municipal use.
While the Select Board has been in negotiations for the past several weeks with Stop & Shop representatives in executive sessions it was revealed at the June 2 meeting of the Select Board that a competing interest may make a bid on the property prior to the Special Town Meeting. So stay tuned as to what that could mean for the town’s bid in this process.
Voters will also be introduced to the new electronic voting machines at the June Town Meeting. Each voter will receive a clicker upon signing in and getting their voter’s ribbon. A trial session using the clickers will be held prior to the start of Town Meeting and instructions will be displayed as well. Town
Administrator Mike Gilleberto said the town purchased 1,500 of the devices based on past “high water marks” for attendance at Town Meeting and said the work using radio frequency not internet. Any voter who leaves the meeting room to make a phone call or use the restrooms must turn in their clicker and will be given it back when they return to the meeting room.
The main event at the annual Town Meeting features 31 warrant articles. At Monday’s informational hearing on the warrant articles, 90 minutes was spent dissecting the merits of the first three articles — all citizens’ petitions to bring the town into compliance with the MBTA Communities/3A Act.
Select Board Chairman Stephen O’Leary said he sponsored the citizens’ petitions when the CPC chose not to bring forth an option for the town to remain in compliance with the state law. Currently, the town has been in interim compliance since February. This status expires in July 2025. According to O’Leary the only changes he made to the proposal originally made last October were to insert language protecting the status of the 55+ age restriction at Martins Landing and to ensure that no more than the currently allowed 908 total units between Martins Landing and Edgewood Apartments would be allowed in the future. It also adopts the change in the zoning map. O’Leary maintains that the underlying district in this MBTA overlay district would remain unchanged. He said if the town does not approve a plan to come into compliance the state will make the decision as to where the zone will be located. He believes the age restriction will stand because it is not tied to zoning; it is a function of the private property owners.
But since the SJC has ruled that the MBTA 3A law is constitutional O’Leary believes it is prudent for the town to comply, especially given the expanded number of grants the town would become ineligible to receive. The Select Board had voted to recommend approving the three petitions 3-2 on May 5. Select Board member Nick Masse and former member Liane Gonzalez were opposed. The CPC voted 4-1 to recommend supporting the three articles, with Jeff Griffin opposed. The Finance Committee voted to recommend approval of them as well.
Article 16 is the town’s operating budget, which is balanced and have been recommended by the Select Board, Finance Committee and School Committee.
Although they are balanced, the boards continue to forewarn that they are cutting to the bare bones to balance the budgets and this process is becoming more difficult each year. Out of the $83.4M in general fund expenditures, property taxes account for $64.8M and over the past 20 years, average costs continue to exceed available revenues due to high fixed costs such as health insurance, debt and assessments, which increase by 5% on average; school department salaries and expenses increase by 4.1% on average and municipal salaries and expenses increase by 3.3% on average while the town is limited to increasing the tax levy by 2.5% annually. New growth has also fallen as the town approaches build out.
In FY26, the town’s budgets are being allotted as follows: $40,780,049 for the School Department; $25,606,765 for fixed costs and $20,753,575 for municipal costs.
The home page of the town’s website (northreadingma.gov) provides a direct link to “Budget Central” for FY26 where voters can review every budget submitted by the various departments to see where their tax dollars are being spent.
If the meeting extends to a second session it will likely reconvene on Tuesday, June 10 but the exact date and time will be determined by the voters.