Sudbury, MA

The short version:

• Rep. Carmine Gentile, who filed the town’s recall petition with the legislature, told the board he thinks the bill “will actually get sent to study” – a quiet end – and that he would not support it as written. Sen. Jamie Eldridge co-sponsored it and says he supports it. A resident asked whether the board will stand with the town meeting vote at the July 21 State House hearing; no board member answered, then or later.
• In a joint session, the board and Housing Authority filled a vacant Housing Authority seat. Alicia Carrillo, the most persistent critic of the authority’s Pine Lakes redevelopment, was rejected 2-7. Cynthia Howe, a Pine Lakes resident with a three-decade career in affordable housing, was appointed 8-1. The discussion produced the sharpest exchanges of the night.
• The board signed a three-year Regional Housing Services agreement at $73,987 per year – nearly double the $38,740 appropriated at Town Meeting. The gap, per town staff: the Housing Trust pays the larger share.

The Sudbury Select Board met for about three and a half hours on June 30 – the last day of the fiscal year – before adjourning to executive session around 9:25 p.m. Chair Janie Dretler presided. The agenda ran long enough that the board’s own goals discussion was postponed for another meeting, along with two other items.

The recall bill’s prospects, from the man who filed it. The board’s annual legislative update with Sen. Jamie Eldridge and Rep. Carmine Gentile turned, at member Dan Carty’s prompting, to House Bill 5521 – the recall charter amendment Town Meeting approved 474-394 in May, which Gentile and Eldridge filed on the town’s behalf in June. The Joint Committee on Election Laws hears it July 21 at 1 p.m., in person and virtually.

Gentile’s assessment was blunt. Comparing Sudbury’s petition to a Danvers recall bill on the same hearing agenda – Danvers requires 20 percent of voters to trigger a recall and a six-month grace period, against Sudbury’s 10 percent and three months – he said: “Frankly, I think this bill will actually get sent to study. Frankly, I really do.” (0:43:50) A study order, in State House practice, is where bills go to die. He suggested the “prudent” route would be a charter commission, citing the concerns in the Select Board’s own statement and League of Women Voters testimony.

Carty pushed back on the weight of that statement, noting the board “was only five votes out of the roughly thousand” cast at Town Meeting, and asked Gentile directly whether he would support the bill: “I wouldn’t support it the way it is. I have 7,000 people that voted for me. So I think the majority of them would want a much better piece of legislation.” (0:45:32) Eldridge, for his part: “I’ve co-sponsored the bill and that’s what I’ve done to indicate my support for it.” (0:45:32) Dretler then clarified the record: the board voted 5-0 to read its statement at Town Meeting, and 4-1 to oppose the recall article itself (0:46:11).

The exchange answered, indirectly, a question a resident had posed in public comment an hour earlier: now that “the people have spoken” at Town Meeting, “will you all on the select board stand with the people in that decision and support the recall in its hearing on July 21st?” (0:19:27) No board member responded during the meeting.

Elsewhere in the update: Eldridge predicted the Municipal Empowerment Act will not pass this session, and both legislators urged the town to arrive with a specific plan and an identified developer before seeking MassWorks money for Route 20. It was Gentile’s final annual update before he retires.

The Housing Authority seat: a critic rejected, a professional appointed. The board met jointly with the Housing Authority to fill the seat of Steve Swanger, who is stepping down after decades in affordable housing work. Three residents applied for the term running to May 2027, and the contest turned into a referendum on the authority’s plan to redevelop four single-family homes it owns in the Pine Lakes neighborhood.

Alicia Carrillo, a retired teacher who has attended all but one authority meeting in the past year, made the case against: the lots are 0.16 to 0.25 acres in a nitrogen-sensitive zone, the variances required would be “precedent setting,” and the authority should instead spend the $500,000 Town Meeting appropriated this spring – plus more than $800,000 in CPA funds it holds – repairing and reoccupying its existing homes, two of which sit vacant. “I think it’s an unfair burden on the families in Pine Lakes,” she said of the project (1:13:46).

Cynthia Howe, a third-generation resident who grew up in Pine Lakes and has spent roughly 30 years in affordable housing – executive director of three area housing authorities, plus ten years on Sudbury’s Housing Trust – argued the authority’s first duty is “to manage and oversee” its existing portfolio (1:35:32). Susan Abedian-Chaffee, a finance professional coming off the Capital Improvement Advisory Committee, declined to prejudge the project.

The endorsements came early: in the meeting-opening public comment period, three residents spoke for Carrillo and five for Howe – among them Rep. Gentile, speaking as a Sudbury resident minutes before his legislative update, and Swanger himself.

Closing the interviews, Housing Authority chair Tania Vitvitsky offered one comment: over the years, the authority has “tried to obtain buildable lots from the town, and that hasn’t worked” (2:11:49). The motion to appoint Carrillo then failed 2-7 without discussion: Carty and member Charlie Russo in favor; all four Housing Authority members and the board’s other three members opposed.

The sharp exchanges came on the next motion, by authority member Sherri Cline, to appoint Howe. Russo, who had just voted for Carrillo, invoked “one definition of insanity or fanaticism” – “someone who redoubles their efforts while losing sight of the original goal” – and attributed the authority’s recent friction to “a group think mentality,” noting money already spent on due diligence at other sites while two authority-owned homes stand empty (2:20:06). Cline answered that Howe pairs Pine Lakes roots with municipal experience and “is not a shoo-in” for the redevelopment proposal (2:23:47): “It’s a proposal. It needs to be looked at. It needs to be fine-tuned.” (2:24:36)

Carty spoke next and was interrupted mid-comment by audible profanity (2:25:40). “I can be nasty, too, if you want me to be,” he responded, then noted that when the chair had invited Housing Authority members to question Carrillo, none did: “I think it’s very telling that nobody from the SHA had the courtesy of even asking Miss Carrillo a single question.” (2:25:52) He closed with a warning: “Most of us here are elected officials. There’s only so many times you’re going to be able to go against the will of the town folks, and it’s going to catch up.” (2:26:32)

Howe was then appointed 8-1, Carty opposed; Russo, despite his criticisms, voted yes. After the authority adjourned, Russo criticized the chair for not intervening against the interruptions; Dretler answered that a board member had jumped in before she could (2:33:55).

A housing fee nearly double what Town Meeting funded. Under the consent calendar, the board approved a three-year Regional Housing Services agreement at $73,987 per year. Carty flagged that Town Meeting had appropriated $38,740 for it and asked where the rest comes from (3:19:21); staff answered that the Housing Trust pays the larger portion alongside community preservation funds, with last year’s total payment at $78,400. Carty asked for written confirmation.

The DEI commission, and a second look at a definition. Commission member Janine Taylor proposed shrinking the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Commission from seven members to five after resignations and expiring terms left it struggling for quorum. The board balked – Carty said the board “should be the ones doing the recruiting” (2:38:43), and repeatedly cutting the size is not the answer – and instead scheduled a joint meeting with the commission for July 23.

Buried in Taylor’s update was a new item: the commission is reviewing the town’s adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which the Select Board adopted and the schools then followed. The resident who originally championed the adoption has, in Taylor’s words, “since changed his mind” (3:05:06); the commission will hear from him in July and from Congregation Beth El’s clergy in August, and plans to bring the board a recommendation around September. The question, as Taylor framed it: whether the definition “blurs that line between antisemitism and criticism of Israel” (3:05:43).

Other business. The board unanimously appointed Hilda Ionelli to the Board of Registrars and Allison Goldfarb to the Agricultural Commission. In public comment, a resident aired an extended set of grievances about school district finances, saying he had filed a complaint with the state education department the previous day. The board adjourned to executive session to approve executive session minutes from February 3, April 14, May 19 and June 2, and did not return to public session.