Select Board Recap April 27, 2026

Hello Dartmouth, welcome back to another select board meeting update from the April 27th, 2026 select board meeting.

My name is Cody Haddad, town administrator here in Dartmouth. We had a pretty eventful meeting, lasted about 3 hours. We talked a lot of budget, a lot of town meeting preparation. First item on the agenda was our planning director and a member of our planning board were in to discuss the proposed site plan review bylaw, which will appear on the June 2nd town meeting warrant.

The idea is really to update the site plan review section to make sure it's consistent with law, make sure it's consistent with current practice, puts a lot of the current requirements into rules and regulations, which the planning board will adopt. All of the proposals within that bylaw change are posted on the website under the planning department page and town meeting warrant packet it'll be sent out. They will be

an executive summary and so you'll be able to see all those changes. As we prepare for town meeting and do a town meeting video, we also will get into a little more depth on on what exactly the the changes are. But if you want more information, you can certainly watch the full select board meeting and Mr. Gio's, our planning director, can give you some insight. Next up, we had the

director of Dartmouth Public Libraries in for recognition of Minute Madness.

This is something that libraries around the Commonwealth took part in. You may hear a correlation to March Madness with the bracket with basketball, but we we took part in Minute Madness, which is basically a reading competition where the community logged its reading minutes and Dartmouth was crowned the champion.

And so the in the championship was the town of Dartmouth versus the town of Holbrook and Dartmouth took took home the championship. So we're very excited for that and congratulations to Dina and all the staff over at the library and the members of the community that participated. The third item on the agenda was the affirmation of Parks and Recreation Director's appointment, Rebecca Amaral, back in June or July of

Uh there was an oversight at the time that the the Select Board did not need to appoint that individual, that uh position. And so the charter is very clear that the Select Board must appoint the Director of Parks and Recreation. So to remain true and faithful to the charter, the board did affirm that appointment last night. Uh retroactively to the previous appointment date by the

Parks and Recreation Board. We then went into review the draft uh town meeting warrant. So town meeting, as I mentioned, is coming up on June 2nd. We will have an annual town meeting that will consist of approximately 30 articles, and then we will have a special town meeting, which at this time we're anticipating three articles within the special town meeting. Uh the 30 articles include many of those

housekeeping articles that I call. Uh those are your your budget, your annual articles that you see year over year.

There's a number of Community Preservation Committee articles on this town meeting warrant. There's a few general bylaw changes being proposed. Uh the site plan review bylaw being proposed by the Planning Board. Uh additional veterans exemptions through the Assessing Office. And so uh if you want more information, we do go every single article during the Select Board meeting. And like I mentioned, we're

also going to do a town meeting warrant preview video with DCTV uh to go more in-depth into the the review. On May 11th at the Select Board meeting they will be voting on the final warrant. Uh and the Town Clerk will be getting that out in the mail shortly thereafter to all of our town meeting members. It'll be posted on our website and available for all to see. Um at the May 11th

Select Board meeting, we will have a few members of the community in to give more further explanations on those articles.

So if you want more of that, you can certainly tune in uh to the May 11th meeting. Uh we also went over the fiscal 27 budget presentation. Our Director of Budget and Finance, Gary Corraro, provided an update on where we stand in the budget process. Our total budget that's being recommended for fiscal 2027, some of the concessions that were made, our ability to fund the schools at 4 and 1/2% through the raising and

appropriating. We're funding another 0.5% through the use of stabilization funds. So, great great presentation that Gary gave, and you can certainly tune in to the full video to see that as well. We also had an environmental affairs director contract, Jennifer Miller. We the board approved that contract at the last meeting.

Since then, we do need to push her start date back an additional week. So, there was a contract amendment just to change the start date of Jennifer Miller, our new environmental affairs director. We also had a discussion on the former police station, 249 Russells Mills Road.

As the community is likely aware, this has been ongoing for quite some time.

The police station, the old police station is vacant. The EPA is using the property that is in the back of the police station building itself for their soil remediation project.

So, town meeting had previously approved the funds to demolish the the building.

There was also a town meeting vote to indefinitely postpone the potential authorization to sell the building. And so, the board wants to bring it back up.

There is a proposed citizens petition for another reuse committee.

Essentially, there was a lot of discussion back and forth, and the board wants to continue the discussion as we get into the summer months. If the town meeting warrant article for a reuse committee is deemed out of order, meaning it's not legal or it does not pass, the board may look to reinstate another committee, a subcommittee of the select board, to look at the police state the former

police station and come up with a plan once and for all. Last but not least, we reviewed the town administrator evaluation process. So, it's very exciting that I have been back here in Dartmouth for almost a year now.

With that part of my employment contract, I have an annual evaluation process.

Uh evaluation process for town administrator is thorough. Uh it's in depth. And so, the board previously adopted goals uh for me to achieve for the community. We I gave an update to the board on on those goals and where we stand in um our successes and and where we need some more work uh in those goals. And then we have an evaluation form that is laid out to the board.

Essentially, what happens is each board member will fill out an evaluation. A member of the uh confidential member of the staff will compile those. And then at a meeting in the future, uh we will go over the compiled results um for the board to see. And also, that those will be public once that is uh once that evaluation is complete. Under my town administrator's update, uh we have a lot

going on in town. Uh our Citizens Academy continues to move forward. Um we have a budget advisory group meeting coming up in the near future. So, if you're interested in the budget advisory group, you can certainly tune in to that on the website. Uh those are recorded as well by GCTV.

One thing I really want to mention is our pre-town meeting meeting. This is something new uh here in Dartmouth that we're going to try out. It's an opportunity for town meeting members, members of the general public, residents to come in uh and get an understanding of town meeting before town meeting. So, it's going to be on May 27th at 6:00 p.m. Location is to be determined. So,

by my next select board meeting update, I'll be able to let you know where that will be held. Uh we're going to run through the warrant. We're going to have the select board there, the finance committee there, town council there. Um key department heads will be there to be able to provide explanations to uh the warrant itself, articles, allow you to ask questions. We really just want to

educate uh town meeting members. In that way there, they can make informed decisions at town meeting. Certainly, we don't anticipate that there won't be questions at town meeting, but we we want to make sure we get you the best information. Uh we we prepare for town meeting as best that we can. Inevitably sometimes questions come up that we may not have the answer to right on the spot. The idea with this is if if you

have a question prior to town meeting and and we don't have an answer on the spot, I can certainly make sure I get you an answer prior to the actual town meeting so you are making informed decisions when you vote at town meeting.

So, very excited on that. 40B's continue. We have the public hearing for the property on Tucker Road has closed and they will be rendering a decision later in May. The properties on Old Westport Road and Hathaway Road the public hearing continues we anticipate those wrapping up in the next couple of months with decisions coming from the Zoning Board of Appeals. With that I thank you for tuning in. The next

Dartmouth Select Board meeting will be May 11th and we will see you then. Thank you.