Hello, 2026

Welcome back!

We’re two days into the new year and they felt a lot like… the last two days of last year. Nonetheless, the peace and quiet of the winter break will soon be disrupted by the return to school, work and non-holiday routines.

Despite the quiet close out of 2025, we still have some important reporting for you this week. We are introducing a linked table of contents in this edition. The benefit, in theory, is that the linked headlines will help you jump down to the stories you want to read first. Assuming it works properly, let us know if it’s better, worse or the same as the old format!

Here’s what we have for you this week:

Let’s get into it!

Skating Rink Opens At Fairbank Community Center

NEWS
By Kevin LaHaise

The John Toland Memorial Outdoor Rink opened at the Fairbank Community Center on January 2, 2026. The rink will be open from dawn until dusk during the season. According to the announcement, it’s a 90′ by 50′ rink, and it’s open to all residents.

Five Major Positions on Town Election Ballot

NEWS
By The League of Women Voters of Sudbury

Voters will fill 11 town board and school committee seats, including five major positions, in the annual town election Monday, March 30.

On the ballot will be one seat on the Select Board, two seats on the Sudbury School Committee (grades PreK-8), and two seats on the Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School Committee, all for 3-year terms.

The other positions on the town election ballot are:  Board of Assessors, one 3-year term; Goodnow Library Trustees, two 3-year terms; Board of Health, one 3-year term; Park and Recreation Commission, one 3-year term; and Planning Board, one 3-year term.

2025 Year In Review

FEATURES
By Kevin LaHaise

We’re about to complete another trip around the sun, and not much has changed here in Sudbury. The Town budget is stretched thin, the intersection at Horse Pond Road and Boston Post Road is still as harrowing as ever, and the restaurant space is vacant once again at 29 Hudson Road.

Of course, 2025 was a busy, complicated and, at times, unpredictable year. Of the roughly 600 stories published by Sudbury Weekly this year, a few stood out as they covered the issues, themes and developments that defined life in Sudbury in 2025. If you’re interested in a stroll down memory lane, here’s the 2024 Year In Review.

Here’s the annual Sudbury Weekly “Year In Review.”

Repairs Required On New Haskell SMILE Playground Surface

NEWS
By Kevin LaHaise

2025 has been a rough year for the SMILE playground at Haskell Field. A long-delayed project to repair the poured rubber surface resulted in the removal of shade trees and a play structure, but without enough budget remaining to replace any equipment or add shade structures. Resident outcry led to a prompt submission for Community Preservation Act funding to add shade and additional accessible play structures.

While that application is working its way through the Community Preservation Committee’s vetting process, the Town has announced that portions of the new poured rubber surface fall short of safety standards and have been roped off. “Recent review determined that these areas do not currently meet required safety standards for fall protection.”

Sheehan Closes 2025 With Another Contract Agreement

NEWS
By Kevin LaHaise

Sudbury Town Manager Andy Sheehan has been on quite a roll with union contracts since joining Sudbury. After inheriting and settling an unsettled firefighters collective bargaining agreement in the months after joining as Town Manager, Sheehan kept the dealmaking hot streak alive in 2024 and 2025.

In the latest development, the Town published an agreement with the Sudbury Association of Engineers, Architects and Draftsmen.

Sewataro Revenue Share Holds Steady at $116K In 2025

NEWS
By Kevin LaHaise

The Town of Sudbury has published the 2025 Camp Sewataro financial statement and the revenue share to the Town is $116,404. That’s almost identical to the $114,692 paid out for the 2024 camp season. The agreement between the camp operator and the Town sends 25% of net revenue under $1 million from the private camp to the Town.

The camp generated $522,790 in profit during the 2025 camp season, one again almost identical to the $524,423 in profit generated from the 2024 camp season. While tuition revenue increase from $4.4M in 2024 to $4.5M in 2025, general and administrative expenses increased from $3.869,636 in 2024 to 4,028,308 in 2025. That contributed to net income that dropped very slightly from $524,423 in 2024 to $522,790.

Year End Weather Summary SPS Closes In On Multiple Contract Agreements

FEATURES
By John Palmieri

Sudbury weather quickly moved into winter cold as December arrived. We had frequent snow events although generally light in nature. In total 7 inches of snow fell in December making it the snowiest of the last three. We continued with below normal precipitation values with 2.81 inches of rain including melted snow for the month. More prominent was the December cold temperatures. Every day dipped below freezing but one and we had 7 days where temperatures dipped below 10 degrees. So yes winter arrived! Indicated below are some of the annual weather stats for review:

2025 Annual Rainfall: 40.93 inches
2024 Annual Rainfall: 45.73 inches
2023 Annual Rainfall: 63.33 inches

2025 Annual Snowfall: 34 inches
2024 Annual Snowfall: 23.5 inches
2023 Annual Snowfall: 22.5 inches

2025 Max Temp: 102 degrees
2024 Max Temp: 97 degrees
2023 Max Temp: 95 degrees

2025 Min Temp: minus 6 degrees
2024 Min Temp: 2 degrees
2023 Min Temp: minus 12 degrees

The weather for the New Year looks to continue with temperatures well below normal. We will be lucky to get above freezing in the short term. No big snowstorms in sight although we are moving into the dead of winter in New England. Happy New Year everyone.

Parting Thoughts

The year ahead looks promising for Sudbury Weekly. What started as a labor of love nearly four years ago has grown into a far more robust news outlet than we initially imagined.

In 2022, we started with a basic email newsletter on a bare-bones newsletter platform. While the platform was simple, the reporting was intentionally rigorous. Unlike what you might see elsewhere, stories were annotated with timestamps for municipal meeting videos, and articles included direct links to source materials.

That tradition continued even as we launched a far more robust website and migrated over to the current newsletter platform. The Sudbury Weekly email newsletter has been published every week since April of 2022, with the exception of just a few weeks. But the website allowed us to publish any day and time of the week, which in turn made it possible to cover more topics, more issues, and to run more feature stories. (A HUGE thank you goes out to all the writers who contributed feature stories in 2025. You elevated Sudbury Weekly with your time, talent and expertise.)

Recently we activated our Facebook page, which may even spread to Instagram in 2026. (Le sigh…)

With our technology foundation firmly established, and steadily expanding coverage areas, 2026 is all about making this local news outlet sustainable for the long haul. At a time when traditional local news is in peril, hyper-local independent news is stepping up all over the country to fill the gap. But how long can that last without a viable model to sustain the operation?

Sudbury Weekly will remain free to subscribers, but we’ll expand the advertising operation over the course of the year. Our cost structure is as lean as we can make it, but growing. Looming technology upgrades and price increases on software subscriptions are always adding pressure. And the time investment is, let’s be honest, enormous. We remain firmly committed to having real human beings write every story. Artificial intelligence (AI) slop has sadly been creeping into some newsrooms. Aside from the complex moral/ethical questions it raises, the AI writing just doesn’t tee up hilarious animated GIF’s as well as a human author does because, well, there’s an art to it!

Anyway, we view advertising as an additional way to provide exposure for the business community, all while ensuring Sudbury Weekly can be sustained long-term.

None of it is possible without readers like you. You make this entire endeavor worthwhile. Your support, feedback, and criticism have made Sudbury Weekly better every year. Thank you for reading, for writing in, suggesting stories, and sharing your events. We’re here to help get the word out about everything happening in Sudbury!

Remember — you can always reach us at [email protected] for editorial matters, and [email protected] for advertising inquiries.

Onward!