Raise the roofs

The countdown to the Special Town Election has almost run its course. The election is this coming Tuesday, December 16, and will determine the fate of the Nixon and Haynes roof replacement projects. Replacing roofs on school buildings is about as controversial as getting regular oil changes for your car. But this is Sudbury — a Town occupied exclusively by roofing experts and municipal finance gurus — so anything goes!

Here’s what we have for you this week:

1. Celebree School Opens in Sudbury; “Winter Wonderland” Celebration Set for Dec. 13

2. Sudbury’s Holiday Village Draws a Crowd

3. Emerson Health Earns Top National Honor for Maternity Care

4. Julie Durgin-Sicree Appointed to SPS School Committee

5. Sudbury Chamber Honors Community Members at Annual Awards & Holiday Celebration

6. Changes Coming In Health and Park and Rec Departments

7. Time to Think About Running for Local Office 

8. Events!

9. Public Records Raise Further Questions About SPS Administration’s Role In Capital Planning

Let’s get into it!

Celebree School Opens in Sudbury; “Winter Wonderland” Celebration Set for Dec. 13

NEWS
By Kevin LaHaise

A new option for high-quality early childhood education has arrived in the community. Celebree School of Sudbury is now open, bringing a philosophy rooted in connection and care to local families.

To mark the occasion, the school is inviting the public to a Winter Wonderland Grand Opening Event this Saturday, December 13.

A Celebration for the Whole Family

The grand opening celebration is free to attend and will run from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on December 13.

Designed as a family-friendly outing, the “Winter Wonderland” will feature entertainment and activities for children, including:

Sudbury’s Holiday Village Draws a Crowd

NEWS
By Kevin LaHaise

The Town of Sudbury hosted a well-attended Holiday Village event on Saturday, December 6. The event, held at the new Fairbank Community Center, featured food trucks, shopping in the main gymnasium, arts and crafts, demonstrations, touch-a-truck and baby animals.

While the baby animals drew a steady crowd of families, there was much to do for all ages and interests both inside and outside the community center.

The always-popular touch-a-truck included heavy equipment from the Department of Public Works and public safety vehicles.

Emerson Health Earns Top National Honor for Maternity Care

NEWS
By Kevin LaHaise

Emerson Health has been named a 2026 Best Hospital for Maternity Care by U.S. News & World Report, a distinction that places the local health system among the nation’s leaders in safety and patient experience for expectant families.

The recognition highlights Emerson’s ongoing commitment to providing expert, compassionate care for newborns, mothers, and growing families across the region, including Sudbury. The organization has prioritized community health in recent years, expanding its footprint in multiple towns around Sudbury.

To determine the rankings, U.S. News & World Report evaluated approximately 900 hospitals nationwide. The assessment focused on the performance measures that matter most to prospective parents, including:

Julie Durgin-Sicree Appointed to SPS School Committee

NEWS
BY Kevin LaHaise

Following interviews with three applicants on Tuesday, December 9, Julie Durgin-Sicree was appointed to fill a vacancy on the Sudbury Public Schools School Committee. The appointment was made by the overwhelming majority of the Sudbury Select Board and Sudbury Public Schools School Committee.

There were three applicants for the vacancy, which was created by the resignation of Mandy Sim, just months before her term was set to end. The appointment is a short-term appointment, lasting only until the conclusion of Annual Town Meeting in May of 2026. The seat will then be filled by the winner of an election in the Annual Town Elections in March of 2026.

Sudbury Chamber Honors Community Members at Annual Awards & Holiday Celebration

NEWS
By Kevin LaHaise

The Annual Sudbury Chamber of Commerce Community Awards returned to the Longfellow’s Wayside Inn on Wednesday, December 10. The evening was dedicated to recognizing the individuals and businesses that help make Sudbury a great place to live and do business.

This year’s roster of award winners highlights a diverse group of residents and organizations who have dedicated themselves to preserving Sudbury’s history, serving the community, and innovating for its future.

Changes Coming In Health and Park and Rec Departments

NEWS
By Kevin LaHaise

Two director-level leaders are departing their posts in Sudbury this month.

The Monday, December 8 meeting of the Park and Recreation Commission included a long conversation about the resignation of Park and Recreation Director Dennis Mannone. Mannone resigned abruptly and his last day was the Friday prior to their meeting. Assistant Town Manager and Finance Director, Victor Garofalo, told the commissioners that the Town found an interim director in just a matter of days after Mannone resigned.

Time to Think About Running for Local Office

NEWS
By The League of Women Voters of Sudbury

Prospective candidates for town and school committee positions can begin “pulling papers” to gather signatures and run for local office on Thursday, Jan. 8, according to the Town Clerk. Signatures must be returned to the Clerk’s office by early February. Sudbury’s town election is Monday, March 30. 

Any registered voter in Sudbury has the right to run. Boards and committees do not choose who may run to join them. You can learn more about your right to run and the steps for running here on the LWV website.

The list of openings will be posted by the Town Clerk in late December and will include seats on the Select Board, Sudbury School Committee, and Lincoln-Sudbury Regional District School Committee. Prospective candidates will be able to find run for office information, including dates for the LWV Sudbury Candidates’ Forum recording sessions and Meet the Candidates event, on the Sudbury League’s website here.

A 2024 state League program on campaign finance demystifies the campaign finance filing requirements and process. In the recording, Jason Tait from the Office of Campaign and Political Finance offers tips, tricks, and tools to make campaign finance filings easy. You can find it here.

The 2023 Town Forum on voting and volunteerism in Sudbury offers insights into our local government and opportunities to participate. You can watch the recording on SudburyTV here.

Public Records Raise Further Questions About SPS Administration’s Role In Capital Planning

NEWS
By Kevin LaHaise

At the end of the December 4 meeting of the Sudbury Public Schools (SPS) School Committee, there was a discussion about Superintendent Brad Crozier’s lack of participation in the town-wide capital planning process.

During that discussion, Crozier told the committee that he sent a delegate to the meetings, specifically Combined Facilities Director Sandra Duran. Vice Chair Jessica McCready asked “So the capital planning is where you send Sandra as your delegate?” Crozier responded “Yeah, the facilities person. Yes.” (3:18:30)

Crozier later stated “The capital planning one, I felt that Sandra has been representing the district.” Chair Karyn Jones interjected to state that she thought Crozier had tasked Don Sawyer with attending those meetings.

Crozier did not address the point about Sawyer being the delegate, and went on to say that Duran was reporting back from those meetings and that he and Sawyer, among others, had worked to prioritize items that were submitted to the capital plan.

Sudbury Weekly has obtained, via a records request, copies of emails about the capital planning meetings over the course of 2026, and in one email Crozier told Town staff to take him off the invitations altogether and that Sawyer would attend in his place.

Parting Thoughts

The 1996 movie “Independence Day” may not be one of Hollywood’s crowning achievements, but it has a few things going for it. One of them is the character played by Judd Hirsch. He played the father of Jeff Goldblum’s character, David Levinson, who was one of the heroes in the story.

While aliens were attacking the planet, and rather efficiently wiping out major cities, Hirsch’s character toured a secret alien research lab with the President. He cracked a joke about how the government got the funding for such an advanced, but secret, facility: “You don't actually think they spend $20,000 on a hammer, $30,000 on a toilet seat, do you?”

The quip taps into a common sentiment among citizens: Why does it cost so much for the government to do things that the private sector can do cheaper?

The answer, of course, is complicated. Procurement laws, restrictive policies and inefficient bureaucratic processes (to name a few of the most common explanations) present constant hurdles to do virtually anything.

But comparisons to the private sector aren’t particularly fair. Over half of US businesses don’t survive a decade according to data from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics.

Imagine if a municipal government just… went away?

What if 60% of municipal governments failed, like businesses, every 10 years? Imagine the chaos!

Even in the event of a municipal government failure, there are mechanisms available to prop the government back up. This actually happened in 1991 when the State of Massachusetts put the city of Chelsea under state receivership.

In a private business, sometimes you need to take risks to win big. If you get it wrong, you might fail and go out of business. But local government has an entirely different relationship to risk. For municipal government, “going out of business” is not supposed to be an option.

In that context, one has to wonder why we compare enduring public service organizations like municipal governments to profit-seeking corporations that are so often “here today and gone tomorrow.”

The Town of Sudbury, like many Massachusetts municipalities, has been around for hundreds of years. That type of longevity is almost unheard of in the corporate world. IBM is a great comparison — a company that has survived, even thrived, for over 100 years. But that company started off making cheese slicers, and is now doing quantum computing and artificial intelligence. It’s the same company, but it’s not really the same company…

The Town of Sudbury is still here. Sure, it has an IT department now… but a lot of the core services of local government remain the same for long periods of time. Running elections, educating students, maintaining roads, public safety, and that kind of stuff.

On Tuesday, the Town will once again hold an election… this time to get approval for debt exclusions that will fund the replacement of two school roofs, with nearly $5 million in reimbursements from the Massachusetts School Building Authority. The roofs are expected to last a couple decades (or more) atop school buildings that have been serving Sudbury students for many more decades than the lifespan of a roof.

On Tuesday, voters will make a choice about those roofs. But it’s also a choice about buildings constructed by Sudbury residents decades ago, and a choice about the buildings today’s residents will pass on to future residents in the decades to come.

Enduring public assets and infrastructure are not glamorous, but they are the business of government that is, by design, in it for the very long haul… Because “game over” isn’t an option.

Or as Will Smith says in “Independence Day”

“I ain't heard no fat lady!”

Onward!