Sunshine and corn

Welcome back!

It has been over four months since the people of Sudbury have had Lotus Blossom for dinner, and it’s getting difficult to roll out of bed in the morning. While the town eagerly awaits their reopening, there’s other stuff happening in Sudbury… so here’s what we have for you this week:

1. Committee Roundup

2. Sudbury’s Solar Ambitions Take a Hit

3. Future of Sudbury Crime Lab Is Up In the Air

4. The Games We Play

5. L-S Senior Awarded Hanscom FCU Scholarship

6. Vocational Education in Sudbury

Let’s get into it!

Committee Roundup

NEWS
By Kevin LaHaise

Finance Committee

• Not a ton to report from the committee itself. They held high level conversations on Monday, July 14 regarding their priorities for the year ahead. For the second meeting in a row they discussed reorganization, but did not vote for committee co-chairs.

• Finance Director Victor Garofalo provided several newsworthy updates, including:

  • The final State budget had $186K more in Chapter 70 aid for Sudbury than the Town estimated, and unrestricted local aid came in about $12K higher than estimated. Garofalo explained that this means the town will leave a larger unused levy capacity at the end of the year. In other words: they’ll tax less than they would have otherwise to fund the FY26 budget approved at Town Meeting in May of 2025. He added that this added unused levy capacity will help with the tightening financial picture in future years. (1:22:10) The handling of excess Chapter 70 aid has been a source of conflict between Sudbury Public Schools and the Town in recent years.

  • The Atkinson Pool renovation is on track for an August start. Supply chain delays for HVAC equipment have that project split into two phases. The first phase will happen between August and the start of swim team season. The second phase, according to Garofalo, will be around May of next year to install the HVAC equipment. He said that will require a three week shutdown of the pool.

  • The long-awaited 15-year town-wide capital plan is well underway. Garofalo said there were already over 300 lines of capital projects in the plan.

  • A Division of Local Services analysis of Sudbury’s financial management is expected to arrive sometime in August. The Finance Committee is hoping to be included in any presentation of those findings and the ensuing discussions in the Select Board regarding any potential updates to the Town’s financial policies.

Select Board

1. After some initial discussion in prior meetings, Town Manager Andy Sheehan informed the board that the Town would target December or January for a Special Town Meeting. The primary purpose would be to vote on the proposed school roof replacements, pending approvals by the Massachusetts School Building Authority, though other articles could be brought forward. (17:00)

2. The board received a comprehensive update from the Rail Trails Advisory Committee (RTAC). Sudbury Weekly has covered most of those updates in articles in recent months, but the discussion is worth a watch for those interested in trespassing on Sudbury’s two under-construction rail trails. (1:02:00)

3. Work to clean up and organize the Select Board’s policies continued this week. The board voted to rescind a batch of policies that were out of date or no longer relevant/appropriate for a variety of reasons. (2:08:00)

Council on Aging

• The council spent considerable time on Monday, July 14, discussing upcoming changes to Sudbury’s intricate tapestry of subsidized transportation options. (23:20)

• The new mix of transportation programs and their corresponding eligibility requirements fall somewhere between the complexity of navigating a corn maze with four hungry children, and assembling IKEA furniture without the instructions. But none of them require a wrench!

• The council indicated that there would be a communications effort in the months ahead to explain the changes to users. A mid-July update on the Town website provided the latest information for the current batch of programs. You can review those here.

Sudbury’s Solar Ambitions Take a Hit

NEWS
By Kevin LaHaise

The Tuesday, July 15 meeting of the Sudbury Select Board started as it always does; with reports from the board and Town Manager Andy Sheehan, but Sheehan’s comments included an unexpected comment on the recently-passed "One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” Sheehan told the Select Board:

The legislation has been criticized as “anti-solar,” but that fails to capture the complexity and confusion that municipalities are left to unpack from the relevant portions of the legislation. An article from Columbia Law School explained “Since the passage of the IRA, local governments, nonprofits, and other eligible entities have been able to claim the value of certain clean vehicle and clean energy tax credits in cash, through a mechanism referred to as elective pay. Elective pay itself is untouched in the OBBB Act, but the aggressive phase-out of and additional restrictions imposed upon the underlying tax credits severely impact eligible entities’ ability to claim them via elective pay.”

The same article went to to suggest that solar and wind projects that qualify for the relevant tax credits should commence construction rapidly, before new foreign entities of concern (FEOC) rules go into effect, and before phaseout deadlines for the tax credits kick in. “Assuming a wind or solar project can comply with the FEOC rules, cities now have to contend with accelerated phase-out timelines for the ITC and PTC. Entities looking to claim these credits have two alternative deadlines.”

While that’s bad news for municipal solar and wind projects, the legislation actually extended the tax credit timeline for other clean energy projects beyond what was provided in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that passed under President Biden. The National League of Cities explained “For other clean energy projects, such as geothermal, hydropower, nuclear and battery storage, the investment and production tax credits are retained through 2033 and then begin a phase out through 2036. This is a longer time frame than originally provided through the IRA.”

As Town Manager Sheehan also pointed out to the Select Board during his comments on Tuesday, Sudbury has officially begun FY26 (Fiscal Year 2026). That means a draft FY27 budget is due in January of 2026. With deadlines, phaseouts and new requirements from the federal legislation kicking in as soon as the end of this calendar year, there’s little time for municipalities to accelerate solar and wind projects relative to their budget-building timelines.

Sudbury is in the midst of planning the replacement of two school roofs through a Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) program. That program provides significant reimbursements, but the estimates recently came in considerably higher than the Town of Sudbury anticipated. One of the MSBA requirements is that roof replacements must be solar-ready. In light of the federal legislation, it’s conceivable the town will be paying a premium to construct roofs that are ready for solar installations which will have multiplied in their direct costs to municipalities by the time the roof projects are completed.

Future of Sudbury Crime Lab Is Up In the Air

NEWS
By Kevin LaHaise

In March of 2025, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts announced that the state police had selected Marlborough for the site of a new crime lab. The new lab will absorb operations from nearby Sudbury and Maynard according to reporting from the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. At the time, neither the state police nor the Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance (DCAMM) indicated what was in store for the land or lab facility in Sudbury.

At the latest meeting of the Sudbury Housing Trust, members discussed the property at 59 Horse Pond Road. (Outlined in yellow below)

The Sudbury Housing Trust’s role is to “provide for the creation and preservation of affordable housing in the Town of Sudbury for the benefit of low and moderate income households.” While they discussed the parcel as a potential Town land acquisition, no specific plans were discussed regarding development of affordable housing on the land. However, the Healey-Driscoll administration has prioritized making state-owned land available for housing development as part of its broader housing strategy in recent years. While significantly larger in size and scope, the future of nearby MCI Concord is subject of a robust planning exercise as part of a collaboration between the Town of Concord and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

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The Games We Play

FEATURES
By Rev. Eric Wolf

Reflecting on human nature is kind of my thing, and it always has been. This is part of what drew me to study the Bible — it’s a massive anthology of humanity at its best and hot-messiest. It’s also what made me mildly obsessed with the Enlightenment.

I’m Quite at My Leisure

More accurately, what piqued my interest was the impact it had on the framers of our own government as I read their writings. I was fascinated by the idea that Four-score-and-change before Lincoln, these thinkers gathered in coffee houses and other establishments to imagine a world inspired by the very best of human thinking. And what it produced was profoundly different than anything that had come before — you know, this, and other propaganda we all probably learned in school!

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L-S Senior Awarded Hanscom FCU Scholarship

NEWS
By Kevin LaHaise

Hanscom Federal Credit Union has awarded $11,750 in college scholarships to ten high-achieving high school seniors as part of its 2025 scholarship program. The recipients were selected for their academic excellence, leadership, and dedication to service.

Among the honorees is Mackenzie Kycia, a senior at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, who received the $1,500 John F. Condon Memorial Scholarship. This award honors the legacy of John F. Condon, a former Hanscom FCU board member and retired Air Force Chief Master Sergeant known for his commitment to education and public service.

“We’re thrilled to recognize these 10 incredible students,” said Hanscom FCU President & CEO Peter Rice. “Their hard work, character, and commitment to the future reflect the values that John Condon lived by and that our credit union upholds.”

The scholarship initiative is part of Hanscom FCU’s broader effort to support its members and invest in community development.

Vocational Education in Sudbury

OPINION
By Dave Manjarrez

I’ve been a longtime advocate of vocational education in Sudbury. My son, a Minuteman graduate, benefited from the entire experience and was inspired to earn two college degrees after high school. Vocational education has also given me the honor and privilege of being appointed to represent and serve Sudbury’s residents and their students.

Sudbury values making decisions based on data, especially when it comes to public funds. So, I think it would be great if we could survey all middle school students and their parents to find out what they need and want from vocational education. This data will help us evaluate different vocational options and see how they would affect Sudbury’s budget.

Read Full Letter

Parting Thoughts

It’s almost time for local corn, folks! Ferjulian’s Farm announced this morning that they had corn in from western Massachusetts, and that they had picked some of their own peaches. Verrill Farm in Concord has blueberries in, and the countdown to their tomatoes can’t go fast enough. Both farms have many other crops coming in from their fields as peak season approaches.

Massachusetts is not be the biggest grower of corn in the country, not even close, but it’s growing the best corn in the country. There may be other states that produce dramatically more corn, and corn that is rated as higher quality by “experts,” but Massachusetts corn tastes like the first Thanksgiving, the Boston Tea Party, and the founding of a nation in each bite. John Adams was growing corn in Quincy a century before Nebraska was even a state!

Massachusetts is also the birthplace of corn chowder. Corn chowder is a soup, or it’s what happens when you put just the right amount of butter on an ear of corn. Either way, the addition of dairy works well with corn not just because dairy is delicious, but because dairy farming on this side of the pond can be traced back to the Plymouth Colony, which also grew corn. What grows together goes together, right?

Selective reinterpretation of history aside, the point is that it’s time to eat corn, and that’s cause for celebration.

Onward!