Latest articles
News
“Bring Brennan Back,” says Town Meeting to Select Board
During a prolonged Town Meeting, articles were approved to fund HVAC replacements and structural repairs at two fire stations. Additionally, a citizen's petition passed to advocate for the reinstatement of Sergeant Tim Brennan, who was controversially fired. Discussions also included law enforcement policy adherence, town personnel actions, and amendments concerning environmental testing. Major points included various community members vocalizing both support and opposition, leading to several democratic decisions, though not all articles were successful. The meeting highlighted robust civic engagement and varied opinions on town governance and community values.
News
2% of Voters Decide to Raise $171 million in Tax
At Hopkinton Middle School's Annual Town Meeting, attended by 343 of 13,076 registered voters, several significant fiscal decisions were made, totaling $171,982,393. Highlights included passing the Operating budget at $121 million, approving a salary for Town Clerk Connor Degan, and agreeing to digitize town records at a cost of $667k. Debates ensued over the Hopkins Addition project, with its $48 million need achieving the required 2/3 majority. Public works projects also received attention, with some approved and others denied. The discussion will continue in a Special Town Meeting addressing additional civic matters.
Politics
Your Guide to Town Meeting 2024
Hopkinton will host its Annual Town Meeting on May 6 and a Special Town Meeting on May 7 at Hopkinton Middle School. Attendees will vote on 52 articles during the Annual Meeting and 5 additional proposals in the Special Meeting, addressing issues from town budget increases and water management to a major school renovation project. Key topics include significant debt considerations due to capital requests, particularly a $48 million expansion for Hopkins Elementary, and the adoption of a specialized Stretch Energy Code aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Voting will be electronic, with large attendance expected.
News
Police Seek Vehicle Seen Joyriding at HCC
The Hopkinton police are requesting help to identify a vehicle responsible for considerable damage on the Hopkinton Country Club golf course at 5:00 PM today. The vehicle nearly hit several golfers. Individuals with any information should contact the police at (508) 497-3401.
More like this
News
“Bring Brennan Back,” says Town Meeting to Select Board
During a prolonged Town Meeting, articles were approved to fund HVAC replacements and structural repairs at two fire stations. Additionally, a citizen's petition passed to advocate for the reinstatement of Sergeant Tim Brennan, who was controversially fired. Discussions also included law enforcement policy adherence, town personnel actions, and amendments concerning environmental testing. Major points included various community members vocalizing both support and opposition, leading to several democratic decisions, though not all articles were successful. The meeting highlighted robust civic engagement and varied opinions on town governance and community values.
News
2% of Voters Decide to Raise $171 million in Tax
At Hopkinton Middle School's Annual Town Meeting, attended by 343 of 13,076 registered voters, several significant fiscal decisions were made, totaling $171,982,393. Highlights included passing the Operating budget at $121 million, approving a salary for Town Clerk Connor Degan, and agreeing to digitize town records at a cost of $667k. Debates ensued over the Hopkins Addition project, with its $48 million need achieving the required 2/3 majority. Public works projects also received attention, with some approved and others denied. The discussion will continue in a Special Town Meeting addressing additional civic matters.
Politics
Your Guide to Town Meeting 2024
Hopkinton will host its Annual Town Meeting on May 6 and a Special Town Meeting on May 7 at Hopkinton Middle School. Attendees will vote on 52 articles during the Annual Meeting and 5 additional proposals in the Special Meeting, addressing issues from town budget increases and water management to a major school renovation project. Key topics include significant debt considerations due to capital requests, particularly a $48 million expansion for Hopkins Elementary, and the adoption of a specialized Stretch Energy Code aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Voting will be electronic, with large attendance expected.
My civic pride says my help is needed, but the the louder more realistic voice says you would have to be nuts. The climate isn’t going to change without a few more vacancies.
The cartoon would be funny if it weren’t so serious. I love our town, I did when I moved in over 30 years ago and I do still but we need to focus very hard on basics and a long-term plan, without it we are going to lose our character and strength. We have a lot to be proud of – schools, fire, police, employees and volunteers. I would love to see a long term plan put together as we need water, we need waste treatment, we need town wide sewer, we need more facilities as we keep growing due to our great community, we need to increase revenue which means businesses brought into town that we will support. I don’t know the best way to get things pulled together but we need to greatly increase our town center density to make people want to spend time in town spending their money and those businesses willingly paying taxes to support the community without stressing our services (schools primarily). The four corners of Main street/route 85 need attractive multi-story buildings that have shopping and professional services to bring in and keep people in town. I would love to see 3-4 story buildings with ground floor shopping, second and third floors with professionals – lawyers, doctors, dentists, perhaps something that kids can hang at – a mini movie theatre or something. The point being we need to look to see what can be done to increase income without a greater increase in costs which means businesses. Businesses need more traffic – someone who goes to the pharmacy and meets up for a cup of coffee and visits a doctor and basically spends time in money for several hours in Hopkinton center. The area needing investment is all private so how it can be encouraged and developed is beyond me but the need and options are generally clear. I read with interest that we lose something like $1,000,000/year in uncollected water charges and the solution would cost something like $1,000,000; seems like a no brainer, spend the money once and get the greater return for further investment after year 2. Anyway, my thoughts and probably worth every penny I was paid to put them out here ($0.00).
I agree that down town needs more business, but why add new building when we could use current ones more effectively . .
Move Town Hall over to Wood street area where the DPW building is . Town Hall would make great space for restaurants and small business. And of course there is old Center school currently used as a large file cabinet .. .And yes both would cost allot to rehab and bring to code , but Center school is just sitting there costing money to maintain anyways ( there is gym that could be used to start a youth center instead of CVS 🙂 .Hey the Town could be the landlord and use the money to get Quick Books so they can keep track of the 1000 vendors and etc . :)) J/K maybe .
IMHO, its because its chicken and egg, we need density quickly and that means multi-story buildings and lots of new businesses in those building so those businesses thrive with cross customer visits, i.e. see a doctor, see banker, see a lawyer, grab a muffin and a coffee, jewelry shop. I think using center school is good and moving town hall could work, but the spare looking and filled out downtown is a long discussed issue that needs to be addressed. The two gas stations add very little to the appeal of downtown, tax base and future and so are ripe for redevelopment if it could be done – again private property so not sure how to induce the “vision” (I don’t like eminent domain). Putting The Muffin House Cafe inside a much larger building with customers upstairs as well as stopping in would help the existing businesses and new ones and help the town and citizens. The argument I see is redeveloping Hopkinton Drug’s building alone wouldn’t add enough density for an investor to take the plunge but doing all 4 corners would.
Tony, I wanted to add (but couldn’t edit to add), I like the discussion, we need more of it in town. More minds generally results in better and better evolution of good ideas.
and what about seeing a blue and red Domino’s Pizza sign soon in the “Nice ” freeway stretch we call downtown. Face it, it will never have an 1800’s community based walking downtown(not that I’d remember it) with a couple of highways intersecting. It’s been years since I tried parallel parking on a highway- it’s not easy or fun or safe. Plus now I’d take some of the 100 foot telephone poles back not to see a Dominos sign. Strip malls with parking sure looks more inviting. Maybe that is what HopDrug was.
Those of us who drive gasoline powered vehicles find that having a gas station in town is very useful.
I wonder what kind of thinking considers gas stations useless. Perhaps folks who only drive EVs or ride bicycles?