Palmer reflects on Select Board term

Tom Palmer looks back on the past three years with satisfaction.

His first term on the Select Board comes to an end in May. He decided not to run in order to spend more time traveling with his wife now that his youngest son is headed to college in the fall. Palmer announced his decision at the board’s Feb. 23 meeting.

He told the Observer he is happy with the work he has done over the past three years and is looking forward to the flexibility that being an empty nester will allow him.

“That’s the part that is rewarding, the fact that you can actually feel like you get things done that moved the town ahead,” Palmer said.

He pointed to several projects that he said made progress during his time in office, including the fire station project and the Josiah Smith Tavern.

Palmer co-chaired the Fire Station Working Group, which designed a plan for upgrading the fire station on Boston Post Road and relocating the second station to the Middle School. The group disbanded in January after putting together a plan to address growing health and safety concerns for those buildings. Palmer and the group hope to have a $5 million article on the Annual Town Meeting Warrant to pay for design funds.

“That was very much a group effort,” Palmer said. “None of these projects happen by just one person. They take a bunch of people for them to happen.”

Palmer also said he was happy to see progress made on the Josiah Smith Tavern. Palmer has been involved in trying to fill the space for over a decade. He co-chaired the Josiah Smith Tavern and Old Library working group, a 2010s municipal group focused on finding reuse opportunities for the two buildings.

The town designated the Friends of the Josiah Smith Tavern as proponents for the space in 2017, which opened part of the building as an event space in August 2024. Three nonprofits – the Weston Community League, the Weston Historical Society, and the Weston Forest and Trail Association – have moved into the building.

“We got the JST occupied with nonprofits, and the leases are in place, and a restaurateur was selected,” he said. “There’s been some hiccups and some bumps and delays, but knock on wood … we’re in there at the end of this year with a restaurant that … is going to be a fabulous resource for the town.”

Brian Piccini, the restaurateur behind the effort to bring The Woods restaurant to the tavern, has targeted November 2026 for its opening.

Palmer is also proud of the work he has put into opening discussions about water rates as well as moving the water tank replacement project forward. Residents approved an initial $1 million toward the water tank project in 2023, the same year Palmer joined the Select Board, but rejected additional funding the following year. More funding was later approved at another town meeting several months later.

“I can’t say I did a lot of the legwork … but post the meeting where it failed, to then resurrecting it, and bringing it back in three months and getting 90% approval, that I’m particularly happy about,” Palmer said.

As a Select Board member, he currently serves on the Water Tank Working Group.

Throughout his term, Palmer said he learned to manage the high emotions of the position while trying to make decisions he feels are best for the town as a whole.

“It’s never fun when you find yourselves in conflict with residents, whether that be over dog hearings or abutter issues with water tanks … Certainly people aren’t afraid to give their opinion when it impacts them,” Palmer said. “You have to appreciate that the impact to them is pretty strong, but you just keep the other 11,000 residents in the back of your mind, and say that’s ultimately who we’re working for.”

Although Palmer is not running for re-election, he has not ruled out future involvement in town government. At the Feb. 24 Select Board meeting, Palmer introduced a plan to rezone parcels to allow for cell towers, which he hopes to see on the fall Special Town Meeting warrant. Palmer said he would be open to working on a cell coverage project as a citizen, if not in the capacity of a government official.

In the two months Palmer has left in office, he plans to keep busy. He is meeting with different municipal groups to educate them on the fire station project and said the Select Board is focused on helping finalize the budget.