Governor signs Select Board expansion act, election set for Jan. 13

After two Town Meeting votes requesting Weston expand its Select Board, residents will have one more opportunity to vote for the expansion.

Gov. Maura Healey signed Chapter 38 of the Acts of 2025 on Oct. 8, enacting a home rule petition authorized by a majority vote, 173-101, at the May 2025 Annual Town Meeting that sought to increase the membership of the Select Board from three to five members. The law requires Weston to hold a special election to affirm the change in Select Board structure.

The Select Board Tuesday evening set the election for Jan. 13. There will be early in-person voting and mail-in voting available for residents.

If the ballot question is approved by a majority of voters, two new Select Board positions will be included on the May 2026 annual town election ballot, one for a three-year term and one for a two-year term.

Thomas Palmer’s Select Board seat will also be up for election, as his three-year term is expiring.

The top two vote-getters will serve the three-year terms, while the person with the third-most votes will serve the two-year term.

How we got here

Efforts to expand Weston’s Select Board trace back to the 2022 Annual Town Meeting, where a citizen’s petition requesting special legislation to increase the number of board members was overwhelmingly approved by approximately 72% of voters in attendance, 402-159. 

Citizens’ petitions, however, do not require a town to implement the recommendation, as they are considered to be advisory guidance to the executive branch of municipal government.

In 2023, the Select Board created and charged the Town Governance Study Committee to study “the town’s form and structure of governance and current governance practices across all functions and at all levels.” The following year, after residents pressed the Select Board about why they did not act on the citizen’s petition request to increase the number of board members, the Town Governance Study Committee shifted its focus to the question of expanding the membership of the Select Board.

Palmer said the Select Board in 2023 “recognized there was a desire” to expand the Select Board, but further analysis needed to be done. He noted the previous year the Select Board had proposed funding for a government study committee, which was rejected at the same meeting where residents approved the citizen’s petition.

“I still think, and I agree with the prior Select Board, that we should do this consciously and thoughtfully,” Palmer said of the thinking at the time.

The Town Governance Study Committee collected feedback, surveyed residents and compared Weston to neighboring towns and communities with similar populations around the state.

In April, the committee issued its final report, and voted unanimously – with Moderator Ripley Hastings abstaining – to recommend against increasing the Select Board size. Members found there was “no compelling reason” to expand the board, giving the reasons that it found the town’s population to be mostly stable over the last quarter-century, a relatively low year-round population, “poor government participation” in the last decade and a decline in volunteers. The committee noted fewer than half of Select Board races between 2014 and 2025, about 45%, were contested, and the last three-candidate Select Board election was in 2016.

“The town should focus on building its civic engagement communications to help educate residents, build community and attract volunteers,” the report reads, “then reassess at a later time if a board increase is needed.”

So, why has the board recommended expanding to five members? The makeup of the board has changed, with Chair Lise Revers making the expansion effort one of the core ideas in her 2024 election campaign. John McDonald, too, advocated for supporting the “will of the voters” in his 2025 campaign, according to a candidate statement he submitted to the Weston Owl.

Even though the committee’s final report was against the expansion, Hastings said the Select Board placed the article on the warrant at the recommendation of the Town Governance Study Committee, as it was another opportunity for residents to weigh in on the matter.

Despite the committee’s recommendation, residents again voted to expand the Select Board. 

 “It passed,” Palmer said, “so the Select Board has since honored the will of Town Meeting.”