A look back at the Select Board expansion effort

Voters at the 2025 Annual Town Meeting again voted to expand Weston’s Select Board. A special election is now set to affirm that vote, but why was another vote needed to affirm a decision approved three years earlier?

The roots of the effort to expand the board trace back to November 2021. Susan Zacharias, a former 17-year Planning Board member, broached the topic with the Select Board, because she said she believed the board was overworked, especially as town government became increasingly complex and Weston’s budget continued to grow.

Select Board members at that meeting disagreed with the idea that they were overburdened. Instead, the board members suggested town government as a whole should be studied before making any changes.

In spite of the Select Board’s disagreement, Zacharias filed a non-binding citizen’s petition ahead of the 2022 Annual Town Meeting. Voters in attendance approved the measure by 72%, 402-159.

“People were clearly feeling like this was a smart thing to do,” Zacharias said.

Why is the Select Board still at three members?

Harvey Boshart, a two-term Select Board member who did not seek re-election in 2023, said the decision against pursuing the expansion was based on a need for more information on the topic, as well as a proposed government structure study, which was put forth in response to Zacharias’ petition at the same Town Meeting.

“What we said is we’re worried about the unintended consequences. It’s a big decision,” he said of the board’s position in 2022. “It just deserved more thoughtful and thorough research.”

But, Zacharias said studies are often ineffective, and the will of the voters was clear.

“The more studies you do, the more they sit on the shelf and never get looked at,” she said. “It was put off, delayed, stalled.”

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

“As it was a non-binding advisory question, the Select Board decided not to act on it and not put it forth to the state for the home rule petition, and to have it be incorporated into the Town Governance Study Committee, which took a little longer than we thought,” Boshart said.

Town Counsel Lauren Goldberg said the approved citizen’s petition “did not reference special legislation at all, nor did it include the text of such special legislation.” She noted it also did not address the mechanism to increase the number of Select Board members.

Select Board member Thomas Palmer, elected in 2023, said opinions did not change the following year, as board members felt they needed to study the government structure before moving ahead.

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

The Select Board in 2023 created the Town Governance Study Committee to examine the form and structure of governance and governance practices across all levels of the town. After residents continued to press the Select Board on the expansion of the Select Board, the Committee shifted its focus solely to that issue, according to Boshart, who served as the chair.

“We realized the importance of the issue to the residents, so the Town Governance Study Committee eventually put it on hold and focused solely on this issue from the end of 2024 until Town Meeting in 2025,” Boshart said. “Our conclusion was that the number of Select Board members wasn’t the issue, and that there are other things that can be done.”

Boshart noted the Town Governance Study Committee was seated through an open application process, which resulted in the appointment of two former Select Board members – Boshart and Michael Harrity – Town Moderator Ripley Hastings and several members of the public.

While Zacharias said she believed the Town Governance Study Committee was stacked against expanding the Select Board because it included former Select Board members, Boshart said there was a call for volunteers.

“We wanted people to be open-minded about it,” he said “There were plenty of opportunities for people to volunteer and be on the committee.”

The committee voted unanimously to recommend against increasing the Select Board size, noting the town’s mostly stable population over the last 25 years, a relatively low year-round population, “poor government participation” in the last decade and an overall decline in volunteers.

The report can be viewed on the town website at bit.ly/47pqbrK.

While the Committee’s final report ultimately recommended against the expansion, it recommended the Select Board place an article on the warrant for residents to weigh in on the matter.

At the May 2025 Town Meeting, voters affirmed their previous vote in favor of the expansion, 173-101. In October, Gov. Maura Healey signed the home rule petition paving the way to put the issue to voters. A special election is set for Jan. 13, and, if approved, Weston’s Select Board will expand to five members in the spring.

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

The 2025 warrant article, Goldberg added, included the full text of the proposed legislative act, which is what the State House wants to see when these types of changes are considered.

“The act included a ‘voter approval section’ meaning that the voters of the town as a whole will be able to decide the question of whether to increase the size of the Select Board, which is, in my experience, preferred by the General Court when a significant change is proposed to the form of government,” Goldberg said. “Further, if the voters of the town approve the question, the legislation contains the mechanism to implement the increase in the size of the board.”

Following the 2025 Town Meeting and the election of John McDonald, who, like Select Board Chair Lise Revers, made expanding the Select Board one of his priorities, the Select Board voted 2-1, with Palmer voting against it, to disband the Town Governance Study Committee. McDonald at that May 15 meeting said the committee should never have been created because it was in “clear opposition to the will of the voters.”

With approval given again in May and an election set, Zacharias said she is looking forward to bringing the question to all residents.

“I am so happy we’re putting it to a vote,” Zacharias said. “It’s democracy. I think that’s what made me the most furious of the whole thing; three people decided to make all the decisions for the town.”

Arguments for and against

Proponents of expanding the Select Board say it could help town government work more efficiently, improve accessibility to the board and bring Weston in line with the majority of its neighboring communities.

Of the 42 municipalities of comparable size to Weston with select boards, 34 have five-member boards and eight have three-member boards, according to the study committee’s report. Of the smaller nearby towns, Lincoln and Dover have three-member boards and Carlisle has a five-member board. Other towns in the immediate area, Natick, Lexington, Wellesley, Sudbury and Concord all have five-member boards, but Belmont has three, having rejected a proposal to expand the board to five in November 2024.

Revers said the effort to expand the Select Board was “one of the primary reasons” she ran for the office. She said an expanded Select Board can represent the changing demographics of the town, increase the board’s capacity to explore complex issues and increase debate in board discussions.

Particularly, she added, a five-member Select Board could form subcommittees that can take on big projects more efficiently without having a single person responsible for managing them. Additionally, she said she believes more people will run for the board if there are more positions, as it is “much less daunting” to run for a vacant seat than challenging an incumbent.

“I think moving to five members will actually produce more energy for the Select Board,” Revers said. “I just think it’s going to be a fantastic energizer for our town’s political situation.”

Boshart, on the other hand, said he does not favor a five-member board following his time studying the issue on the Town Governance Study Committee. He also refuted the idea that a three-member board is overworked, as “no one ever came to me and asked if I’m overworked.”

“I plan on voting against it, and would encourage everyone to read the report on the topic by the Town Governance Study Committee,” he said.

Other factors against expansion cited by the committee’s report include: less transparency — because two members of a five-member board can hold discussions outside of an open meeting, a lack of volunteers to fill open positions on town boards and committees, longer board meetings and a potential increase in workload in the town manager’s office.