Southborough committee appointments expire; select board to interview candidates as charge is revised

All appointments to the Town of Southborough PreK–8 School Building Committee except one expire at midnight on June 30, members said at the committee’s June 30 meeting, and the Select Board is scheduled to interview at-large candidates and consider appointing a school committee representative and a capital projects representative at its next meeting.

Jason Epstein, committee chair, told members, “all appointments to this committee other than Tim’s, who has just joined us, in place of Kathy as the select board rep, do expire at midnight tonight. My understanding is the select board will be interviewing, tomorrow night for at large members and discussing the appointments of at least the school committee rep and capital rep at that time too.”

Why it matters: the committee has been working under a revised charge and members said further changes to that charge and to committee membership will affect who participates in future deliberations about the PreK–8 building project. Epstein said discussion of substantive changes to the charge should wait until the committee’s new membership is seated.

Committee members discussed procedure for resuming the charge review once appointments are finalized. Epstein said the committee should “table that conversation until a future meeting when at least the members that are appointed for the next steps in the process” are present. Tim, identified in the meeting as the Select Board representative who recently replaced a departing member, participated by noting his recent appointment to the panel.

Committee business on June 30 also included routine approvals of meeting minutes and vendor invoices (see separate article). Members noted the Select Board’s upcoming interviews and that the advisory process for recommending representatives to the Select Board remained unclear during the meeting; Epstein said he was “unsure on the status of, advisory and their recommendation.”

Multiple members used the meeting’s closing remarks to thank volunteers and staff for their multi-year work on project planning. Greg (Town staff) reminded the committee that school department employees are paid town employees and said he would pass along members’ thanks to district staff who assisted the committee.

Next steps: the committee did not change its membership at the June 30 meeting and did not adopt further revisions to its charge; members said they expect the Select Board’s pending interviews and appointments to determine who will take part in the next phase of work.