Over the next month, the Pollard Middle School project will be facing two votes that will decide its fate.
In order to advance to construction, the $325.4 million plan needs a two-thirds majority vote of approval from Special Town Meeting Oct. 19, followed by a simple majority approval from the town’s voters 15 days later at the Nov. 3 election.
Town Meeting approval is needed to appropriate the funds. The voters also need to vote to allow the town to override the taxing limitations imposed by Proposition 2½ to borrow the funds to finance the project.
The Nov. 3 vote will take place regardless of the outcome of the Town Meeting vote. If Town Meeting were to vote against appropriating the funds and the electorate then votes to approve the debt exclusion override, the town could call another Special Town Meeting for a re-vote on the appropriation.
Both votes are needed for the town to tap as much as $80.6 million in reimbursements from the Massachusetts School Building Authority. They must be secured within 120 days of the MSBA Board’s Aug. 26 vote to approve the scope and budget the town submitted, or roughly by Christmas Day.
If both votes fail, the project has dim prospects for moving forward.
The state reimbursement would reduce the amount the town would need to borrow to around $242 million.
Town Clerk Louise Miller said her office has already received more than 8,000 requests from registered voters to receive their ballots by mail for the Nov. 3 election. The override will be the only local issue alongside state executive office races, state referendum questions and federal Congressional races.
“My anticipation is, when all is said and done, we might be nearing 10,000, which is a pretty heavy request for a non-presidential election,” Miller said, citing the Pollard referendum ballot question as an obvious driver of voter interest.
As town clerk, Miller oversees the election and is also responsible for enforcing the rules of the state Office of Campaign Political Finance. The OCPF requires that any organization that receives money or anything of value to support or oppose a ballot question must organize as a municipal ballot question committee.
To date, only the Pollard Now committee formed to support the override has filed with the clerk’s office. It lists Meghan Small as its chair and Stefanie Forman as its treasurer. The group is soliciting funds for its efforts, which Miller said is the element that requires a committee to register.
“Money has to be being raised — either in support or in opposition,” Miller said. “That’s the trigger.”
Another citizen group that has been distributing leaflets and canvassing in opposition to the Pollard project, Needham Residents for Thoughtful Zoning, has not filed as a municipal ballot committee and does not name its leadership on its website. Miller said if they are not soliciting funds, they have no requirement to file.
Is a do-over possible?
One of the arguments made by opponents of the project who feels it’s oversized is that, if the override vote fails, the project could be downsized and re-voted, possibly as soon as the April 2027 town election.
When that prospect has been discussed, such as at the Sept. 23 Finance Committee meeting, school officials have been emphatic that downsizing would almost certainly delay the project for a minimum of three years and likely much longer.
“What we’ve agreed to with the MSBA is a particular project,” said Superintendent Dan Gutekanst. “If (voters) say ‘we’ll do it, let’s say, in April’ — that vote would have to be on the same project. The MSBA will not allow any changes to this project that they’ve agreed to.”
An MSBA policy statement on its guidelines reads, “a failed local vote likely will result in the school district being required to submit a new Statement of Interest to the MSBA and await an invitation from the MSBA to enter the Eligibility Period phase of the MSBA’s process.”
Communities have 10 days after a failed vote to submit a “plan to remedy the failed vote and a suggested timeline for such a remedy.”
“If any element of the project is changed, you go back to square one,” Gutekanst said, explaining that the MSBA would likely only accommodate minimal changes to the project, not any that would diverge from the educational plan and/or alter the project’s original scope.
“So, the idea that a failed vote will mean we’ll come back in April — or even a year from now — is simply just not reality,” the superintendent said. “Because a failed vote would mean if the community wanted to do something different that you’d have to start all over again.”
Such a do-over, Gutekanst and School Committee Chair Alisa Skatrud contended, would require the town to prepare and submit a new application to the MSBA, asking to be invited back into the MSBA program.
The town submitted its statement of interest for the current Pollard project in April of 2023 and was invited into the MSBA process in December 2023. If a new project were to follow the same trajectory as the current Pollard project, the town might not be voting on it until 2030 or later.
MSBA officials did not comment on whether it has ever departed from its policy. A review of its history found only one example, in Marblehead in 2010, of an MSBA project being allowed to remain in the MSBA pipeline after a failed vote and then being approved with a reduction in scope.
That occurred prior to the MSBA establishing its current policy on not accepting meaningful changes to project scope as a means to remedy a failed override.
In recent years, there have been at least two projects — in Stoughton and in the Hamilton-Wenham district — where projects were ultimately funded after failed votes. In both instances, the voters were asked to vote on essentially the same project and both were approved via re-votes.
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