Monday’s agenda pairs a land deal on Spruce Street with a water-protection permit hearing for the treatment plant. It also carries the interim manager’s request to delay Town Meeting and a search for help in the vacant treasurer’s office.

John Barrella – The G.O.A.T. News

MIDDLEBOROUGH — The Select Board on Monday night will move the town’s largest pending water project forward on two fronts. It is scheduled to vote on signing a purchase and sale agreement for land on Spruce Street, then to hold a public hearing on a special permit for the treatment plant itself.

Both actions tie back to the South Wells Water Treatment Plant, a $62 million project to treat three well fields in the southern part of town for iron, manganese and PFAS, the so-called forever chemicals. The same agenda also formally reschedules the Fall Special Town Meeting to Nov. 9, as Interim Town Manager Robert Nunes recommended last week.

The board meets at 7 p.m. in the Select Board Meeting Room at Town Hall, 10 Nickerson Ave.

The land, then the permit

Under New Business, the board is scheduled to vote to sign the purchase and sale agreement for 155 Spruce Street, which voters authorized under Article 26 of the June 1 Annual Town Meeting. As The G.O.A.T. News reported Sept. 14, the 5.1-acre Spruce Street parcel is one of the land acquisitions tied to the South Wells plant, along with three parcels on Miller Street totaling about 18 acres. The agenda does not list the purchase price.

At 7:30 p.m., the board opens a hearing on an application filed by Aaron Guazzaloca of Weston & Sampson for a special permit under the town’s Water Resource Protection District bylaw. The permit would allow a 13,930-square-foot water treatment facility for the Water Department at the Miller Street Well site, 42 Miller Street.

The application also covers site improvements at the Rock Village Wells site, 58 Miller Street, and the Tispaquin Wells site, 389 Wareham Street. All three sites sit in Zones 1 and 2 of the Water Resource Protection District, the areas closest to the town’s public wells. According to the notice, all three sites are already used to treat drinking water and that use will not change. The plant would have a maximum of six employees on its largest shift.

The project has moved through several boards in quick succession. On Sept. 15, the Planning Board was asked to waive site plan review for the plant under Section 9.9.5.A of the zoning bylaw; minutes of that meeting have not yet been posted. Design work was authorized in April 2025 with $2.7 million borrowed through the water enterprise fund, and the state compliance deadline is 2031.

Weston & Sampson also designed the town’s other PFAS plant, the $33 million East Grove Street Water Treatment Facility, which broke ground in August 2025.

The price tag behind the pipes

The water plant comes before the board a week after Nunes’s first fiscal update laid out the state of the water enterprise fund. His Sept. 21 presentation reported an unaudited fiscal 2026 deficit of $576,041 in the water fund. It estimated “an additional $110,000,000.00 in enterprise debt over the next five – ten years,” not including trucks, a tank or construction of a new tank.

The presentation said the water rate increase that took effect Jan. 1, 2024 “will be reviewed,” and that rates and other water charges “must cover all expenditures including debt.” Nunes also reported a balance of $1,350,455 in the town’s PFAS settlement fund, which requires a Town Meeting vote to spend.

None of those figures appears on Monday’s agenda. Residents who want to ask how the South Wells plant fits into the water fund’s finances will have their chance at the 7:30 p.m. hearing.

Town Meeting moves to Nov. 9

The board is also scheduled to vote to reschedule the Fall Special Town Meeting to Monday, Nov. 9. As The G.O.A.T. News reported, Nunes recommended the delay at the Sept. 21 joint meeting of the Select Board and Finance Committee. He cited the unfinished fiscal 2025 audit, a budget adjustment of more than $1 million needed to balance fiscal 2027, and vacancies in both the treasurer/collector and assistant treasurer/collector positions. “The town must get this right,” Nunes wrote.

A related item asks the board to authorize posting for interim treasurer/collector services, a step toward filling the office while the permanent search continues.

The agenda also includes an update from the Town Manager Search Committee, which is working to find a permanent successor to former Town Manager James McGrail.

Licenses on Wareham Street

Two items concern the same address. The board is scheduled to rescind a Class II dealer license for 161 Wareham Street “due to new application filed.” At 7:40 p.m. it holds a hearing on that new application, from Jonathan Jaimes of Ned & Ted Truck & Auto, for a Class II automobile dealer’s license at the same site, Assessor’s Map 59, Lot 5395.

The board will also consider two one-day liquor licenses. The first is an all-alcohol license for Plymouth County Family Support, with Muckey’s Liquors, for an Oct. 17 event from 5 to 8 p.m. at Town Hall. The second is a beer and wine license for Harper Lane Brewery at Soule Homestead, 46 Soule Street, for Oct. 17 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The board approved the Harper Lane event Aug. 31, but it was postponed because of weather.

Also on the agenda

Veterans Day: The board is scheduled to approve the Veterans Day parade and ceremony on Wednesday, Nov. 11, beginning at 10 a.m. at Town Hall, and the Veterans’ Agent’s Poppy Drive from Nov. 4 through Nov. 11.

Appointments: The board is scheduled to vote on the Council on Aging Board of Directors’ appointment of Robert O’Neill to fill a vacancy through June 30, 2029, and to reappoint William Orphanos to the Middleborough-Lakeville Herring Fisheries Commission for a three-year term ending Sept. 30, 2029.

Application form: The board will discuss, and may vote on, a general application form for the Select Board.

Minutes: The board is scheduled to approve minutes from its Sept. 21 meeting, one week after it took place, along with the Sept. 2 minutes of its meeting as Water and Sewer Commissioners.

The meeting closes with the town manager’s report, committee reports, correspondence and public comment. Agendas are posted in the town’s online Agenda Center.

Disclosure: The author is an elected member of the Middleborough Finance Committee and serves on the Town Manager Search Committee.

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Sources

• “The G.O.A.T. News reported Sept. 14”: https://thegoatnewsinmiddleborough.com/2026/09/14/planning-board-asked-to-waive-review-of-62m-water-plant/
• “$33 million East Grove Street Water Treatment Facility”: https://www.constructionequipmentguide.com/middleborough-mass-leaders-kick-off-construction-on-33m-water-treatment-facility/68833
• “As The G.O.A.T. News reported” (in the Town Meeting section): https://thegoatnewsinmiddleborough.com/2026/09/22/middleborough-interim-manager-recommends-delaying-town-meeting-citing-unfinished-audit-and-1-million-budget-gap/
• “online Agenda Center”: https://www.middleboroughma.gov/AgendaCenter/Select-Board-3/