Weston Select Board Clears Cemetery Signs, Authorizes Housing Comment Letter

WESTON — March 22, 2022 — Weston Select Board authorizes housing comment letter, advances $90.6 million budget toward town meeting. Meeting Tuesday night, the board voted unanimously to direct Town Manager Leon Houston and other officials to submit comments to the state opposing housing choice legislation that members say misclassifies Weston as a rapid transit community and could require the town to permit more than 1,100 new housing units. Houston presented an updated FY2023 operating budget of $90.6 million, a 2.8 percent increase, driven partly by a nearly $400,000 jump in Middlesex retirement costs and the addition of a new firefighter. The board also approved cemetery signage at Farmers Cemetery and the South Burying Ground and heard Weston Media Center Director Nathan Schur and Treasurer Joel Angelillo warn that cord-cutting is eroding cable franchise revenue fast enough to exhaust the organization's reserves by 2025 on a projected annual deficit of roughly $15,000 for 2022. A proposed sustainable tree-removal bylaw remained unresolved, with board members pushing the working group to narrow its scope to zoning setback areas before a planning board public hearing the following night.