Select Board Backs Dozen Town Meeting Articles

Select Board · Meeting of October 19, 2026

Winchester Select Board advanced over a dozen Fall Town Meeting articles and approved a Comcast utility relocation Monday. The board voted 4-0 to recommend favorable action on zoning amendments, capital appropriations and a bylaw extending the town's 36-inch snow-clearing rule, and separately approved Comcast's request to install 351 feet of conduit near Church Street for construction at the Waterfield lot. Town Engineer Matt Schumann was named the town's designee to the MWRA Advisory Board, and the board authorized Chair Anthea Brady to sign a support letter for the MWRA's wastewater plan "so long as no additional standards come in." The board also appointed the town manager and Police Chief Dan O'Connell to Winchester's new Human Rights Commission and tabled a Committee on Names bylaw article after finding its printed warrant language differed from the motion book.

Member Michael Bettencourt and Brady disagreed publicly over whether Forest Ridge warrant-article proponents had bypassed the Select Board, with Brady saying, "That's not true at all, Mike."

In the full story:

• Who Was There
• Organizations And Documents Referenced
• The complete report — 3,663 words

Source: the Select Board meeting of October 19, 2026, reported from the official video recording and transcript.

Checked against the record: before publication this article was automatically compared with the meeting transcript. It was corrected where it differed.