Sudbury aligns goals, values

Rainy day fund, police station top selectmen's list

Police Lieutenant Scott Nix offered the Sudbury department's cramped radio room as evidence of the need for a new station. (Bill Polo/Globe Staff/file 2007)

SUDBURY - You could call it a wish list. Sudbury selectmen say the items will support the town's "core values."

The list includes a traffic signal at Landham Road and Route 20. More walkway construction. A new stabilization fund to help ride out hard fiscal times. The clean-up of Hop Brook. More affordable housing. And, finally, a solution to the long-running problem of the town's aging police station.

Last week, selectmen named 10 core values - touching on safety, education, historical heritage, and the environment - as the foundation for ongoing, near-term, and long-term goals for Sudbury. The process followed a decision by voters to reject two requests for property-tax increases.

"They're all important," said Selectman Lawrence W. O'Brien, who noted that his board met with a number of Sudbury officials, including the public works director, planner, finance director, police and fire chiefs, and the town manager, in drafting a list of likely goals. Then it was the board's job to set priorities. "We worked up a list that was many, many, many items bigger," O'Brien said.

On March 31, residents voted down $1.8 million and $2.8 million Proposition 2 1/2 override proposals, leading to cuts townwide, particularly in the schools, for the fiscal year starting July 1. Sudbury's K-8 district announced that it would lay off 13 teachers and 18 other staff members, while Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School will cut class sections to save money. School officials also slashed supply and equipment spending and raised sport and activity fees to balance their budget.

The creation of the stabilization fund, with the target amount as yet undetermined, will help the town ride out times when budgets are tight, officials said.

"The concept is to create a standalone fund, and in years where state aid or additional revenue came in that was above and beyond the budget, rather than increasing the budgets and having more to spend, we would take the excess and put it into this stabilization fund. In the down years, we could tap it to help fill in some of the gaps and have a level budgeting process, possibly even avoiding asking the community for an override," O'Brien said. "In years we had excess we would fund it, and years we had a short we could draw from it."

Another priority, selectmen decided, is to repair or replace the nearly 50-year-old police station, which is plagued by structural, heating, and electrical problems. On Oct. 16, residents voted down an $8.1 million debt-exclusion override to pay for a replacement.

"You have people giving statements about domestic violence in hallways and 21 officers sharing one work station to check mail and write reports," Police Chief Peter Fadgen said last fall in seeking support for the override. Fadgen has called the working conditions "deplorable."

The Board of Selectmen has supported proposals for a state-of-the-art facility; a new version would reduce the size to bring the cost down to about $6 million.

Other safety and security goals for Sudbury include traffic studies for Route 20, or Boston Post Road, and asking the state to repair the busy route's Hop Brook bridge.

One of the core values is the protection and enhancement of the quality of the community's environment, prompting selectmen to call for green business practices in town government. Among their proposals are to use recycled copy paper and energy-saving fluorescent light bulbs, link office lights to motion detectors, and develop waste-water treatment capabilities for the Route 20 business district.

O'Brien said the town would also take bids for biodiesel as an alternative fuel that now might be the same price as diesel. "Why not do the right thing for the environment, and set an example as a community?"