Middleboro Town Meeting bans data centers, Flock cameras, approves new school roof

MIDDLEBORO — Middleboro Town Meeting voters banned data centers and Flock cameras and approved funds for a new school roof and a new sewage pipe for Ocean Spray at the Nov. 9 Fall Town Meeting.

In total, 298 voters packed into the Middleboro High School auditorium to vote on 24 separate items.

Before the meeting started, state Rep. Norman Orrall and state Sen. Kelly Dooner presented the town with a reprinted copy of the Declaration of Independence for the United States’ 250th anniversary.

During voting, Town Meeting voted to ban data centers in all zones across the town. The bylaw, proposed by the Planning Department, passed with only five voters opposing it. Some voters spoke about the potential economic upsides to bringing data centers to the town. Others said that a data center would put a strain on the town’s utilities and raise costs. 

“I see no great long-term benefit to the town in allowing such a thing, and I see potential severe long-term costs,” said Conservation Commission member Phil McNamara.

Many voters expressed a desire to wait for more research to learn about how data centers would affect their surroundings.

For more on the data center ban, click this link.

Town Meeting also voted on another amendment to the zoning code that would allow for powerful battery energy storage systems to be located only in one small area of the town to prevent potential fire risk to residents.

Voters approved $3.8 million in town money to repair the Nichols Middle school roof, which has sustained significant damages over the past few years. 

Over $2 million of that repair cost will be covered by a Massachusetts School Board Authority grant.

Middleboro Schools Superintendent David Thomson urged Town Meeting to vote in favor of this item so that the town did not lose out on the grant. If the town waited, it would take at least five years to become eligible for the grant again, he said.

For more on the roof repair, click this link.

A citizen’s petition to ban Flock cameras and other automatic license plate readers passed despite an appeal from Middleboro Police Chief Robert Ferreira to keep them. Many voters said the cameras violated people’s privacy and constitutional rights.

“We, in the land of the free, have a right to privacy,” said Alex Cook. “These Flock cameras operate without warrants, without discretion and in too many cases, without proper oversight.”

Ferreira said that the three cameras the Middleboro Police Department operates make criminal investigation more efficient and help solve crimes that would otherwise go unsolved.

But voters focused on the threat of invasion of privacy this technology posed. “Littered through the Bill of Rights is there a guarantee of privacy and due process,” said Middleboro High sophomore Jack Guilfoi. “And I don’t think it’s in anyone’s interest to turn a blind eye to the devices breaking such a promise.”

For more on the Flock ban, click this link.

Town Meeting voted against entering into another intermunicipal agreement with Carver and Bridgewater over supplying water to the towns. Middleboro is still legally required by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection to provide water to the more than 300 Carver residents it supplies. 

Finance Committee member John Barrella said there was a lack of clear explanation for most parts of the agreement. “We cannot vote on something that we don’t know what it contains. And the simple fact is that, without any detail, the answer must be no,” Barrella said.

Voters approved $1.1 million to repair a wastewater pipe running down Wood Street. The pipe, which moves 6 to 10 million gallons of wastewater from Ocean Spray’s headquarters each month, has broken twice in the past year, according to Wastewater Superintendent Todd Goldman and Town Engineer Mike Ohrenberger.

Goldman repeatedly asked Interim Town Manager Robert Nunes why the money had to come out of the stabilization fund instead of the $2.5 million in retained earnings in the wastewater enterprise account. Nunes told him that the item had been on the warrant for months ahead of the meeting.

“I was town manager here for eight years. Never once did department heads question the Select Board, the Finance Committee, the town manager at a public meeting,” Nunes said.

All of the funds from the meeting that would have been taken from the town’s free cash reserve had to be drawn from the town’s stabilization fund. Nunes said that due to imbalances in the town’s books, the Department of Revenue did not certify the town’s amount of free cash on hand before Fall Town Meeting.