Property hot spots driving several town elections.

There are big contests brewing for Board of Selectmen, School Committee & Planning Board and there are major traffic jams for candidates for Town Meeting in Precincts 1 &  9.

In more than one of these races two town properties are a driving force. Those properties are the Temple Shalom site and the Governor Stoughton Town Farm off Canton Avenue where the Milton Animal League is located.

At the recent Special Town Meeting an article for a zoning overlay that would potentially allow for commercial development was defeated. It is expected that the Temple will put the property on the market. It is possible that the eventual buyer will look at the opportunity of a 40b housing development. This allows for affordable, high density housing. What happens to that property will be of keen interest to the neighborhood. This may explain why there are 15 Town Meeting candidates for 7 seats in Precinct 1 where the Temple is located.

The Temple Shalom issue also factors in the election for a seat on the Planning Board where incumbent Ed Duffy is being challenged by Cheryl Tougias. Mr. Duffy was one of two Planning Board members to oppose the zoning overlay article. Ms. Tougias spoke at Town Meeting in support of it.

Precinct 9 is the other hot spot. There are 16 Town Meeting candidates for 8 seats in Precinct 9 where the Town Farm is located. This past year a committee appointed by the Board of Selectmen who are trustees of the Stoughton Land issued a final report. In their conclusion they state:

“Developing the Property with residential housing at densities sufficient to raise the Endowment Principal is the only of the three options that actually uses the value of the land itself to generate the funds needed – and this was Governor Stoughton’s unambiguous intent. In this way the Trustees would be leveraging an asset that it controls and sparing the townspeople or other private interests of having to bear the cost. However, large–scale development creates impacts and will be highly controversial and is clearly unwanted by a vocal constituency of neighbors.” (NOTE: You can find the final report of the Governor Stoughton Land Trust Committee here. The web page for all the committees materials is here.)

At least some of those “constituency of neighbors” is running for Town Meeting for Precinct 9 and one, Robert Sweeney is taking on incumbent Kathy Fagan for a seat on the Board of Selectmen. Steve Fruzzetti of Granite Avenue has also filed papers for Board of Selectmen making it a three-way race.

You can find a list of candidates for Town Meeting by Precinct here. Following is a list of candidates for town wide offices:

Board of Selectmen

• Kathy Fagan (incumbent)
• Steve Fruzzetti
• Robert Sweeney

Assessor

• Kathleen Heffernan (incumbent)
• Todd Greenwood
• James Henderson

School Committee

• Glenn Pavlicek (incumbent)
• Margaret Eberhardt
• Denis Keohane
• J. Murray Regan

Planning Board

• Ed Duffy (incumbent)
• Cheryl Tougias

Constables

• Tamara Berton (incumbent)
• Stephen Freeman (incumbent)
• Eric Issner (incumbent)
• Gary Nunley (incumbent)
• Daniel Joyce
• Robert Mason
• Justin O’Shea
• Edward Villard