The Work Is Not Yet Over - Editorial
Town Meeting may be in the rearview now, but Mashpee’s civic duties are not yet over. Our (and hopefully your) sights are now set on the next big thing: tomorrow’s Annual Town Election.
This is a big one, and not just because of the tight races for the two open select board seats, or the election of a new town clerk for the first time in many years. Rather, it’s the ballot questions that voters will decide that really have us thinking.
Voters at Monday’s Town Meeting passed several big-ticket items—funding for a new police station, wastewater Phase Three recharge evaluation, alum treatments for Mashpee-Wakeby Pond, and money for the design and engineering of the Mashpee-Wakeby wastewater cluster treatment facility. But Monday’s votes alone won’t be enough to move these projects forward—that can only happen if voters in Saturday’s annual town election vote “yes” on the corresponding ballot questions.
We bring this up to urge the town’s voters to do their due diligence before and at the ballot box this Saturday. If you weren’t at Town Meeting on Monday, we ask that you read up on what happened to stay informed—and lucky for you, we know just the place to start (see story, page one).
Each of the big-ticket items below is on the ballot because each will be funded via a debt exclusion. If you did vote on Monday to support these projects, as many citizens did, be sure you vote accordingly on the corresponding ballot questions. We thought it might be helpful to provide a map, of sorts, to help link Monday’s warrant articles with their corresponding ballot questions. They are:
Town Meeting Article 5 = Ballot Question 1: Borrow $37,150,000 to build new police station.
Town Meeting Article 6 = Ballot Question 2: Borrow $200,000 for Wastewater Phase Three recharge evaluation.
Town Meeting Article 7 = Ballot Question 3: Borrow $250,000 for aluminum sulfate treatment of Mashpee/Wakeby Pond.
Special Town Meeting Article 11 = Ballot Question 4: $2,500,000 for design/engineering of Mashpee-Wakeby cluster wastewater treatment facility.
In addition to our Town Meeting coverage this week, we also have a lengthy story on last Thursday’s select board candidates forum. We encourage you to read that, along with the abundance of letters to the editor we have received in recent weeks endorsing candidates, and draw your own conclusions. Three of the four candidates on the ballot participated in last week’s forum, providing in-depth answers to all kinds of Mashpee-related questions. We’ve also published a number of candidate profiles, all of which can easily be found in our Mashpee Town Election Hub on our website’s homepage under the ”Town Elections 2025” heading.
We do not say all of this to “inject” ourselves into the Town Election and sway any outcomes; rather, we say this to ensure that our readers—the town’s voters—are as fully informed as possible by the time they get to the ballot box on Saturday. Whether you voted at Town Meeting on Monday or not, there is still a chance for your voice to be heard. We hope that you use it wisely.