Select Board Votes 5-0 to Deny Conservation Volunteer's Reappointment

SOUTHBOROUGH — June 16, 2026 — Southborough Select Board unanimously blocks Open Space volunteer Freddie Gillespie's five-year reappointment amid conduct concerns. The board voted 5-0 against reappointing Gillespie to the Open Space Preservation Commission at its June 16 meeting, with Chair Kathy Cook citing a last-minute knotweed amendment emailed at 2:35 a.m. on the night of the April 11 town meeting and what she called an inappropriate line of questioning at a Costco developer kickoff — a project the town endorsed by roughly 72 to 12 at last fall's town meeting. A parallel Stewardship Committee appointment failed 2-3 and was then tabled after a procedural complication: Gillespie held the designated Open Space liaison seat on Stewardship, which she could no longer fill once denied the OSPC appointment. Stewardship Chair Joyce Greenleaf argued that "without Freddie, stewardship's effectiveness will be undermined." The board also stripped a $105,000 American-made drone lease from a $118,000 police bottom-line spending request, approving all other items unanimously while sending the drone to the Capital Committee for review, and passed a 4-1 vote to spend $30,000 in Economic Development Committee funds on a wastewater district financing study ahead of an October 17 special town meeting.