This is the time of year when drivers and deer pose the most danger to each other. According to the AAA Northeast, “Fall is by far the worst season for deer collisions.”

Among the $125 million in local earmarks released this week by Gov. Maura Healey is money for improvements to Fivesparks, the iconic former library—turned community arts collaborative—in the center of town.

Eric Ward, winner of the Oct. 8 special town election, will fill the fifth Select Board seat left empty by the resignation of Rich Maiore last spring. Ward received 58% of the votes cast, defeating his challenger Adam Wool 383 to 276.

The state released the results of the 2025 Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) at the end of September. The results showed that nearly all schools statewide were still struggling to reach the levels from before the COVID-19 pandemic.

At its Oct. 7 meeting, the Harvard Select Board voted unanimously to appoint Alice Miles and Nicholas Roose to the town’s Historical Commission, and Erin McBee to the Municipal Affordable Housing Trust.

Harvard received some good news this week in the form of a $1 million grant from the state’s Land and Water Conservation Fund Grant Program to help pay for the reconstruction of McCurdy Track. 

Town Meeting’s ambivalent voting on the purchase of a 6-acre parcel on Old Mill Road for a new athletic field flipped from just shy of passing in the spring to passing by a hair in the fall. But before the soccer balls can start flying across the town’s newly purchased plot, a lot of things need to happen.

Plans are in the works for a six-building commercial development on a 23-acre site at 320 Ayer Road.

Over the past month, the Harvard Police Department has sworn in two new officers, Dean Barbera and Hannah Shaw. Barbera comes with prior law enforcement experience, while Shaw graduated from the Boylston Police Academy last June.

Harvard’s town meetings last Saturday, Sept. 27, lasted barely two hours, including a half-hour intermission. Town Clerk Rose Miranda reported that 463 voters registered for the meeting and received electronic voting devices. It was a sizable turnout for a fall Town Meeting, but smaller than the 520 who attended the Annual Town Meeting in May.

At the Wednesday, Oct. 8, Special Town Election, voters will choose one of two candidates to fill a seat on the Select Board left vacant when Rich Maiore resigned last spring. The Press asked the candidates, Eric Ward and Adam Wool, to introduce themselves, tell us why they are running, and then answer three questions.

At the candidates forum Tuesday night, Eric Ward and Adam Wool, who are competing for an open seat on the Select Board, fielded questions that ran the gamut of local concerns.

Last week, residents received an email—with a postcard scheduled to follow—about a change to the company that supplies electric power to a majority of town residents, as well as to the schools and town buildings. 

The building that’s home to the General Store has new owners. They are Matt Marolda and Betsy Starr, longtime residents of Harvard. The sale was announced Monday afternoon, Sept. 22, by Steve Nigzus of Harborside Realty, who brokered the purchase with the building’s former owners, Adam and Lyn Horowitz, who currently reside in South Africa.

Before 1984, Harvard residents threw their trash, both household and construction, into pits located in multiple areas around what is now the Transfer Station. According to the state, the “old landfill” is the likely source of PFAS in private wells in the area.

As summer blended into fall, Harvard’s Select Board considered new appointments to several town committees and boards. Applicants brought with them diverse work-life experiences and a shared commitment to improving town life.