by John Osborn ·
Friday, May 8, 2026
Misty Flores (left) speaks in opposition to the municipal solar garden to Heidi Siegrist. Toni Spacciapoli (middle) can be seen in the background setting material about JUMP, an outdoor youth development program. (Photos by Lisa Aciukewicz)
Harvard Annual Town Meeting predates the American Revolution, but while clickers for voting and video projection of warrant articles are new, the concerns of citizens then and now are not. On Saturday, as they have for centuries, residents weighed their neighbors’ interests against the town’s—and the neighbors won.
The 2026 annual meeting, called to order at 10 a.m. on a chilly and damp May 2 morning, drew 336 participants from among Harvard’s 4,849 registered voters. Over the next nearly four hours, participants approved 48 items, including the annual budget, 14 capital spending requests, and nine community preservation fund grants. They rejected one article and one capital request, and returned four proposed amendments to town bylaws to the Planning Board for further “study, review, and report.” For a complete rundown, see the table that accompanies this report on page 14.
With Moderator Bill Barton at the rostrum, Town Meeting breezed through the first 24 articles, including the $36.5 million omnibus budget, with little discussion and in less than 2½ hours. Barton paused the deliberations to first honor 2025 Volunteer of the Year Terry Symula, and later Citizens of Note Jim and John Lee (see “Lee brothers honored as 2025 Citizens of Note” on page 5). School Superintendent Linda Dwight, who will retire in June, was recognized for her 15 years of leadership of Harvard Public Schools.
Terry Symula reacts to being named Volunteer of the Year. From left: Michael Symula, granddaughter Sienna Symula, Terry Symula, and Stu Sklar.
But the main event was clearly Article 25, the proposal to empower the Select Board to lease a portion of land on Stow Road known as “the gravel pit” for the possible installation of a solar array. Passionate debate over the measure, which was strongly opposed by abutters, lasted more than an hour. Though a majority supported the measure, 178-107, the tally was 14 votes shy of the two-thirds majority required to pass the article. For details, see “Neighbors, skeptics defeat solar farm proposal despite projected cost savings,” on page 1. Following the defeat of Article 25, Select Board members conferred briefly and moved to refer the remaining solar articles and bylaw amendments—Articles 26 and 27 as well as Articles 28 and 29, regarding a town center overlay district—to the Planning Board for further study. The final bylaw amendment, Article 30, a housekeeping measure, passed with little comment.
Town Meeting voters also rejected the Police Department’s annual request for a cruiser to replace the oldest vehicle in its fleet. This yearly purchase has typically been a line item in the annual budget, where it has received little scrutiny. This year the Select Board and the Finance Committee recommended the vehicle be purchased with capital funds, a move that reduced this year’s Proposition 2½ override request by $80,000.
Chief James Babu and others had warned that subjecting the purchase to a two-thirds majority vote, as is required for all capital purchases, was a risk. Others argued that a cruiser was clearly a capital purchase and that voters were unlikely to reject an expenditure that affected public safety. No one spoke for or against the proposal, but when it came time to vote, the request failed 116-111.
Last year’s Annual Town meeting drew 522 participants, or approximately 11% of Harvard’s 4,777 then-registered voters. This year’s gathering drew approximately 7% of the electorate. Of that turnout, 285 attendees were present to cast votes for or against Article 25. Following the vote, punctuated by scattered handclaps, vote counts on the remaining five articles dropped by 80 votes or more.
The lobby of Cronin Auditorium was packed as voters began to arrive Saturday morning, their lines stretching outside the auditorium’s doors. Civic groups occupied every inch of available floor space by 9:30 a.m. as they vied for the attention of attendees. Among them: the Girl Scouts, Climate Initiative Committee, Fivesparks, Celebration, Municipal Affordable Housing Trust, Harvard Conservation Trust, and advocates for and against proposals for a solar garden on Stow Road. The Press set up outside the lobby, where it solicited subscriptions and handed out extra copies of its townwide edition, which contained this year’s Warrant in Plain English.
Copies of the Town Meeting booklet containing reports of the Finance, Capital, and Community Preservation committees and all 30 warrant articles, as well as copies of the Town of Harvard 2025 Annual Town Report, were stacked near the auditorium entrance, the latter “selling out” before noon. In addition, the texts of the motions planned for each of the day’s 30 articles were distributed in a handout prepared by interim Town Administrator Dawn Dunbar and available from the registrars as voters signed in. Attached to the document was a revised version of the omnibus budget, correcting errors in the version printed on pages 59-63 in the Town Meeting booklet. According to Dunbar, however, the changes did not contradict the amounts voted for Article 7, the omnibus budget.
Throughout the meeting, the clickers and the projection and sound systems worked flawlessly, though at one point Bill Cordner of Stow Road asked speakers to get closer to the mic. “My aging ears would appreciate it,” he said. And Richard Jenson of Mill Road took a moment to praise the League of Women Voters for equipping Town Meeting with the clickers. “If you have been to past Town Meetings where you’re holding up yellow cards [to vote], this is an amazing advance,” he said. “Let’s hear it for the League of Women Voters.”