What was said

Select Board, January 13, 2026

the recording · 2:42 long, about 14,045 words spoken · captions carried this meeting moderately well

lunenburgbudgetproject.org — written by the Lunenburg Budget Project, an independent tool for residents. Not affiliated with the Town of Lunenburg, the School Committee or the school district. The data this page is computed from: /data/recording-minutes.json

The town published minutes (text) and an agenda for this meeting. Those minutes are the record; what follows is a guide to the recording.

The short version

  1. ▶ 1:22:58Select Board voted unanimously to raise water rates under the Fitchburg intermunicipal agreement, effective February 1, 2026 (the size of the increase as heard on the recording, not independently confirmed here).
  2. ▶ 8:22The board entered executive session to discuss collective bargaining strategy with the firefighters' union, Local 5369, before returning to open session.
  3. ▶ 2:21:55The board deferred its own draft appointment policy to a future meeting after a lengthy line-by-line review, and passed over appointing a payroll and benefits coordinator.
  4. ▶ 1:18:12The board will sponsor a joint warrant article with the school committee to transfer custody of the Kids Kingdom property, reusing most of the prior special town meeting language.
  5. ▶ 1:19:15The 300th anniversary committee asked for a new multi-year appropriation after its original seed funding lapsed unspent into free cash.

Why it matters — our reading

  • Water bills for Lunenburg customers served under the Fitchburg agreement will change because of tonight's vote, since the agreement ties Lunenburg's rate to Fitchburg's plus a fixed markup.
  • The stalled appointment policy and the open payroll-coordinator hire bear on how the town fills its own staff positions going forward.
  • The Kids Kingdom transfer and the anniversary committee's funding request are among the items residents may see on an upcoming town meeting warrant.

Watch next

  • Next Select Board meeting: possible final approval of the appointment policy and a first draft of the special event license policy
  • Annual town meeting: warrant articles including the Kids Kingdom custody transfer, 300th anniversary committee funding, and the stormwater utility bylaw

budgetcapitalcontracts and unionseconomic developmentexecutive sessionfeesfree cashhiringpersonnelplanning and zoningpolicypublic commentpublic safetyrecreationseniorsstaffingtown departmentstown meetingwarrant articlewater sewer

Present: the chair (chair); Mr. Leighton (member); Miss Em (member); Miss Moore (member); Amanda (member); Brian Lehtinen (member); Jen (member); the town manager (town manager); Chief Sullivan (chief (police or fire)). 1 of 9 matched to the board’s posted roster; the rest, in italics, are the caption model’s hearing and may be wrong.

Votes

  1. ▶ 1:22:58Approve a 30% rate increase for all rates under the Fitchburg-Lunenburg water intermunicipal agreement, effective per the schedule adopted by Fitchburg City Council April 18, 2023, with rates effective February 1, 2026 — moved by a member, as heardpassed unanimously

And 3 procedural: enter executive session under mgl c.30 sec.21a(3) to discuss collective bargaining strategy with lunenburg professional firefighters local 5369 (amended to reconvene in open session afterward) (▶ 8:22); approve the minutes of may 8, 2024 and may 14, 2024 (▶ 2:30:17); adjourn (▶ 2:42:31).

Against the town’s minutes

The town published minutes (text) for this meeting; ours were compared item by item. 6 agree, 3 caption errors resolved by the official reading, 2 substantive differences. The town’s minutes are a full record.

  1. differsBasis/date of the special event license policy draft▶ 2:29:34

    recording A member (Amanda) volunteered to draft a first revision of the special event license policy, based on the 2018 town counsel draft, for the next meeting.

    town’s minutes “Chair Nuzzolo read a draft policy provided by Town Counsel Adam Costa. The Select Board agreed to use Town Counsel's draft as a starting point and discuss feedback and/or revisions at a future meeting. Vice-Chair Moore offered to draft a version to be discussed at a future Select Board meeting.”

    Official names only current Town Counsel Adam Costa's draft with no year attached; check whether the draft actually dates to 2018 (a prior counsel's work) or whether '2018' is a captioning error for something else.

  2. differsAttendee: possible duplicate listing of the Town Manager as 'Jen'

    recording the town manager (town manager); Jen (member)

    town’s minutes “Also Present: Jennifer Warren-Dyment, Town Manager”

    The Select Board has only five named members (Nuzzolo, Moore, Emkey, Lehtinen, McLeod) and Jen/Jennifer is not one of them; check whether 'Jen (member)' in ours is actually a second, mistaken listing of Town Manager Jennifer Warren-Dyment rather than a board member.

3 caption errors the town’s minutes resolve
  • Attendee: Amanda Moore listed twice:Miss Moore (member); Amanda (member)→Vice-Chair Amanda Moore
  • Attendee: Brian Lehtinen listed twice:Mr. Leighton (member); Brian (member)→Member Brian Lehtinen
  • Attendee: Renee Emkey captured as 'Miss Em':Miss Em (member)→Clerk Renee Emkey
In one record only: 0 from the recording, 2 from the town’s minutes
  • Town’s minutes only — Name and salary step of the payroll coordinator appointee: “Town Manager's appointment of Thomas Alsup as Payroll and Benefits Coordinator, and approval of Step 5 salary”
  • Town’s minutes only — Attendee: Glenn McLeod: “Members Present: Chair Caesar Nuzzolo, Vice-Chair Amanda Moore, Clerk Renee Emkey Member Brian Lehtinen, and Member Glenn McLeod”

Compared 2026-09-16. Neither record is treated as the referee: a caption error is the same fact heard badly; a difference is for a person to check at the timestamp.

The money

  1. ▶ 1:19:15300th anniversary committee funding

    An original $5,000 seed allocation for the 300th anniversary committee went unspent in FY24 and lapsed into free cash; the committee now wants a new multi-year appropriation of $15,000 plus a separate gift fund for sponsorships and merchandise sales.

    as heard:$5,000$15,000

  2. ▶ 1:21:38Water rate increase (Fitchburg agreement)

    The intermunicipal agreement with Fitchburg fixes Lunenburg's water rates at Fitchburg's rates plus 30%; the board voted to adopt the increase effective February 1, 2026.

    as heard:30%

  3. ▶ 1:14:06Payroll and benefits coordinator appointment

    An agenda item to appoint a payroll and benefits coordinator was added but the board was not prepared to act, so it was passed over.

  4. ▶ 2:31:39School committee: literacy coach position

    A grant-funded literacy coach resigned and the school committee is not planning to fill the position.

  5. ▶ 2:32:21Capital planning requests

    Capital planning discussed track and turf field engineering (targeting summer 2027 construction if approved at town meeting), plus primary school playground/driveway design, Turkey Hill intercom/security cameras, safety film, and a maintenance garage heating project.

  6. ▶ 2:34:29Board of assessors FY budget

    The principal assessor presented a budget described as roughly a 6 to 7% increase overall to the board of assessors.

    as heard:6 to 7%

  7. ▶ 2:34:50Stormwater utility bylaw and fee structure

    The plan is to bring a bylaw establishing the stormwater utility framework -- with no fee or dollar figures -- to annual town meeting, with the fee structure to follow at a special town meeting; the DPW director's stormwater budget is to be presented to the finance committee February 5.

Settled without a vote

  • ▶ 1:14:06Appointment of a payroll and benefits coordinator was passed over for the night rather than acted on.
  • ▶ 1:18:12Board will pursue a joint select board/school committee warrant article on Kids Kingdom custody transfer, largely reusing the special town meeting language.
  • ▶ 1:30:49Chair will establish a working group for the 925 Mass Ave RFP, with Amanda as the select board representative, targeting an April 1 RFP advertisement.
  • ▶ 2:21:55Board deferred approving the appointment policy tonight; members to review individually and bring modifications to the next meeting for possible final approval.
  • ▶ 2:29:34A member (Amanda) volunteered to draft a first revision of the special event license policy, based on the 2018 town counsel draft, for the next meeting.

Public comment

  1. ▶ 1:13Thanked a departing commissioner, appealed for volunteers to fill a parks commission vacancy and the vacant recreation director position, and reported the Marshall Park project is paused while the skate park project moves toward the next phase. — Karen Manard, as heard, chair of the parks commission

Where the time went

Minutes of recording by subject, from the topic spans below. A topic with two subjects counts toward both.

The whole meeting, in order

  1. ▶ 0:10Call to order, pledge, open meeting law notice, announcementsinformational · 1:03 long
  2. ▶ 1:13Public comment: parks commission update from its chairinformational · 7:09 long · public comment, recreation, town departments
  3. ▶ 8:22Executive session: collective bargaining strategy, firefighters Local 5369voted to enter; session held · 1:05:23 long · executive session, contracts and unions, public safety
  4. ▶ 1:13:45Appointments/ratifications: payroll and benefits coordinatortabled · 0:21 long · hiring, personnel
  5. ▶ 1:14:06Town manager report: tri-board meeting, ongoing litigation hearinginformational · 1:02 long · town departments
  6. ▶ 1:15:08Member comment on finance committee meetinginformational · 0:21 long · budget
  7. ▶ 1:15:29Warrant articles to be sponsored by the board: COA warrant, Kids Kingdom, 300th anniversary committee fundingdiscussed, no vote; standing agenda item · 5:48 long · town meeting, warrant article, budget
  8. ▶ 1:21:17Water rate increase under Fitchburg intermunicipal agreementvoted, passed unanimously · 2:23 long · water sewer, fees
  9. ▶ 1:24:00Establishment of 925 Mass Ave RFP working groupdecided informally, no vote · 6:49 long · economic development, planning and zoning
  10. ▶ 1:30:49Line-by-line revision of the board's appointment policy draftnot approved; deferred to a future meeting · 58:45 long · policy, personnel
  11. ▶ 2:29:34Review of draft special event license policyreferred for further drafting · 0:43 long · policy
  12. ▶ 2:30:17Approval of May 8 and May 14, 2024 minutesvoted, passed unanimously · 0:20 long
  13. ▶ 2:30:37Warrantsno action items · 0:20 long
  14. ▶ 2:30:57Committee reports: EDC, Municipal Building Design, School Committee, Capital Planning, Board of Assessors, Stormwater, 300th committee, Council on Aginginformational · 11:13 long · budget, capital, seniors
  15. ▶ 2:42:10Upcoming meetings, public comment, adjournmentvoted to adjourn, passed unanimously · 0:42 long

What the captions could not carry

  • Member names during the roll call into executive session are garbled ('Mr. Mloud')
  • Much of the appointment-policy wordsmithing is overlapping cross-talk with speakers not identifiable
  • Exact vote counts (e.g. 5-0) are not stated for any vote; only 'unanimous' or roll-call affirmatives are heard

These are ours, and they are not the record

OUR MINUTES OF A RECORDING, written by a language model from machine captions. Two derived layers stand between this file and the meeting. Cite the video at the timestamp, never this file. Figures are as heard and may be wrong; names may be wrong; where the town published minutes, those are the record.

Written 2026-09-16 by scripts/write_recording_minutes.py (sonnet) from sources/data/youtube-transcripts/select-board/2026-01-13-dJJBSRi5z5U.json — 2,680 caption segments, sha256 6fa6e55b2d93…. All recorded meetings.

Every other report

The budget feed — every board, everything about money →What the town is deciding now →The blog — one finding at a time, in two minutes →This week in town — meetings coming up, minutes and recordings just posted →The boards — each one, in one place →Lunenburg by the numbers — who lives here →Lunenburg’s homes and the tax bill →Homes and students — the town builds, the schools do not grow →The boards, compared →Youth sports and the fields →The School Committee’s finances — every fund and line it owns →Parks & Recreation — the department, its fund, its sales, its grounds →Health insurance →Free cash — can it fill the gap? →Teacher contracts →School user and athletic fees →Extracurriculars — sports, music and clubs →Classroom positions and class size →Overrides →Commercial development and new growth →Special education — four reports →How many students one special education group may have →The circuit breaker — what the state reimburses for the costliest placements →What other districts spend, for each pupil →What the state requires us to spend — and where that puts us →Chapter 70 — the formula, and why it pays the floor →How Chapter 70 actually works, in eight steps →School staffing — did it go up, and over which years →Who works in each school →The paraprofessionals →What courses actually ran, subject by subject →AP exams — who sits them, in what, and how they score →The cut register — what was announced, and what shows →Funding that stopped →When a grant ends — who picks up the bill →Who is in the schools — enrolment, FY1994 to today →Which grades students leave in →Who leaves Lunenburg schools, and where they go →Monty Tech — the assessment, and what sets it →If students leave — what school choice would cost →What a family actually pays →What sports cost, and who pays →Health insurance — the cost outside the school budget →Budget against reported spending →

Every analysis this project has written, in one index, is at reports.

What changed

Version 15 — updated September 20, 2026