2026-06-03: Select Board

Click timestamps in the text to watch that part of the meeting recording.

Oriented. Below are the minutes. Note: the automatic [Speaker N] tags in this recording are unstable — the same number maps to different people across segments, and several individuals are split across multiple numbers (e.g., Connors’s town-administrator answers bleed into “Speaker 1,” who is the Chair elsewhere). I have therefore identified people by name where the evidence is strong (self-introduction, addressed-by-name, or role-locked content) and used role descriptors otherwise.

Swampscott Select Board — June 3, 2026

(Meeting date is June 3, 2026 per the proclamations read into the record — “this third day of June 2026” — and the meeting’s own forward references to June 8 and June 17. The metadata date of 2026-05-28 appears to be a posting/scrape artifact.)

Section 1: Agenda

  1. 3:28 Call to order; Pledge of Allegiance (led with visiting Girl Scouts)
  2. 4:45 Town Administrator’s Report (HR/staffing, Hadley/Delamar, Hawthorne parking, Cedar Hill Terrace; board Q&A on parking enforcement, Lynn water steering committee, Fisherman’s Beach commercial-fishing access)
  3. 14:45 Public Comment (Brian Watson on the Hawthorne RFP; Big Blue Bargains community-donation report)
  4. 22:24 Reading of the Pride Month Proclamation and the Juneteenth Proclamation
  5. 27:52 Acceptance of a Little Free Library / Girl Scout Troop 70359 Silver Award presentation — request to install at Clarke School and Phillips Park (vote)
  6. 33:48 Public Hearing (joint with the Earth Removal Advisory Committee): AmRise (formerly Aggregate Industries) annual Earth Removal Permit — recommended permit, Board of Health signatory question, public comment on air monitoring → continued to June 17
  7. 1:15:40 Public Hearing: All-alcohol liquor license, Swampscott Center for the Performing Arts (former Hawthorne-by-the-Sea) → opened and continued to a special meeting June 8 at 5:00 p.m.
  8. 1:28:20 Common Victualler License — Performing Arts Center (discussion / vote)
  9. 1:31:17 Entertainment License — Performing Arts Center → tabled to June 8 pending a corrected application
  10. 1:37:52 Discussion: proposed Fall (December) and Spring Town Meeting calendar; bylaw/charter date conflict; charter-review committee
  11. 1:55:31 Discussion: Hawthorne long-term RFP (phase two of the December dual-track); Hadley design-drawing update
  12. 2:29:46 Discussion / possible vote: Solid waste contract update — automation, recycling carts, every-other-week recycling, second-barrel policy
  13. 2:58:15 Approval of prior meeting minutes (Mar 2, Mar 18, Apr 8, Apr 27)
  14. 2:59:37 Consent Agenda; one-day liquor licenses (pulled for discussion)
  15. 3:15:37 Select Board comments / reports
  16. 3:20:36 Adjournment

Section 2: Speaking Attendees

Select Board (per the 2026-05 roster):

  • Katie Phelan — Chair. Surfaces mainly as Speaker 1 and Speaker 3 (chairs motions, reads both proclamations, runs the ERAC and license hearings). Addressed “Katie” by another member at 30:39. The “happy birthday to my daughter Clara, who’s thirteen” remark at 14:22 is on internal evidence the Chair, though the speaker tag alone isn’t conclusive.
  • Danielle Leonard — Vice Chair. Thanked by name after moving adjournment (“Thank you, Danielle,” 3:20:38); target of the “get Daniel out of the house… twice a year” recycling joke 2:50:44.
  • Mary Ellen Fletcher — Member. Named as the mover (“Mary Ellen is the motion,” 1:15:59); pulled all the one-day liquor licenses and drove the Big Blue Bargains and Humphrey Street block-party-vendor discussions (local-business / revenue-protection framing consistent with her fiscal profile).
  • Ted Dooley — Member. Former Planning Board chair — self-references “putting my planning board hat on” 1:44:34; speaks at length on zoning/Town Meeting timing and the Hawthorne RFP; references his four-year-old 32:46; addressed “Ted.”
  • Wayne Spritz — Member. The solid-waste/SWAC technical lead (Connors: “I’m looking at Wayne… very involved with SWAC prior to being elected,” 2:33:42); the precise zoning-exemption questions (“are we exempt from zoning… not an educational or municipal use,” 2:10:07) and the bylaw-vs-charter article questions are his; addressed “Wayne.”

Town staff:

  • Nick Connors — Town Administrator. Delivers the TA report 4:45, keeps time (“Ask Nick,” 14:54), presents the Town Meeting calendar and the Hawthorne RFP framing, and presents the trash update. Surfaces under Speakers 5, 1, 6, and 11 at various points.
  • Marzie Galazka — Director of Community & Economic Development (“Marzi” / “Marcy” in the transcript; canonical spelling per her person file). Presents the liquor, common-victualler, and entertainment license applications and the Hawthorne land-use slides. Surfaces under Speakers 7, 9, and 10. (A second licensing/clerk’s-office staffer may be among these tags; not separately identifiable.)

Members of the public / committees:

  • Brian Watson, 20 Oak Road (Speaker 8 at 15:27) — Hawthorne Reuse Advisory Committee member; self-introduced.
  • Big Blue Bargains representatives (Speakers 4/9/1 across [19:00–21:18]) — named at the podium as “Rachel, Tara Dash, Katie, Carol,” of Stanley Road, presenting on behalf of the volunteer thrift store at 155 Humphrey-area (address partly garbled; “Clark Court/Clark Building”).
  • Girl Scout Troop 70359 (Speakers 7/8/1/2 across [28:21–33:31]) — self-introduced sixth-graders at Swampscott Middle School: Emma Krian, Grace Krian, Hannah Hawkert, Raiden Kent, Savannah Schultz.
  • Bill Carian — ERAC Chair (Speaker 6 at 34:42) — self-introduced.
  • Tony Bandrowicz and John Picarello — ERAC members (named by Carian, 34:51). John Picarello is also the Board of Health’s appointee to ERAC and the member who fields blast complaints; surfaces as Speaker 7 in the complaints exchange (1:05:05). (Spellings reconciled against the 2021 quarry-permit record 4x17jh5xvP4: “Bandewits/Bandrewitz,” “Piccarello/Picarello.”)
  • AmRise representatives: Jared Temple and Chris Drukas (named by Carian, 34:58). Drukas — a longtime attorney/representative for the quarry (the same “Chris Drukas” who represented Aggregate Industries in 2021) — gives the 1994-onward history of the Board of Health’s signatory role ([49:35–51:43]).
  • Gargi [surname not stated] — Board of Health Chair (not present; her email read into the record by the Chair, 39:44).
  • A Board of Health member addressed as “Joe” (Speaker 2 in the ERAC section, 42:53) — supports closer BOH–ERAC communication; manages the appointee swap. Possibly the “Joe Marcarian” referenced in Gargi’s email; identity not certain.
  • George Allen, 27 Debu(?) Ave. (Speaker 7 at 55:12) — Board of Health member (newly elected April 2026); self-introduced as a 40-year air-pollution scientist who has served on EPA PM10 advisory committees. Stressed his comments did not necessarily reflect the BOH position.
  • A resident at 19 Essex Street (a woman; Speaker 6 at 53:46) — public comment on quarry air monitoring; canvassing quarry-abutting streets for purple-air monitors. Name not stated.
  • John Nicastro — liquor/entertainment license applicant (Speaker 11 at 1:18:38) for the Swampscott Center for the Performing Arts; per prior corpus/press, “John Nicastro” is the legal name of operator “Johnny Ray.” A second representative for the PAC (Speaker 6 in the entertainment-license discussion, 1:33:00 ff.) speaks to acoustics and the affiliated Beacon Restaurant.
  • “Erin” — a reporter/note-taker referenced in the audience (3:16:33).
  • Speaker 12 appears once (“the Baker Tilly,” 2:28:16); not identifiable.

Section 3: Meeting Minutes

Call to order / Pledge [3:28–4:25]. The Chair called the meeting to order, noted the recording, and invited visiting Girl Scouts to lead the Pledge.

Town Administrator’s Report 4:45. Connors gave operational updates:

  • HR/staffing: Customer Service Supervisor Christy Raposo departed for Lynnfield (assistant town accountant, joining Dave Castellarin); a replacement offer was accepted that afternoon, to be introduced at the next meeting. A customer-service rep is also being hired. He thanked “Liam and Jean” for covering through beach-sticker season. Searches underway for: the retiring senior-center director (Heidi), a library reference/adult-programming director (interviews with Marianne and Jonathan), and a DPW MEO (offer expected the following week).
  • Police/Fire staffing (in response to a board question): Fire has one vacancy and is weighing whether to bring a candidate in now or after further CBA progress; Police is “fully staffed,” with two-to-three recruits in the academy (to confirm).
  • Hadley/Delamar: Continuing work with the Alamar/Delamar team (working in the building with “Max”); design drawings have arrived at Galazka’s office; Dixon to walk the board through them on June 17.
  • Hawthorne 7:21: Parking restrictions will return to the property as the tenant prepares to operate; signage to precede enforcement.
  • Cedar Hill Terrace 7:55: A “productive” meeting with Marzie, Connors, and Gino and the Four Seasons team reviewed the ZBA permit’s on-street parking limits and on-site parking plan; Four Seasons is reviewing with counsel. DPW has hashed and painted the bottom of Cedar Hill; vegetation management is on DPW’s plan (to be done within a week); “No Parking” signage to be added at the bottom of the street to allow future enforcement (hashing alone is insufficient to ticket).
  • Board Q&A: Members requested (a) periodic updates on the Stacy Brook steering committee and confirmation that the Water/Sewer Advisory and Board of Health reps (Kelly; George) are on the Lynn/mayor’s-office steering-committee invites (Connors has been forwarding); (b) periodic parking-enforcement/citation reporting, anticipating spillover from Hawthorne’s ~60 returning parking spots onto Humphrey Street and beach areas; (c) a re-check of whether Ocean Ave. truly has room for parking on both sides (a member recalled Pete Kane’s prior assurance); and (d) signage at the rebuilt Fisherman’s Beach commercial-fishing access so it is not mistaken for a public boat ramp, with thanks to Gino and DPW for the work.

Public Comment 14:45.

  • Brian Watson (Hawthorne Reuse Advisory Committee) 15:27 said he would not comment on substance but, ahead of a future RFP agenda item, offered the committee’s help. He and “Jim Smith, John Bohn, and Don Giard” (a planner who advised the committee) — “two lawyers, one architect, and a town planner” — wish to continue participating. He emphasized the committee’s 10-month work produced a useful framework of explicit criteria/goals that “kept our discussions manageable,” good for transparency and fairness, and identified “at least ten or twelve fairly important issues” needing resolution before an RFP could be written.
  • Big Blue Bargains 19:00 reported $31,000 donated to the community in the past three months and just over $60,000 since opening February 2025: $10,000 to the Senior Center, $5,000 to Anchor Food Pantry, $2,000 to Seaglass Village, $1,000 to “Fund Sora,” ~$1,900 for two benches via the Swampscott Commission, $2,700 to the preschool music/movement class. The 100%-volunteer store also sponsors library programming, distributes gift cards, partners with the high-school Discovery Point program, and will open a “free store” in the portables Saturday June 6, 9–11. They thanked the town for the Clark space and noted a June 16 conversation about additional space.

Proclamations 22:24. The Chair read the Pride Month Proclamation (proclaiming June as Pride Month in Swampscott) and the Juneteenth Proclamation (proclaiming June 19, 2026 as Juneteenth — the 161st commemoration). She closed with remarks on allyship, noting the ideals “are not nationwide.” No formal vote was recorded for the proclamations.

Girl Scout Little Free Library — Silver Award 27:52. Troop 70359 (six SMS sixth-graders) requested permission to build and install Little Free Libraries at Clarke School and Phillips Park as their Silver Award (addressing literacy/book access), built in SMS Carpentry Club with “Mr. Lasso.” They have spoken with Rec Director Charlotte DiCacia (who requested the Clarke School one) and emailed Gino Cresta at DPW, who agreed to install them if approved; the scouts would stock and monitor them and plan farmers-market book-collection and story-time events. After Q&A, a board member moved “to support the Girl Scout troop in making their little libraries”; seconded; passed by voice vote [33:22–33:27].

Public Hearing — AmRise Earth Removal Permit (joint with ERAC) 33:48. The Chair opened the hearing (moved, seconded, aye, 33:57) and convened jointly with ERAC. Background: AmRise (formerly Aggregate Industries / “Aggregate”) has appeared annually; ERAC recommends and the Select Board approves.

  • ERAC Chair Bill Carian 34:42 introduced ERAC members (Bandrowicz, Picarello) and AmRise reps (Temple, Drukas). He explained this year’s proposed amendments are mostly streamlining/clarifying/consolidating language; blast limits/parameters are untouchable because they are governed by a litigation settlement. Notably, the recommendation will remove the Board of Health signature line from the permit: Article 13 of the general bylaws contains no requirement for BOH sign-off, and he had alerted the BOH Chair. The amendments also reduce instances where the Select Board/TA must be formally noticed (he characterized this as removing minor notices, not the substantive approvals). A final draft will return for the board’s vote on June 17.
  • Board of Health Chair Gargi’s email (read by the Chair, 39:44) — submitted as her own request, not a BOH position (the BOH had not met on it; it meets June 16): she acknowledged not fully understanding the BOH’s role to date, but flagged that Earth Removal Bylaw §3 (no permit if operations endanger public safety / health / quality of life / groundwater/wetlands) and §14 (one BOH representative on ERAC) raise the question of who evaluates the health/environmental criteria if the BOH has no review authority — given the permit directs monitoring data/reports to the BOH. She asked the board to consider whether the bylaw should be reviewed, and noted the BOH had not been given the chance to appoint its ERAC representative.
  • “Joe” (Board of Health) 42:53 supported a more direct BOH–ERAC line of communication but called a formal-role change “premature” (it would require a bylaw change). He noted John Picarello is the BOH’s ERAC appointee and is willing to resign that seat and reapply for the currently-open Select-Board-appointed ERAC seat, freeing the BOH seat — executable as early as June 17. He cautioned against setting up “two bodies approving our permit” (“not good government”), and referenced George Allen’s circulated comments as a prompt to reevaluate the testing/monitoring approach over time at the committee level.
  • Drukas 49:35 gave the history: since ~1994 the BOH was a signatory because, under the prior charter, noise regulation was the BOH’s exclusive purview (consistent with state law, which he believes still grants the BOH noise/sound authority); the signatory role later became “pro forma.” He recommended getting a BOH member back onto ERAC and working the issues through the next permit cycle, noting the permit can be amended at any time and that the three monitoring events this year should “put everybody’s fears to rest.”
  • Board questions established that there is nothing in the charter, the bylaws, or state statute mandating BOH involvement in the permit, except the BOH’s retained authority to regulate noise. Members and Carian agreed the issues cannot be resolved before June 17 (“more than one meeting” of ERAC will be needed); the permit deadline should not be missed, since conditions can be amended later under the permit’s own terms.
  • Public comment: The 19 Essex St. resident 53:46 called thrice-yearly air monitoring “totally inadequate” — “three days a year… leaves out almost 350 other days” and not following EPA methodology. George Allen 55:12 testified that the sampling required and performed in 2025 is “insufficient to be used for comparison to and determine compliance with health-based standards for PM10 or crystalline silica,” carefully framing it as not a finding of a health hazard but as insufficient data “to demonstrate that there are no health hazards”; he referenced concern about a “per-client request” constraining measured particle sizes (his §6). The board voted (on Joe’s motion) to add George Allen’s letter into the minutes 58:38.
  • The board reached consensus to leave the substantive air-monitoring and BOH-role questions to ERAC and the BOH (BOH meets June 16; ERAC to meet after June 17; next testing period July 1–Aug 30). A member (“Wayne”) pressed an extended exchange [1:04:49–1:13:35] on resident protection via pre-blast surveys and claims: surveys are sent annually to abutters and within 300 feet (performed by “Precise”); a survey is not a prerequisite to filing a claim (FP-296), but claims run against the third-party blasting company’s insurer, not the town, and (members noted from prior years) few claims are paid. The applicant/Galazka confirmed a pre-blast survey would never be refused if requested mid-year. The 19 Essex St. resident relayed a neighbor’s account of an insurer telling her she “would have had to have been home looking at that wall” when a crack formed to be paid. The abutters list (noted on the permit as “2022”) was confirmed to be updated in practice from current assessor data.
  • The Chair moved to continue the public hearing to June 17 (after first moving to close, then rescinding so it need not be re-noticed); seconded; passed [1:15:10–1:15:33].

Public Hearing — All-Alcohol Liquor License, Swampscott Center for the Performing Arts 1:15:40. Opened on Fletcher’s motion (seconded “Ted,” aye). Galazka presented applicant John Nicastro’s request for an all-alcohol license at the former Hawthorne restaurant, 11 a.m.–1 a.m., seven days a week — parallel to the adjacent Mission on the Bay (1 a.m.), Sam Walker’s, and the yacht club, and later than the former Hawthorne’s hours. Confirmed a new applicant / new license, not a renewal. The board discussed whether to vote that night; the Chair held that the town’s practice is to hear license applications twice, to allow public input even though no public was present. To balance that practice against the applicant’s urgency (ABCC backlog; goal to open, with a July 3 open house planned regardless), the board agreed to continue the public hearing to a special virtual meeting Monday, June 8 at 5:00 p.m. (a date/time certain, no re-advertising needed). Members also agreed to ask state legislators to check whether any Swampscott applications are stuck in the ABCC queue. Moved, seconded, aye 1:28:11.

Common Victualler License — PAC 1:28:20. Galazka noted the same 11 a.m.–1 a.m., seven-days hours. After clarifying that the license covers the restaurant operation (a separately-leased former fish-market space, e.g., Maria’s catering, would need its own BOH/building permitting because it would not offer seating), a member moved to approve; seconded; all in favor — approved [1:31:11–1:31:15].

Entertainment License — PAC 1:31:17. Galazka described the request: live bands (up to six musicians), comedy, solo artists/piano, trivia, etc., same hours. Members found discrepancies between the application pages (television not checked; “up to six musicians” vs. “max of three instruments plus vocals”) and asked that a corrected, fully-checked application be circulated. The Chair raised noise travel over the water; the PAC representative cited the building’s acoustics (glass, rugs, acoustic ceiling tiles) and a practice of closing patio/street doors at ~9:30–10 (as at the Beacon). Galazka recounted a past Humphrey Street vendor noise dispute and stated the rule of thumb — “your music stays in your building” — to be reflected in the license; she noted the town noise bylaw’s standards are slated to be revisited in the fall warrant. The item was tabled to June 8 pending the corrected application 1:35:16.

Town Meeting Calendar 1:37:52. Connors (with Town Clerk Katie DuPont) proposed a calendar reaching from the December Town Meeting through next May, to open/close warrants earlier and get the printed warrant to members further ahead (target: in residents’ homes ~two weeks before Town Meeting; also a moderator/SB office-hours education opportunity). Proposed fall track: open ~early September, close ~early October, recommendations ~October 21, print/mail early November. He flagged a bylaw-vs-charter conflict on the spring Town Meeting date and the citizen-petition deadline (the charter controls; both fall meetings are annual, so the petition threshold is 10 signatures, not 250), and proposed a clean-up bylaw change via the E-Code codification effort. Discussion:

  • Fletcher urged keeping the December meeting “as skinny as possible” (one night) given the holidays.
  • Dooley (“planning board hat”) warned that an October 7 close is too tight for substantive zoning articles, which need a long public-engagement runway (citing the 3A process) that would land awkwardly over summer/start-of-school; placeholders are fine but the engagement timing worries him.
  • The board discussed compressing the ~7 weeks between Oct 21 and Dec 7 (lost to Thanksgiving and print/mail time) and agreed Dooley, Connors, Galazka, “Krista,” and Planning Board acting chair Joe Sheridan would meet to game out the zoning timing. A member raised whether the town should hold Town Meeting earlier (e.g., March) — deemed a charter-review-level question, not a one-off. The board agreed to stand up a charter-review committee (referencing a prior round of solicited committee changes held by “David”).

Hawthorne long-term RFP 1:55:31. Connors framed phase two of the December dual-track: the short-term PAC lease is operating (licenses in process), and now the long-term RFP needs the board’s policy input. ~70% of the RFP (community profile, site facts) is drafted; the remaining “important part” is the board’s policy decisions, guardrails, and scoring. He reviewed the Humphrey Street (Elm Place) Overlay District by-right uses and design-review uses, noting office/professional uses are restricted. The board worked the framing:

  • Timing: work backward from the ~30-month lease window (to June 2028), using Hadley as a marker (Connors recalled Hadley’s due-diligence as ~90 days plus an ~18-month financial period); a schedule to be overlaid on the calendar.
  • Process: the board credited the prior Hadley/Pine Street RFP work (seven-or-eight high-quality respondents — Drew, Noannet, Lark/Rise — aided by consultant Pinnacle’s marketing) and discussed whether to engage a consultant to market the RFP (Connors/Galazka: one group’s pitch would cost “low five [figures]”; a different scope than what had been discussed) — but only after the board sets direction, “rather than the consultant directing us.”
  • Guardrails vs. rubric: the central philosophical choice. Dooley favored the open scoring-rubric approach (preserving outside-the-box responses, citing Noannet’s Hadley proposal) over hard guardrails; Spritz and Connors noted a rubric is only as objective as how it’s scored (e.g., how heavily to negatively weight residential over a threshold), so the same disputes can resurface. Members agreed the town legally can restrict uses below by-right zoning in its own RFP as landowner (it is not exempt from zoning — “not an educational or municipal use” — but as owner it can decline by-right uses or score them negatively). Spritz cautioned against over-restricting given the Humphrey Street Overlay’s deliberate flexibility.
  • Adjacent land: the board may publicly acknowledge a conversation about purchasing the St. John’s parking lot (without discussing negotiation status), and could ask respondents for two answers — lot as-is and lot-plus-adjacent.
  • Homework: each member to bring “top three pillars” to June 17 and to keep Hawthorne on every subsequent agenda. Decision points named: keep-the-building-or-not, residential yes/how-much, open-space %, parking, lease length (30/50/99 years), retained ownership. Staff to assemble a “same data set”: the Hawthorne Reuse Advisory Committee report, the Cushing consultant’s collated community feedback (the “dots” exercise), and the Baker Tilly economic-district report (commissioned at Doug Grishman’s request). Members noted they had “really haven’t produced anything” since December and “owe the town a timeline.”

Hadley 2:30:07. Dixon to attend June 17 to present design drawings; the board confirmed Hadley’s two required pre-submission public meetings were held. A separate abutter meeting on the rear parking lot will be scheduled while Dixon is in town; the board agreed to send abutter notices (a “belt and suspenders” courtesy) even though a formal public hearing (site plan) will come later — their LDA requires all permitting by February 2027, implying a site-plan filing by ~mid-October.

Solid Waste Contract Update 2:31:38. Connors previewed two upcoming public sessions — a SWAC meeting June 8 (presenting to the full committee) and a hybrid public Q&A June 15 here (with Gino and SWAC members) — plus an updated webpage/FAQ going live (likely the next afternoon). Key points:

  • Service levels unchanged for now: recycling weekly, trash weekly, yard waste continuing (~7 weeks). The contract (5 years; Republic) moves to automated collection (mechanical arm; barrels 3 feet from obstructions). Republic confirmed it secured the automated trucks, removing a cost/anxiety lever; transition targeted for the second week of July (~6 weeks out).
  • Recycling carts: 96-gallon (≈4.5 of the old blue bins), purchased with Town-Meeting-approved free cash, procured this week; the large size deliberately preserves future policy flexibility.
  • An extended, sometimes heated, board discussion followed about rollout sequencing and communication. There was clear consensus that the changes must be communicated all at once (“not drip drip drip”), and recurring disagreement about how much to surface at once. Members (“Wayne,” Fletcher) pressed that residents’ first questions will be the second trash barrel (cost, annual vs. one-time fee, whether blue bags continue — answer: yes, one bag on top, same cost) and the prospect of every-other-week recycling (negotiated into the contract as an option, not yet decided). Connors and members emphasized the every-other-week change is a Select Board policy decision to be made deliberately, with the savings socialized to the community, and that the larger cart was negotiated to enable that option, not to force it. A member (“Joe”/Spritz) noted maximum weight and tonnage data exist to compute second-barrel pricing. Connors flagged a further future policy question — “whether or not we are charging for our trash” (a trash fee) — coming “within the next 12 months.” The board asked staff to bring the second-barrel cost / annual-vs-one-time answer to the June 8 SWAC meeting so a policy decision can come to the board June 17. Light moments included the “Daniel out of the house twice a year” recycling joke and the Chair’s self-correcting “six months / every other week” slip (“It’s been a long night”). No formal vote was taken on service-level changes.

Minutes — Mar 2, Mar 18, Apr 8, Apr 27 2:58:15. Pulled from consent because Dooley and Spritz were not yet board members. On motion (seconded), the minutes passed 3–0 with 2 abstentions (Phelan, Fletcher, Leonard in favor; Dooley and Spritz abstaining). The board corrected a scrivener’s error: the “April 27” date should be a Monday (the night before the April 28 election).

Consent Agenda 2:59:37. Fletcher pulled all the one-day liquor licenses for discussion; a member pulled the May 18 minutes for a minor amendment. Remaining consent items (2–4) were approved (moved, seconded, aye, 3:00:19). The May 18 minutes were then amended — reattributing the “breakdown of voter turnout by precinct” question from Ted Dooley to Wayne Spritz — moved by Leonard, seconded, aye [3:00:19–3:01:20].

One-day liquor licenses 3:01:22. Fletcher’s questions:

  • Town liability: the alcohol provider holds liquor-liability insurance with the town named as additional insured (confirmed against the Oktoberfest practice).
  • July 3 fireworks: distributors who sell help fund the day’s entertainment; members asked Rec Director Charlotte DiCacia for the actual figures and whether the town is capturing enough revenue (a question raised about the arrangement under the prior rec director).
  • Humphrey Street block party: Fletcher objected to bringing in an outside beer vendor (East Regiment) that pays a small fee while local taxpaying restaurants are present. Other members and staff reported that last year’s beer area drew thousands, did not appear to hurt the restaurants (Café Avellino, Dockside, Nordhaven all busy), and may have helped distribute crowds; Galazka described prior individual outreach encouraging each business to maximize the day. The board surfaced timing/coordination issues (this year on a Sunday — block party 3–7 p.m. per a text from DiCacia, vs. an earlier 11–5 assumption; mass at 10:30; no Hawthorne parking; staging logistics; pending state “social consumption” legislation). They agreed to pull the block-party license to June 8 to get the financials and possibly offer existing businesses one-day satellite licenses.
  • Vote: the board approved four one-day liquor licenses for East Regiment and continued the Humphrey Street block-party license, plus additional beer-vendor licenses submitted late that day, to June 8 (moved, seconded, aye, 3:15:32). The Pride and July 3 events were left as-is given timing.

Special meeting June 8 3:15:43. Confirmed for Monday, June 8 at 5:00 p.m. (virtual) to take up: the PAC liquor and entertainment licenses, and the pulled/late one-day liquor licenses — allotted ~15 minutes.

Select Board comments 3:15:37.

  • Congratulations to the high-school baseball team (NEC conference title, first in 30 years) and coach Joe Caponegro (conference coach of the year); to the boys’ and girls’ lacrosse teams.
  • Praise for DPW’s rebuilt Fisherman’s Beach commercial-fishing access (recognizing Emiliano, Nate, Daniel, and Jill Dullette).
  • Recognition of longtime high-school staffer Al Tierney’s retirement.
  • A member recommended the June 2 [MMA/legal] session recording (environmental permitting, housing development, climate/energy regulation, starter-home zoning, 40Y, cannabis consumption) as relevant background.
  • A member relayed a resident’s commendation of the Swampscott Police for de-escalating a ~3 a.m. mental-health incident safely.

Adjournment 3:20:36. Leonard moved to adjourn; seconded; passed by voice vote.

I also appended two new story ideas to data/news/IDEAS.md (per the append-only convention): the quarry air-monitoring / Board-of-Health-authority governance thread (George Allen now on the BOH while the bylaw clean-up narrows BOH involvement), and the Hawthorne RFP phase-two launch (guardrails-vs-rubric, St. John’s lot adjacency). Both are flagged “not yet ripe” — they play out across the June 16 BOH, post-June-17 ERAC, and June 17 SB meetings.

One political-context note for the maintainer: this meeting reflects the new board functioning normally (no inflection), so I did not create a new snapshot. It does, however, confirm several 2026-05.md HUMAN-REVIEW items in passing — Joe Sheridan as Planning Board acting chair, Connors’s pure-execution posture, and Cedar Hill parking next-steps (DPW hashing + forthcoming No-Parking signage). I left the snapshot unedited rather than appending minor confirmations, but flag these in case you want to fold them in.