Westport board backs a $4.96 million first step at the old high school and holds off on the annex well
Architects priced the full renovation at $42.8 million. On the Town Hall Annex, Vice Chair Jake McGuigan questioned paying $6,400 a month for trucked-in water, and the board put off a new well estimated at $110,000 to $120,000.
WESTPORT Westport's Select Board on Monday settled on a $4.96 million first phase to move the Council on Aging and town offices into the former high school, a plan town officials said would likely go to voters as a debt exclusion. The board also held off on a design contract of about $48,000 for a new well at the Town Hall Annex after Vice Chair Jake McGuigan said the town is paying $6,400 a month to truck in water that no one is allowed to drink.
No vote was needed on the high school plan Monday. Architects from Brewster Thornton Group priced a full renovation of the building at $42.8 million, along with smaller pieces the town could take on over time. Members said the $4.96 million option for the Council on Aging and the town offices now in the annex was the place to start, and Chair Shana Teas said the presentation would be posted so residents can weigh in.
The old high school price tags
The smallest option the architects showed, about $1.42 million, would put the Council on Aging in the theater half of the building with partial sprinklers, well and power work and accessibility fixes, but no interior renovation. The full buildout, with what one architect called "all the bells and whistles," came to $42.8 million. If the town put in about $20 million, the architects said, grants, building sales and rent might cover the rest. The architects said state code rules add costs once spending passes 30% of the building's value, assessed at $17,390,300, and when a school becomes offices.
Board Clerk Rick Mundy said there is room to cut, starting with about $4.7 million for a new roof on what he called a newer roof that does not leak. Without the roof and the sprinklers, he said, the code work comes to "right about 2.5 million to move into that building," and a member later corrected that code-only figure to about $1.1 million. Another member said the full buildout estimate had dropped from $72 million to $50 million and now $42 million, and that a first phase near $6.5 million was "a number that the taxpayers of Westport would probably be willing to work with."
One board member said borrowing as much as $5 million is not feasible "in any other way other than a debt exclusion," a temporary tax increase that voters must approve. "My thought would be get the debt exclusion for the five million," the member said, adding that the town should keep pursuing grants, though answers on them are unlikely before May 2027. Town Administrator Chris Vitale said Town Meeting would be asked for an amount of up to $5 million, borrowed only as it is spent, so grants or savings would lower it. Town Meeting must also approve using the building for town purposes, he said, which pushes the work into fiscal 2028.
In public comment, the chair of the Council on Aging called the work the first real study of what town departments need and said there would be "a lot of explaining to do." Another speaker urged the town to consider affordable housing for the annex and the Council on Aging building on Reed Road if those buildings are freed up.
Annex well on hold
Vitale said Kleinfelder, the engineering firm the town hired, recommends drilling a replacement well at a new spot on the annex property rather than repairing the current one, which, a member noted from the proposal, did not meet depth requirements. The firm puts the whole job at $110,000 to $120,000, a figure Vitale said includes its design fee, and four to six months from design to construction. For now, he said, the town would seek a reserve fund transfer to pay for it. The board took no vote and plans to take up the proposal again Monday, Nov. 16.
The Town Hall Annex has run on trucked-in water since its well stopped serving the building. Each delivery to fill the tanks outside costs $3,200, the figure in Vitale's Oct. 16 report to the board, and comes twice a month, McGuigan said. That is $6,400 a month for water that McGuigan said is used only to flush toilets and wash hands; a state do-not-drink order was still in effect at the annex in mid-October, Vitale reported to the board then. McGuigan said homeowners around the Point and Westport Harbor with holding tanks pay a local hauler $400 for up to 6,000 gallons, and that even at $12,000 a year, deliveries would run 10 years before matching the cost of a new well. He also asked whether the building loses 150 to 200 gallons a night to leaks.
Vitale said the town had to move fast when the well failed, and "when you are trying to address a problem expediently, you are not necessarily looking for the best prices out there." The town is a public water supply with extra rules, he said, and the hauler came from a bulk water delivery list the town worked from with the state Department of Environmental Protection in the emergency. "Now that we are not in an emergency situation," he said, the town can look for "an opportunity there to find some cost savings over these next several months." Another member said, "I think we're putting good money after bad," and asked to wait on the well until the high school plan is settled.
SC360 previewed Monday's meeting and the annex well proposal. Read the preview.
Hixbridge Road
Eversource has taken one of its two contractors off its underground power line work on Hixbridge Road, the company's community relations representative told the board. After a walk of the site with town officials early in October produced a list of problems, he said, that contractor did very little of it, and Eversource removed it Friday. Crews paved about 90% of its stretch over the weekend as a temporary repair, he said. About 1,500 feet of conduit and one more manhole remain between Drift Road and the Masonic Lodge, about a month of work, he said. A resident said an Eversource letter listing Nov. 2 and 3 work had just arrived; the representative said it was mailed before the switch, for manhole work that did not happen. Setting that manhole will need a short closure of the road that is "not supposed to last all day" and "can be a two-hour window," Eversource said.
Eversource owns the trench and the patch for about a year, the representative said, and hopes to finish restoring the road in November or can come back in the spring to finish and repave if the town prefers. An Eversource manager who oversees the contractors apologized. "I apologize and that won't happen again," he said. McGuigan, who said he still opposes the project, thanked the company for the weekend paving, then moved to bar the removed contractor from more road work in Westport. Another member spoke against it, questioning whether it fits procurement law and saying the board cannot tie the hands of future boards, and McGuigan withdrew it after Vitale said the board can set conditions when it grants pole permits.
The new circuits are meant to make room for more solar projects, the representative said, since the circuits from Westport's main feed, the Fisher Road substation in Dartmouth, are already "operating at a pretty good capacity." Asked what the project cost, he said he would get the total to the board, adding, "I think it was a cost of $2.88 a year to the ratepayers." The questioner replied, "I doubt that, seriously." Solar developers pay for the large majority of such upgrades, he said.
Also on the agenda
The board voted unanimously to pay Deputy Police Chief Robert Rebello a one-time stipend of $2,455.31, which Vitale said covers a pay shortfall from fiscal 2025 and 2026. It also authorized Vitale to file a home rule petition with the Legislature to change the town's recall election law as Town Meeting approved under Article 36, cutting the signatures needed to start a recall from 200 to 100 and the share of registered voters needed on the petition from 10% to 5%, the board was told.
The town's water system serves about 215 connections, and its certified water operator, a consultant, retires at the end of the year, Vitale told the board, so the town must have an operator in place by then. He recommended a model in which a water utility provider would give the town professional help with rate setting, billing and general administration, with the board still serving as water commissioners. Town Meeting has already approved money for a rate study, he said. One member said the town should look to a contractor or regional shared services rather than add a full-time job, and members told Vitale to seek proposals; no vote was needed.
What happens next
The annex well returns at the board's Monday, Nov. 16, meeting, the same evening the Select Board, School Committee and Finance Committee hold a joint fiscal 2028 budget workshop at Westport Middle-High School. Vitale said the architects' final master plan will come back to the board for approval. The architects were told the board would see them again Dec. 7 and were asked to post the presentation and the detailed cost estimate, with page numbers, as soon as possible. The fiscal 2027 tax classification hearing is also set for Monday, Dec. 7, and articles for the next annual Town Meeting are due Jan. 8, 2027.
How to weigh in
The Select Board meets in the second-floor meeting room at Town Hall, 816 Main Road, and its meetings are streamed and recorded. Comments and statements have their own place on each agenda. The Select Board office can be reached at 508-636-1006.
Label: Reported by us, from the town's posted records.
Notes
Every fact comes from the Select Board's Nov. 2 meeting, which we watched live on the town's stream, and from the board's Nov. 2 agenda, the town administrator's Oct. 16 and Oct. 30 reports, the Select Board office's Nov. 2 email with Kleinfelder's revised proposal, and the Board of Assessors' Nov. 2 agenda, listed below. We read the records on Nov. 2. We checked each date and weekday against a calendar and checked each figure and quote against the meeting video and the documents. Figures from the architects' slides are as the speakers gave them; the board plans to post the presentation. No one was asked for comment beyond the meeting; the Select Board office provided the Kleinfelder proposal at our request.
Corrections
No corrections to this story. If something here is wrong, tell us. Every correction is dated on the story and listed in our public log.
Sources (6)
- Westport Select Board, Monday, Nov. 2, 2026 (meeting video, Westport Government TV)Town of Westport public meeting, streamed live. Watched live Nov. 2, 2026, from 6 p.m.; quotes and figures with their video times in the evidence file. Read Nov. 2, 2026.
- Select Board, Monday, November 2, 2026 (agenda, 3 pages)Town of Westport, clerk stamp Oct. 29, 2026. Items 7d, 7e, 7f, 7g, 7h, 8a, place and office phone. Read Nov. 2, 2026.
- Town Administrator's Report for Select Board Meeting 10-19-2026Town of Westport, dated Oct. 16, 2026. Annex temporary water system and the do-not-drink order, reserve fund transfer, Nov. 16 joint budget workshop. Read Nov. 2, 2026.
- Town Administrator's Report for Select Board Meeting 11-02-2026Town of Westport, dated Oct. 30, 2026. Annual Town Meeting article deadline Jan. 8, 2027. Read Nov. 2, 2026.
- Westport Select Board office, Nov. 2, 2026 email with Kleinfelder's revised Oct. 28 Town Hall Annex well proposalSent to South Coast 360 News at 2:06 p.m. Nov. 2 with the board's meeting documents; figures read from the attached proposal as printed. The 2024 well's casing. Read Nov. 2, 2026.
- Board of Assessors agenda, Monday, November 2, 2026Town of Westport. Item 5, fiscal 2027 classification hearing Dec. 7, 2026. Read Nov. 2, 2026.