Letter To The Editor

June 13, 2025
11 mins read

Dear Editor:

June Valliere’s recent well-researched and written articles stirred up many memories of the Town Center project. If you lived in town 20 years ago, you too will likely remember the developer’s free ice cream giveaways at the transfer station that devolved into threats of a massive 40B housing complex, office building and call center. Such groups as SOS (Save Our Services), Waylanders for Smart Growth and One Wayland urged voters to make a choice that will “impact our town for generations to come.”

The original development agreement, negotiated primarily by a current Select Board member, set out the structure and obligations of the business deal. The project, promoted with the tagline “Fits Our Town, Funds Our Future,” was approved by voters the second time it was brought to Town Meeting after intense lobbying by the developer, investors, Selectmen, and other proponents.

Residents looked forward to the promised intergenerational gathering place with mom and pop stores, an ice-skating pond and a gazebo on an expansive town green together with tax relief derived from a new commercial base and gifts from the developer equal to two overrides.

Fast forward to the current underperforming mall up for sale yet again. It has clearly failed to meet projections and expectations. So, as June Valliere has asked, what’s next for the Town Center?

— Stephen Greenbaum

Dear Editor,

I was surprised to see my informal communication to Dave Watkins printed as an official Dear Editor letter in the last edition, as were many others who mentioned it to me with a laugh. But especially so, since the Post had reached out to ask me if they could print it, which I had quickly declined and provided a true letter with better context.

Yet even though the new one was in hand, the old “letter” was still run, I’m told, “in error.” Hmm. While the content is old news at this point, here’s the letter which should have run, and the encouragement at the end rings even more true now. Please do better on editing!

Original letter follows:

Dear Editor:

As to the cover story and photo on the Terrain proposal, I was completely baffled as to why the Post would profile a photo of a building that is not even being proposed here – and then not even label what the photo is – and then not even mention in the article that Terrain is proposing to repurpose the existing buildings. Wow.

So many people were confused by the front page image and story when in reality what is being proposed is simple reuse of the existing buildings and parking lot for a creative and attractive use. One that can finally fill properties that have sat vacant for years. his is an important topic to get right.

Please, next time, post actual images that are readily available and which are the basis for public hearings, so that people have the correct news. We’re overjoyed to have a newspaper back, but if it can’t carry the actual news, it may be two steps forward, but one step way back. Please step up on editing! Thank you,

— Rebecca Stanizzi


Editor’s note: Terrain declined to provide any information
prior to print deadline.

Dear Editor,

After the Town Meeting voted in May 2010 for a free trial of Electronic Voting at the 2011 Annual Town Meeting, former Moderator Peter Gossels created the Electronic Voting Implementation Subcommittee (ELVIS) to determine if this was feasible, and if so, bring it to fruition. ELVIS members assessed the available technology, and persuaded Florida company Options Technologies Interactive (OTI) to make the necessary modifications to their wireless electronic voting service and provide a free trial. ELVIS developed and documented the necessary procedures, and tested the service. The trial of electronic voting at the 2012 Town Meeting was a success. Town Meeting has subsequently approved many Articles calling for the continued use of Electronic Voting

The development of electronic voting continued, providing automation of previously manual reporting activities required of the Town Clerk, and enabling Town Meeting voters to check-in with any member of the Town Clerk’s registration staff. ELVIS continued to focus on ensuring that electronic voting at each Town Meeting was accurate, secure, and private, providing assistance to Town Meeting voters from our Help Desk. We prepare for each Town Meeting as if it were the first to use wireless handsets, but after 14 years, both OTI and Wayland voters know electronic voting well: during our most recent Town Meeting, the Moderator’s test votes revealed no handset problems, and both sessions were completed with no requests for assistance.

No sooner had we mastered electronic voting than Waylanders began asking if the technology could be used to enable participation in Town Meeting from home – or from wherever else they happened to be, as some Waylanders must travel for work. In many of our community’s younger families, both parents work. In many of our older families, disabilities and care-giving responsibilities impose physical limits. Too many voters are disenfranchised by the requirement for physical presence at Town Meeting.

While Massachusetts state law currently prohibits remote participation at Town Meeting, former Moderator Dennis Berry asked ELVIS to identify the technical impediments and determine if they could be overcome. The ELVIS team – Lynne Dunbrack, Larry Krakauer, Trudy Reid, Alan Reiss, Don Schuler, Jon Sieber and I – spent several years developing an approach that would enable remote participants to fully engage in Town Meetings: to listen to whoever is speaking to Town Meeting, to speak to Town Meeting, and to vote. This approach should require little or no training for anyone already familiar with Town Meeting. We developed a way to detect proxy voting (impersonation), and ways to detect adversaries attempting to tamper with or otherwise disrupt votes.  

So began the next phase: convincing the Massachusetts Legislature to make remote participation in Open Town Meetings legal. In 2022, then Select Board Member Dave Watkins worked with Wayland Town Counsel and State Representative Carmine Gentile to develop a home rule petition that would authorize remote participation in Wayland Town Meetings. Submitted late in the 2-year legislative session, this bill never reached the floor for a vote. Neither did the bills we and others submitted at the beginning of the 2023-2024 legislative session.

Assessing our lack of success with current Moderator Miranda Jones, Select Board members Tom Fay and Doug Levine, and Wayland’s Sen. James Eldridge earlier this year, we concluded that we must directly engage with committee chairs and senior legislative leadership to help them understand the problem that remote participation will solve: the disenfranchisement of many voters who long to engage in their town’s governance but cannot be physically present for multiple hours over multiple evenings. 

In addition to the Home Rule Petition endorsed by Wayland’s Town Meeting, Rep. Gentile has submitted a bill that would legalize remote participation in Open Town Meetings state-wide; this bill has 8 co-sponsors, and has been endorsed by the Massachusetts Municipal Association, the League of Women’s Voters, and the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. Both bills have been referred to the Municipalities and Regional Government Committee.

Last month, Moderator Jones and I met with Rep. Jack Lewis, House Co-Chair of the Municipalities and Regional Government Committee. This week, we presented Wayland’s approach to Rep. Kate Donaghue. Rep. Lewis and Rep. Donaghue both took the time to fully understand Wayland’s proposed approach to ensuring the integrity of Open Town Meetings with remote participants, and expressed satisfaction with its thoroughness. Rep. Gentile and Sen. Eldridge are working to arrange discussions with members of the Legislature’s leadership; their support will help bring one or both of these bills to a vote.   

     Dave Bernstein, Chair ELVIS

Photo of  Carmine Lawrence Gentile

Rep. Carmine Gentile

Photo of  James B. Eldridge

Sen. James Eldridge

Photo of  Jack Patrick Lewis

Rep. Jack Lewis

Dear Editor:

In June Valliere’s article “What’s Next for Wayland Town Center?” she obnoxiously writes that mothers will grocery shop and fathers will play golf while their children are at the volleyball club.

Isn’t it about time that we leave the ‘50s and appreciate that dads too know how to grocery shop or moms have lives outside of their homes?

So painful. Make it stop.

— Emily Cooney

Editor’s note: The passage that is referenced was a quote from Scott Grandpre, the owner of Boston United Volleyball Club. He was talking about the conversations that he had with parents and we did not want to violate the integrity of the quote by changing it.

Dear Editor,

Add one more complex and costly set of land-use regulations that the Conservation Commission expects the public to read, comprehend and spend a considerable amount of money in an attempt to comply with.

Unbeknown to most residents or Wayland, if adopted, these regulations will impose expensive and time-consuming requirements on homeowners who want to engage in “land disturbing activities” which include changes in landscaping, adding an as-of-right accessory dwelling unit or cutting trees on their own property, to name a few.

Major permits will be required for any increase in an impervious surface over 500 square feet. These permits require detailed property surveys, drainage plans and infiltration calculations by a registered engineer, along with soil drainage test pits, etc. A major permit will take months to obtain. It will cost permit applicants tens of thousands of dollars. It will also require a considerable increase in time and effort by town staff and there is no money in the town budget to pay for those extra hours.

It is interesting that Weston has also adopted regulations fulfilling the same stormwater management goals. However, Weston has effectively controlled stormwater from new projects without regulations that are burdensome on the applicant, nor burdensome on the Town budget. Further, Weston’s regulations have effectively maintained the character of the community without making an attempt to exercise disruptive control on privately owned property and privately owned trees.

For my part, I would simply ask you to try to read the proposed regulations. They are available on the Conservation Department website: https://www.wayland.ma.us/conservation/pages/stormwater-and-land-disturbance. Then click on “Chapter 193 Draft Regulations”. The Conservation Commission will be accepting written Public Comments through June 18.

If you are able to grasp the scope of the proposed regulations from the draft document on their website, please send a comment to the Conservation Commission. If you find that you cannot grasp their meaning, please just let the Conservation Commission know that the proposed regulations are way too complex for virtually any homeowner to read and understand, much less comply with.

Comparison of Weston & Wayland Regulations on

Land Disturbance and Stormwater

 WestonWayland
 Approved RegulationsProposed Regulations
Land Disturbance Definition“Any action causing any removal of vegetation including tree and brush clearing; importation, removal, or redistribution of soil, sand, rock, gravel or similar earth material.” Weston Bylaw ,Sec II“Any action, including clearing, the removal of trees and other vegetation, and other land alterations that causes a change in the position, location, or arrangement of soil, sand, rock, gravel or similar earth material.  Where the disturbance includes tree removal, the limit of disturbance is to be considered the limit of the tree canopy.” Appendix A
Stormwater Definition“Rainfall or snowmelt water flowing over the ground surface or other source which may result in transport of pollutants.” Weston Bylaw, Sec II“Rainfall or snowmelt water which flows broadly over the ground surface – also called “stormwater runoff” or “direct runoff”. Wayland Bylaw 193-2
Infiltration Rate“Conveying surface water into the ground to permit groundwater recharge and the reduction of stormwater runoff from a project site.  Rates based on Rawls Rate Table.”  Sec 6.A.2ii.eSee:  “BMP per the MassDEP Stormwater Handbook”.  Appx B
Purpose“Maintain after-development runoff characteristics as equal to or less than pre-development runoff – Sec I.A.3 Protect properties from land development and land conversion activities– Sec I.A.4“Protect health, safety, general welfare and environment through regulating stormwater runoff”– Sec 1.0.
Purpose of Regulation Authorized under Bylaw?YesPurpose broadly expanded from Bylaw intent
WestonWayland
FocusControl stormwater runoff from building projectsControl land disturbance projects.  Control surface water, control infiltrated water and control trees
Dead Tree RemovalNo requirement or regulationCertified arborist inspection.  ConCom Agent approval required.  Sec  4.0,C.2)
Tree RegulationTwo references to trees.  No regulations specifiedEighty-one separate references and regulations in an effort to control all trees in Wayland  
Regulations if No Permit RequiredNoneEach and every tree to be removed requires an application, a Certified Arborist report and ConCom approval.  Sec 5.0,E.4)d.  
Estimated Permitting Cost for Tree RemovalNoneAt least $500 for certified arborist visit and report.  If more than 6 trees, a Major Permit almost always required.  Cost estimate for the permit >$45,000  
Requirements for Minor PermitHand sketched drawings by Applicant acceptableDrawings by licensed engineer for any increase in impervious surface >500 sq ft  
Requirements for Major PermitSurvey of affected areasFull property survey required by licensed engineer
Estimated Permitting Cost for Minor PermitPrepared by applicant at minimal costEstimated to be over $10,000 for any increase in impervious surface >500 sq ft  
Impact on building Accessory Dwelling Units and building almost any new housingVery minorCompliance cost and regulatory approval delays effectively shut down building activity  
WestonWayland
ExemptionsNone.  The same rules apply to everyone. Full exception for all Conservation Department work.  Partial exception for DPW.  These exemptions mean that there are, in fact, three different sets of rules One for Conservation, one for DPW and one for everyone else.  Three sets of rules will lead to questions about applicability and fairness
Internal InconsistenciesNone that I could findMultiple internal inconsistencies.  See Footnote #1, below
Cost to AdministerRelatively smallMost likely will require additional staff and significant increase in Conservation Department Budget

Footnote #1:  (Please note that the inconsistencies noted below are not a full and complete list.  They are just the few things that simply jump out when reading the proposed Wayland Regulation.)

There seems to be no way to determine just how many trees may have been removed prior to any given application. 

— Cliff Lewis

In the Wayland Regulations, Section 5 D3 requires “All drain pipes to be reinforced concrete pipe or HDPE with minimum diameter of 12”.   The Conservation Commission should note that in any calculations of fluid flows through pipes, the diameter of pipe must be sized for the flow.  Using 12” drainpipes throughout will result in pipes that are too big in some places and too small in other places.  Weston has no inconsistency in drain pipe sizing.

In the Wayland Regulations, there are 104 citations of the “AGENT”.  In Section 2, the “AGENT” is defined as the Wayland Conservation Commission.  However, throughout the document, the AGENT seems to become a representative of the Conservation Commission.  It is never clear, whether the applicant should be dealing with the representative of the Conservation Commission, or with the Conservation Commission itself.  Weston has a clear use of wording, so the applicant knows the proper contact. 

In the Wayland Regulations in section 5.0A1) and 5.0A2) there is an inconsistency in the kind of permit required.  Section 5.0A1) states that a Minor Permit is required for increases in impervious area between 500 and 2,500 ft sq.  Section 5.0A2 states that a Major Permit is required for expansion of impervious area greater than 2,000 ft sq.  These sections would indicate that for a project that increases the impervious area for any measurement between 2,000 ft sq and 2,500 ft sq that both a Minor Permit and a Major Permit are required.  Weston has no such inconsistency. 

In the Wayland Regulations, Section 4.0,C.2) would indicate that no filing is necessary for the removal of six trees.  However, Sec 5.0,E.4)d. indicates that an application and a certified arborist report is required for each tree to be removed. 

Letters to the Editor Policy

Letters (max 400 words) from Wayland residents only must be emailed (one per writer per month) to editor@waylandpost.org by 5 p.m. Friday for the next print edition and must include the writer’s name, street address, and phone for verification (anonymous submissions are rejected). Letters may be edited for length, style, clarity, or to remove personal attacks, unverified or libelous claims, offensive language, or other inappropriate content. Replies must cite the headline and date of the item referenced without naming prior writers. Election letters will not appear in the issue immediately before Election Day. Publication is at the editor’s discretion, and opinions expressed are the writers’ own.

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