We hope that this material will be used by the author of an article as background in writing a story for the local paper. This article is intended to give any reader an explanation of the recent action taken. If anyone wishes to speak with us about it, they are welcome to.

Do you want Foxborough to be run solely by a Town Manager with no oversight?

Do you want no checks and balances of the Foxborough Town Government?

Does Foxborough want to lose the Conservation programs and protections that it has established to protect and promote open space, natural resources and water areas?

If you answered no to these questions, then you can understand why 11 taxpayers filed a lawsuit against the Town of Foxborough. The purpose of this lawsuit is to assert that the Town Manager Act (TMA) does not convey exclusive and overriding authority to the Town Manager over all aspects of the Town. This case seeks clarification by the court as to what authorities and how much authority did the TMA convey to the Town Manager.

Recently based on an opinion rendered by new Town Counsel, the Town Manager chose to manage a piece of Conservation Land, the Cocasset River Park, in a manner contrary to the decision of the Conservation Commission. Town Counsel advised the Town Manager that because the TMA was passed after the Conservation Commission Act (CCA) and because, in their opinion, there is a conflict between the two statutes, the TMA overrides the CCA and therefore, the Town Manager can override the authority of the Conservation Commission and direct how Conservation land can be used. In addition, Town Counsel also indicated that the deed restrictions placed on the land by the persons who donated it, which stated the land was to be managed and controlled by the Conservation Commission were also amended by the TMA and that because the TMA amended those restrictions, the Town Manager can now manage the property as he sees fit, rather than the Conservation Commission.

The lawsuit we field claims that these two statutes do not conflict with one another but rather establish two distinct authorities. On the one hand, the Foxborough TMA gives authority to the Town Manager to manage town employees like fire and police which he was not able to do prior to the act, and to manage town properties and facilities to ensure the safety and well being of town employees and town residents. The authorities of the TMA should relate to town property and town facilities, not conservation land. The whole purpose of adopting the CCA was to establish protective laws and programs that would promote and protect natural resources and water areas. There is no conflict between these two distinctions. The TMA is about not allowing harm or disrepair of town lands and facilities, while the CCA is about protecting and promoting our natural resources and not allowing harm to come to them. If all conservation land can now be managed as town land then all the protections that the CCA was designed to protect against are gone and these properties will have lost the protection that the Conservation Commission rules and regulations seek to protect.

So, that is why we 11 tax payers have filed this complaint, to try to make sure that the Foxborough TMA give the town residents the authorities it intended to convey to the Town Manager in 2004, nothing more and nothing less. If we did not bring this law suit then new Town Counsel’s opinion would never have been challenged and the programs and protections this town thought it had in place for preserving open space, natural resources and water areas would be lost forever. We cannot let this happen to our town for us, for our children and our grandchildren.