Hubbardston Select Board hires executive assistant, restructures municipal building committee oversight

HUBBARDSTON -- March 16, 2026, Hubbardston Select Board hires executive assistant, reshapes building committee, and debates school district future in wide-ranging March 16 session. The board voted unanimously to hire Christina Ellis as executive assistant at $26 per hour for 32 hours a week starting March 30, $4 above the position's original posting, citing an expanded job description that adds accounting data entry to the role. The board also unanimously restructured oversight of the stalled Municipal Building Complex project, amending the committee's charge to require committee approval of architect pay applications before they reach the Town Administrator, adding Building Commissioner Bob Gardside as a non-voting ex-officio member, and seating Select Board Chair Jeff Williams as a voting member through June 30. Interim Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald reported approximately $345,000 in free cash identified for potential certification. The meeting's most contentious hour was a listening session on the proposed Quabbin Regional School District agreement update, during which Fitzgerald challenged a 30-year-old $5,000 emergency capital cost threshold as inadequate for modern repairs, and Superintendent Colleen Mucha pushed back on characterizations of the district relationship published in a Barre Gazette article. Board member Heather Lapointe, who announced her resignation effective March 20, raised the possibility of a public forum on whether Hubbardston should remain in the regional agreement at all, a question amplified by a resident who cited published DESE data showing a roughly 65 percent cohort graduation rate at Quabbin as among the worst in the state.