Shrewsbury Select Board Candidates Split on Override Timing at Candidate Forum

SHREWSBURY — April 16, 2026 — Shrewsbury's two incumbent Select Board members and a first-time challenger met April 16 in a candidate forum ahead of the May 5 election, where voters will fill two open seats. Incumbent Beth Casavant said an override vote could come "as soon as the fall of 2026," citing the approaching exhaustion of the 2021 Proposition 2½ override agreement, while fellow incumbent Carlos Garcia said current modeling suggests no override will be needed this fall. Garcia and Casavant both pointed to the town reaching its Chapter 40B 10 percent affordable housing threshold as a tool for reasserting local control over development. On the May 2025 defeat of a roughly $40 million DPW facility question, Garcia called for separating the DPW and Town Hall components into distinct ballot items if the project returns to voters; Casavant argued the underlying building needs remain and a debt exclusion is the right funding mechanism. Challenger Anand Sarma, an MIT Lincoln Lab engineer and small business owner, argued residential assessed value growth — which he put at $3.3 billion against $303 million in commercial growth, citing Department of Revenue data — is the core driver of the town's fiscal stress, not commercial expansion. Casavant reported that the School Committee approved a $94.4 million FY27 school budget the prior evening, with a gap of less than $500,000 separating it from the town manager's recommended figure.