Southborough Select Board Approves Transfer Station Fee Increases and Liquor License Transfer

SOUTHBOROUGH -- July 7, 2026, Southborough Select Board approves new transfer station fees and liquor license transfer, begins override planning. The board voted 5-0 Monday to raise fiscal year 2027 transfer station sticker fees, setting the standard first-permit at $320, up from $295, and the senior first-permit at $75, up from $50, driven in part by a one-time $62,000 contractor cost for outsourced waste hauling. In a separate 5-0 vote, the board approved transfer of an all-alcoholic-beverage package-store license at 65 Turnpike Road to Cabins LLC, with Monia Patel as owner and Pratik Patel as manager of record, along with a pledge of the license to Rockland Trust. Chair Kathy Cook introduced preliminary five-year budget projections showing a roughly $2 million annual operating shortfall beginning in fiscal year 2028, and outlined a Department of Revenue recommendation to seek a single multi-year Proposition 2½ levy-capacity increase of approximately $9 to $10 million rather than annual override votes, with a full process to be set at the August 11 meeting. The board also voted 5-0 to authorize special outside town counsel for the long-stalled Hopkinton water intermunicipal agreement after learning existing town counsel Jay Tallerman now represents both towns and cannot act for either. The meeting opened with the Cell 4 Fire Department presenting unit citations to four firefighters for a June 7 pond rescue and a June 11 tree rescue, and the Firefighter's Cross, the department's highest individual award, to Firefighter William Kip, who harnessed himself to a crane and ascended 60 to 100 feet to free and lower an injured tree worker to the ground.