Southbridge EHS Subcommittee Unanimously Recommends Three Board Appointments to Town Council

Select Board · Meeting of July 15, 2026

Southbridge's Joint Education and Human Services Subcommittee forwarded three board appointments to the full Town Council after a brief session on July 15. Councilors Daniel and Provost voted unanimously to recommend former councilor and firefighter George Chenier to the Board of Health through June 30, 2029 — a seat left vacant when a prior one-year appointee relocated to Maine and stopped attending meetings, leaving the board below full strength. The subcommittee also approved Zachary Laverne for a seat on the EHS Subcommittee itself through June 30, 2027, and recommended reappointing Ted Bartlett as chair of the Council on Aging Committee through June 30, 2029.

All three appointments are pending state ethics training certification and require full Town Council confirmation. Chenier, who addressed the subcommittee after the vote, cited Red Cross disaster-response deployments to Hurricane Sandy and the Oklahoma tornadoes as experience he said "will help me with the Board of Health."

In the full story:

• Who Was There
• Organizations And Documents Referenced
• The complete report — 1,463 words

Source: the Select Board meeting of July 15, 2026, reported from the official video recording and transcript.