COHASSET — September 8, 2026 — The Select Board voted unanimously to send a scaled-back $20.9 million public safety facility to an October 26 special town meeting and set a standalone December 5 election to decide it, after cutting 4,364 square feet and the future fire substation from a design town meeting has already rejected once at $21.78 million.
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The savings are real but modest, and the board was told plainly why.
HKT Architects walked through five weeks of committee work at 35 King Street: the police garage held at three bays, rear parking retained, the fire substation shell eliminated, office and interview space reduced. The building drops from 23,610 square feet to 19,246, roughly a fifth smaller, while keeping all 47 parking spaces. The ask falls from $21,783,000 to $20,900,000.
But the cost has only reduced slightly to $25.87 million — because the year spent redesigning cost almost what the square footage saved. A consultant told the board that of every dollar of increase, roughly a third each goes to design fees, inflation and escalation, and that the same option pursued in May would have come in around $2.5 million cheaper. “We’ll delay the year, cut the building down 20%, save a million dollars,” committee chair Glenn Pratt summarized.
The board approved the scope change 5-0, voted 5-0 to place the article on the October 26 warrant, and then spent its sharpest political discussion of the night not on the building but on when to vote on it.
Gregory Watts pushed hard for a standalone December election over adding it to the November 3 state ballot.
“You never pass with your ballot down that far to add a third page in a separate ballot for this thing. I think while you’ll have more turnout, you won’t have folks as focused and engaged.” — Gregory Watts
He argued the project had already suffered from ballot position once. The board set December 5, again 5-0.
The surveillance bylaw drew no vote at all. A citizen’s petition modeled on the ACLU’s Community Control Over Police Surveillance framework would require town approval before any agency funds, acquires or uses technologies including automatic license plate readers, facial recognition, gunshot detection and predictive policing software. Sarah Reeves of Beechwood Street, presenting, noted Cohasset already operates four Flock Safety ALPRs and said the petition offers an unusually long runway — 180 days to file disclosures, with a possible 90-day extension.
Police Chief William Quigley asked the board to reject it.
“What documented misuse of police technology in Cohasset are we trying to correct? If there’s a problem, let’s address it. If our policies need improvement, let’s improve them.” — Chief William Quigley
