EAST BRIDGEWATER — Oct. 7, 2026 — Special Town Meeting voters approved a 24-month moratorium on new data centers and, by a 112-40 count, funded a $250,000 police and fire facilities feasibility study. They also debated a proposed ban on automated license-plate readers for more than an hour before the moderator ordered a count and the article passed.
The Full Story
The data center measure arrived on the warrant as a permanent prohibition in every zoning district. On the floor, Planning Board chair Kevin Reilly moved to replace it with “a new section 16 entitled Temporary Data Center Moratorium” from a handout.
Town Counsel John Clifford said the governor had recently issued an executive order directing state agencies to give cities and towns data center guidelines by Dec. 31, and that two years would let the town see how the law evolves. “No one wants a data center coming to East Bridgewater, given the impacts on our water supply, on our electric system,” Clifford said.
Resident Katie Sheridan, who had drafted a competing 12-month version, said, “I’m not opposed to a two-year moratorium. What I’m opposed to is some of the language is still rather weak”. She added that she was concerned the attorney general “might not approve a two-year” moratorium.
A procedural tangle followed over which of several handouts was before the hall. Reilly member called it “not a particularly good practice to try to amend on the fly”, and Moderator Bob Looney said, “I’m a little confused what we’re actually voting on now”.
It ended when the moderator treated Sheridan’s amendment as withdrawn and Reilly moved to substitute “the option C, as presented by Ms. Sheridan, her definitions” for the definitions section of the board’s version. Looney described the result as a 24-month moratorium and ruled it “passed by two-thirds” on a voice vote.
Article 1, a citizens’ petition, sought a bylaw barring town use of automated license-plate readers, or ALPRs, including systems sold by Flock Safety. Voters agreed to take up a revised version from a two-page handout, under which, the sponsor confirmed, school property would be “the only exception”.
Sponsor Julianna Chaves, who said she grew up in town, told the hall the effort “has not, never been an anti-police effort or anti-technology”. “There should be reasonable limits on government’s ability to collect, search information about where innocent people travel,” she said.
John Shea, the school business administrator, said only two people can access the high school’s license-plate cameras and that “the one thing that’s a little bit of a problem for us is the cloud-based” storage limit. Ellen Pennington asked whether the schools could “keep the cloud base just for the schools”. A motion to strike the clause requiring that school data “be stored locally on town owned infrastructure” failed on a voice vote.
Residents split. “I don’t think we should ban these Flock cameras,” said Paul McDermott. Jim Brown, who supported the article, said “nothing but a ban is really gonna work”. Asked by the moderator, a chief confirmed that no Flock cameras are in use.
When the moderator called the amended article, he ordered a count by tellers and declared the article passed.
