PLYMOUTH — September 8, 2026 — The Select Board advanced an $8.4 million capital package to fall town meeting and voted 4-1 to widen how the town may pay for a $300,000 road-acceptance study, over Kevin Canty’s warning that Plymouth faces an operational override within three years — minutes after a resident pressed the board on a five-year forecast projecting a $14.5 million deficit by fiscal 2032.
The Full Story
The evening’s sharpest exchange was not over the largest number. It was over $300,000.
Article 8 would fund title research, appraisals, legal fees and surveys needed to move six Shallow Pond Estates roads — Andrew’s Way, Barbara’s Way, Donna Drive, Kathleen Drive, Penny Lane and Shallow Pond Lane — toward acceptance as public ways. The board had previously structured it as a borrowing. Golden moved to amend it to allow the town to raise and appropriate, transfer from available funds, accept gifts, or borrow.
Canty was the lone vote against, both on the amendment and on the article itself.
“There has not been a case made for why this is something that residents of West Plymouth, Buttermilk Bay, Cedarville, North Plymouth, why all of them should be having to pay additional funding to take what is a private neighborhood’s roads on as a public liability.” — Kevin Canty
He tied the vote directly to the town’s finances, noting Plymouth sits below its own free cash policy thresholds, faces contract negotiations with employees and unresolved costs at Memorial Hall, and may be two to three years from an operational override. Accepting depreciated private roads, he argued, adds both a one-time cost and a permanent maintenance obligation. “This is not in the interest of the 65,000 residents of Plymouth,” he said. “It may be in the interest of the 400 or so residents of this neighborhood.”
Quintal and Iaquinto both grounded their support in the 40B development at the rear of the neighborhood. Iaquinto called herself “reluctantly in support,” saying the development’s presence is “not the town’s fault” but is the reason the situation is unlike other unaccepted roads. Keohan argued the neighborhood has paid taxes throughout and that the town has a documented history of prioritizing those roads.
The capital article drew no such division. The finance director presented nine projects totaling $8.4 million — roughly $6.9 million from the general fund and $1.5 million from the water enterprise fund — recommended for funding through $435,370.40 in free cash, $7.9 million in borrowing, $137,500 from the environmental affairs fund and $8,414.60 from a prior article. Because two awarded grants reimburse the town after it spends, net borrowing falls to about $4.6 million. She confirmed to Golden that both grants are already awarded, not pending, and that water enterprise borrowing is repaid by water users rather than the tax rate.
