Select Board Backs State Rail Trail Design Offer, Approves COA Van Driver

Select Board · Meeting of July 28, 2026

SOUTHAMPTON — Massachusetts offers to fund Southampton rail trail design at no cost to town. The Southampton Select Board on July 28 welcomed a presentation from Kurt Gartner, Assistant Secretary of Environmental Policy at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, who pledged that the state will pay approximately $115,000 for the preliminary design and permitting of a roughly 1.8-mile extension connecting Southampton's existing greenway to Westfield's Columbia Greenway Trail, part of a nine-and-a-half-mile gap the combined project aims to close. Stantec and Brown Richardson and Rowe are the contracted design team.

Construction would ultimately be funded through the federal Transportation Improvement Program administered by MassDOT, with no design cost to Southampton taxpayers. The board also voted 4-0 to hire Brian Foy as a part-time Council on Aging van driver at $19.98 per hour, fully reimbursable under the FRIDA grant, and 4-0 to approve a job description for a new shared part-time administrative assistant for the Building Department and Board of Health. Town Clerk Lucille Dalton told the board she would prefer not to run a concurrent special election in November to fill the board's vacant fifth seat, citing the cost of separate ballots, additional poll workers, and police coverage for a single open seat with only six months until the May 2027 annual election.

In the full story:

• Who Was There
• Organizations And Documents Referenced
• The complete report — 3,291 words

Source: the Select Board meeting of July 28, 2026, reported from the official video recording and transcript.