Sherborn Select Board Adopts Decarbonization Roadmap, Pursues State Climate Leaders Grant Status

SHERBORN -- June 11, 2026, Sherborn Select Board adopts decarbonization roadmap and vehicle policy to pursue elevated state grant status. The board voted four to zero in favor of a Decarbonization Roadmap and three to one in favor of a Zero Emissions Vehicle First Policy at its June 11 meeting, completing the final two criteria needed to apply for Massachusetts Climate Leaders certification before a June 30 deadline, a designation that would place the town in a smaller competitive pool for state energy grants administered by the Department of Energy Resources. Sustainability Manager Amelia Landau and Power Options consultant Michelle Gardner presented the roadmap, which uses a "trigger event" approach to schedule electrification of buildings and vehicles at natural end-of-life replacements rather than on an artificial timeline. The board also unanimously approved a 25-year lease of Sherborn Public Library basement space to the Sherborn Historical Society, the sole bidder on the publicly advertised RFP, after catching and correcting a drafting error that would have assigned security system costs to the town rather than the society, and approved $147,000 in end-of-year interdepartmental budget transfers from the reserve fund to cover projected deficits in eight departments, with Finance Director Deb Siefring noting only three, Finance Committee, Board of Health, and Debt Service, were currently over budget.