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.