WENDELL — Municipal officials predict a fairly simple Annual Town Meeting on Saturday, a year after voters approved Wendell’s first Proposition 2½ override in two decades.
Laurie DiDonato, who chairs the Selectboard, said she doesn’t feel any of the warrant’s 30 articles will prove to be particularly controversial, with the possible exception of two citizen’s petitions pertaining to nonbinding resolutions. Article 27 asks residents if they support a resolution declaring Wendell to be an apartheid-free community, while Article 29 would signal the town’s support for Medicare for All in Massachusetts.
DiDonato said the three-member Selectboard has deliberately refrained from taking a stance on the citizen’s petition articles.
“It’s something that we want to leave to the Town Meeting,” she said.
The meeting, to decide on 30 warrant articles, is slated to start on Saturday, May 30, at 10 a.m. at Town Hall.
Wendell resident Anna Gyorgy helped obtain the signatures of 104 registered voters to get the apartheid-free community article on the warrant. The article cites the forced displacement, movement restrictions, systematic human rights abuses and discriminatory legal regimes faced by Palestinians, and proposes a nonbinding measure affirming the town’s “commitment to freedom, justice, and equality for all Palestinians and all people.”
Passage of the article would declare Wendell to be an apartheid-free community, a vote that comes seven months after Montague approved the same measure.
Gyorgy said she and her peers received help from the local chapter of the Apartheid-Free Communities network, called Apartheid-Free Western Massachusetts, to organize several events in town, including a December discussion and three film screenings offering background on the situation Palestinians are facing.
Hamas, which has governed the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip since 2007, and at least four other Palestinian armed groups, attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,195 people and taking approximately 251 hostages in what has been described as the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Yoav Gallant, then the Israeli defense minister, ordered “a complete siege” on the Palestinian territory two days later, and Israel conducted a large-scale ground invasion that has internally displaced about 90% of Gaza’s population.
Official figures report that at least 72,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, with injuries surpassing 171,000. However, independent public health experts and peer-reviewed studies suggest the actual death toll is higher due to uncounted casualties and indirect deaths caused by the violence.
Many — including a United Nations commission of inquiry and the International Association of Genocide Scholars — have called the situation a genocide. The Jewish state has also restricted humanitarian aid, such as food, medicine, fuel and clean water, to Gaza and has intercepted most flotillas, or fleets of boats or ships, trying to deliver supplies.
Adoption of Article 29, the second citizen’s petition, would endorse “An Act Establishing Medicare for All in Massachusetts” (S.860/H.1405) to establish a single-payer health care system in Massachusetts. The article’s language justifies a nonbinding measure of support by citing the burdening costs of health care, the fact that the United States remains one of the few countries that does not provide universal publicly funded medical treatment and the idea that Medicare for All would save Wendell $25,419 per year in insurance costs.
Other Franklin County communities to adopt a resolution in support of single-payer health care this spring include Heath, Colrain and Bernardston. Greenfield’s City Council threw its support behind the proposal in September.
Other articles
Article 23 asks voters if they agree to borrow $140,000 for the purchase and related expenses of a Ford F-550 Super Duty dump truck for the Highway Department.
Phil Delorey, who chairs the Wendell Road Commission, explained that the town’s smallest dump truck needs replacement due to escalating mechanical problems. He said the 2014 International TerraStar is in a mechanic shop for analysis of engine noises and transfer case malfunctions/shifting problems.
He said the highway crew has also identified other problems that could sideline the vehicle, as the catalytic converter has an oil leak and there is excessive rusting.
“Several of the issues identified each have the potential for exceeding the trade-in value of the truck, some $4,000 in 2025,” he wrote in a statement, “and replacement parts have been difficult to locate.”
Other expenses include $15,600 for town building repair projects, $6,000 for tree maintenance, $3,000 for Fire Department turnout gear and $20,000 for an independent audit of town finances. In Article 28, voters will also be asked if they support legislative initiatives “to improve equitable treatment in regard to PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) reimbursements, trust funds and regional representation of the Quabbin watershed towns.”
View the full warrant at tinyurl.com/WendellATM2026.
