Finance Committee approves minutes, presses for capital plan detail

WAYLAND — December 13, 2023 — Wayland Finance Committee approves minutes and hears a pitch for a 10-year athletic field plan. The committee voted 5-0 to approve minutes from its Nov. 29 and Dec. 6 meetings and announced April Mathot as its seventh member. Resident Dave Ernstine urged the Select Board and Finance Committee to jointly appoint an athletic field planning committee with school, recreation and DPW representatives, calling the existing inter-departmental memorandum of understanding "entirely dysfunctional" and saying the town's 33 grass fields remain in poor condition despite the new Loker field coming online. "By multi-year, I don't mean two, I don't mean three, I don't mean five, I mean ten, that order," Ernstine said. Members also questioned roughly $12 million in sustainability requests embedded in the five-year capital plan and the lack of timelines for previously approved projects, ahead of a Dec. 15 budget deadline and a joint Dec. 18 session with the Select Board.