Longtime volunteer resigns from Surface Water Quality Committee at Select Board meeting

WAYLAND -- September 23, 2019, Wayland loses a 12-year Dudley Pond steward to a disclosure-form dispute. Surface Water Quality Committee member Mike Lowry announced his Oct. 1 resignation during public comment Monday after the Select Board placed a "disclosure of a potential conflict of financial interest" item on its agenda tied to his lakefront address. Lowry said the Dudley Pond Association has contributed $79,967.20 to weed control over 11 years, including $45,000 this year, roughly the entire town surface water quality budget, and argued weed infestations could erase $11 million to $16 million in property value around the pond. "My intention was never to have you resign," the board chair told him, calling the agenda item procedural. Separately, Town Engineer Paul Brinkman pitched a roughly $420,000 phase-one capital request to restart the high school wastewater plant, offline since January 2018.