Douglas Board of Selectmen signs fall town meeting warrant, pulls cannabis bylaw and land donation articles

DOUGLAS -- October 21, 2025, Douglas Board of Selectmen signs fall town meeting warrant with 12 articles after pulling cannabis bylaw and a B Street land donation for further work. Superintendent of Schools Paul Vieira presented a study examining a district-wide grade shift, moving first grade to the elementary school, fifth to the middle, and eighth to the high school, driven by a preschool space crunch and a BVT enrollment rate that saw 40 Douglas eighth graders, 38 percent of the class, leave for the regional vocational school last year; Vieira said comparable districts that moved their eighth grade to the high school saw BVT attendance drop between 34 and 75 percent. Town Administrator Gene Reardon disclosed that the town's retiree Medicare Advantage premium through Aetna will jump 68.2 percent, from $337 to $551.64 per member per month, at the January 1 renewal, driven by the collapse of a favorable group purchasing arrangement, and said the town's certified free cash stands at approximately $3.5 million, with an additional $875,000 in unspent appropriations and more than $400,000 in overlay reserves expected to return to the town.