HOW: Attend the Sterling Special Town Meeting (Re-scheduled)
WHERE: Chocksett School, 40 Boutelle Road
WHEN: Thursday, November 13, at 6:30 P.M.. HUGE TAXPAYER TURNOUT EXPECTED AGAIN– GET THERE EARLY!!!
WHY: To stop the Sterling Department of Public Works’ $33 million, 37,000 square foot truck garage/truck palace project (known as the ‘Garage Mahal’) and the HUGE, LONG-TERM property tax hike that would come with it.

Sterling D.P.W. officials want voter approval to build a monument to themselves– a $33 million ‘Garage Mahal.’ And if they get their way, Sterling property taxpayers will be footing the bill for the next 30 years to come through a borrowing bond that could raise your property taxes by roughly 11% according to Sterling Finance Committee member Mark Gauthier.

SEE https://www.sterling-ma.gov/sites/g/files/vyhlif1266/f/minutes/11-13-2024_dpw_facility_committee_minutes.pdf

The only way to stop it is to show up and vote at the Special Town Meeting on Thursday, November 13, to eliminate the preliminary design-phase request for $2.2 Million in funding. In their utter arrogance, D.P.W. officials refused to even consider building much cheaper carport/truckport structures to protect D.P.W. trucks from the weather, and also refused to consider cheaper fabricated steel building options used commonly by municipalities and businesses, like those all along Pratt Junction and Chocksett Roads (including the MassDOT facility on Chocksett Road!). There are MANY steel building makers from which to choose design options and take bids.

THE STERLING D.P.W.’S FALSE STATEMENT ON THE ‘GARAGE MAHAL’ PER-SQUARE-FOOT BUILDING COST:

During the 18 September 2025 Joint Finance Committee-Capital Budget Committee-D.P.W Board Meeting, televised by Sterling-Lancaster Community TV (watch it here if you can stand it)—

Sterling D.P.W. mouthpieces said that the 37,000 square foot ‘Garage Mahal’ they want will cost $33,000,000. They further said that that equates to $742 per square foot in building costs. That square footage cost figure is absolutely FALSE.

Dividing $33,000,000 by 37,000 equals $892 per square foot in building costs!

HELL, if the Sterling D.P.W., Weston & Sampson (its proposed engineers), and Vertex (its proposed project manager) add in some gold leaf they can run the building cost up to $1000 per square foot. What’s another $108 per square foot when you already intend to screw Sterling property taxpayers BIG TIME???!!!

THE GILFORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE, D.P.W. IS GETTING A BIG, NEW, FABRICATED STEEL BUILDING ON A SLAB FOR $11 MILLION, NOT $33 MILLION!

Gilford, New Hampshire, is a tax-rich Town of 7,700 residents–about the same population as Sterling. It is tax-rich because it is a town with extremely high-value taxable properties on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee. SO, the Gilford, NH, D.P.W. is getting its own ‘Garage Mahal’—a fabricated steel building on a slab—BUT FOR $11.2 Million—-ONE-THIRD (1/3) THE COST OF THE STERLING D.P.W.’s PROPOSED ‘GARAGE MAHAL’ BOONDOGGLE. AND THE GILFORD, NH, D.P.W. BUILDING COST WAS DRIVEN UP BY THE NEED TO REMOVE ROCK LEDGE—NOT AN ISSUE HERE IN STERLING.

SEE:

https://www.gilfordnh.gov/entity/NEW-GILFORD-PUBLIC-WORKS-FACILITY-PROJECT-36

https://www.laconiadailysun.com/news/local/gilford-voters-asked-to-fund-new-dpw-building-baseball-field-upgrades/article_4af15d02-f92e-11ef-8e08-034c207fb791.html

THE PLAYBOOK NEVER CHANGES:

Here’s how this kind of utterly absurd, wasteful Town of Sterling spending keeps happening:

A small group of insiders (cronies) always shows up for the Town Meeting. They know that the average taxpayer — busy with work, kids, and life — doesn’t have time for night meetings. So, they vote themselves new facilities, new spending, and leave every Sterling property taxpayer holding the bag. SO, if you don’t show up and control these cronies you open your next tax bill and wonder how it got so high. There are only 8000 residents in Sterling (including children), and 22% of Sterling adults live on fixed incomes. Do Sterling D.P.W. trucks take precedence over the lives of struggling Sterling Senior Citizens? Thirty-three million dollars ($33 million) in new spending would constitute a crushing tax burden for our small-town taxpayer population across the board. NOTE: Both the Sterling Select Board and the Sterling Finance Committee are comprised of bloviating, gutless, posturing, tax-and-spend insiders/cronies too. Ignore their recommendations.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Before you skip this meeting, take a look at your property tax bill. Then picture that number going up by 11% for 30 years. Does that make your life easier or harder?

If you’re tired of endless, wasteful spending and higher taxes, this is your chance to draw the line. Be there Thursday night, November 13 at 6:30 PM.

Vote ‘NO’ on the Sterling D.P.W. ‘Garage Mahal’ appropriation/spending Warrant Article—ARTICLE 2.

STAY INFORMED:

This previous posting provides additional details about the Sterling D.P.W.’s ‘Garage Mahal’ boondoggle, although now we know that the REAL per-square-foot building cost for the Sterling D.P.W. ‘Garage Mahal’ is $892, NOT $742:

ARROGANT, OUT-OF-CONTROL STERLING D.P.W. PRICKS INSIST ON THEIR PROPOSED $33 MILLION ‘GARAGE MAHAL’ BOONDOGGLE. THEY ADMIT NOT EVEN CONSIDERING  MUCH CHEAPER PRE-FAB STEEL BUILDING(S), AND THEY WANT HALF AN ACRE (20,000 SQUARE FEET) OF HEATED INDOOR SPACE FOR THEIR VERY SENSITIVE DIESEL TRUCKS

To get updates straight to your inbox, free of charge, scroll down on this Blog site and subscribe. You can always be one step ahead of the next Sterling Town Government boondoggle by doing so! 

WHAT: Sterling Special Town Meeting (Re-scheduled). HUGE TAXPAYER TURNOUT EXPECTED AGAIN–GET THERE EARLY!!!
WHERE: Chocksett School, 40 Boutelle Road
WHEN: Thursday, November 13, at 6:30 P.M.
WHY: To defeat the Department of Public Works’ proposed $33 million ‘Garage Mahal’ Boondoggle and its Proposition 2 1/2 property tax override/debt exclusion that would add significantly to your property tax bills for 30 years to come.

J.G.

 

Folks, let’s just go back to the May 2025 Sterling Annual Town Meeting and recall what the Sterling Planning Board, our Blow-In-Payroll-Patriot Town Planner from Framingham, the Select Board, and the Finance Committee ALL pushed—the re-zoning of “Performance Zone 1″ along Route 140 and Dana Hill Road to Commercial.

WHY? To encourage development there IN ODER TO INCREASE THE TAX BASE AND PROPERTY TAX REVENUES FOR THE TOWN OF STERLING. They got their way.

SO WHAT DID THE STERLING SELECT BOARD PUT ON THE NOVEMBER 2025 SPECIAL TOWN MEETING WARRANT???

NONE OTHER THAN COMPLETELY VAGUE, OVERBROAD, AND UNDEFINED ARTICLE 4–  

https://www.sterling-ma.gov/sites/g/files/vyhlif1266/f/uploads/stm_warrant_final_2025.pdf

–that would permit the Select Board Cretins to enter into a SWEETHEART GIVEAWAY DEAL WHEREBY THE OWNER/DEVELOPER OF A PROPOSED, HAZARDOUS LITHIUM-ION BATTERY PARK OFF METROPOLITAN ROAD NEAR THE WACHUSETT RESERVOIR WOULD MAKE PAYMENTS TO THE TOWN OF STERLING “IN LIEU OF [PROPERTY] TAXES.”

IN OTHER WORDS, THE SELECT BOARD WANTS TO ENABLE THAT OWNER/DEVELOPER TO DODGE FULL, ASSESSED PROPERTY TAXES–POTENTIALLY FOREVER.

NOT ONLY IS THE SELECT BOARD COMPRISED OF TWO-FACED CRETINS—SO IS THE STERLING FINANCE COMMITTEE THAT ENDORSED THIS TAX DODGE BY A VOTE OF 6-1.

THE PROPOSED TAX DODGE IS BAD ENOUGH. THE FACT THAT LITHIUM-ION BATTERY PARKS ARE A FIRE HAZARD MAKES THIS SCAM EVEN WORSE.

Such a battery park has been proposed in the Town of Oakham, Massachusetts, in the Quabbin Reservoir Watershed.

This is what the Town of Oakham Fire Chief and some residents had to say about it:

“The potential is there. It’s not unprecedented.. we’ve seen fires at these storage facilities,” Danielle Stevens said. “It’s not unprecedented and it’s not old technology – some of these fires just happened this year.”

One of the biggest battery storage sites caught on fire back in January in Monterey County, California. The blaze forced 1,500 people to leave their homes. Fires have been reported at a handful of other battery storage facilities in California and New York over the past few years.

“No one could handle a fire in a place like this,” Oakham Fire Chief Timothy Howe said. “They burn for days. It doesn’t matter If you are a small town like us with an on-call fire department or a large 400-person department, you’re not putting it out.”

Howe said a battery fire in Oakham would be even worse because the town doesn’t have a public water system and relies on 20 volunteer firefighters.

But fire risk is still just one of the reasons the town is banning together to block the project.

Residents expressed concerns about the proposed site’s proximity to the Ware River Watershed, which runs into the Quabbin Reservoir.

“People need to understand that they might not know where Oakham is or have ever heard of the town before but this could impact a lot of people’s lives in a very, very difficult way,” the Stevens said.

Oakham residents said they worry the project would impact the drinking water for millions of Massachusetts residents who rely on the Quabbin Reservoir.

“If a fire did break out and there was run off into the ground, residents are going to lose their drinking water,” Howe said. “If we pollute that water, its not just us that is going to have a problem it is all of metro Boston.”

In a statement, Rhynland Energy told 7 Investigates, “The project is being developed in compliance with applicable state and federal regulations and includes modern safety systems designed to meet or exceed the established national standards.”

Brian O’Connor is a senior engineer at the National Fire Protection Association. He acknowledges that lithium-ion batteries can be hazardous.

“It generates toxic gas, flammable gas, has an explosion and fire potential, but these are things that regulations are constantly looking out for and trying to make sure that we’re mitigating and reducing these risks in a way that they can be acceptable to the community when they are installed,” O’Connor said.

SEE  https://whdh.com/7-investigates/7-investigates-battery-park/

Check out the disastrous consequences of the Monterey, CA, lithium-ion battery park fire–

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-29/heavy-metals-found-in-monterey-estuary-after-moss-landing-lithium-battery-fire

The Sterling Special Town Meeting has been rescheduled to 13 November 2025. Article 4 is yet another Warrant Article Sterling voters should vote to shitcan.

See you there!

J.G.

WELL FELLOW STERLING PROPERTY TAXPAYERS, you turned out in such massive numbers for the scheduled 3 November 2025 Sterling Special Town Meeting that you caught the ill-prepared, incompetent Sterling Town Government Tax-and-Spend Hack Cronies utterly flatfooted.

THE STERLING SELECT BOARD-FINANCE COMMITTEE-D.P.W. AXIS OF DISHONESTY, UNDERHANDEDNESS, INCOMPETENCE, GUTLESSNESS, ARROGANT CALLOUSNESS, AND OUT-OF-CONTROL SPENDING GOT A RUDE AWAKENING.

KUDOS TO ALL OF YOU FED-UP PROPERTY TAXPAYERS WHO SHOWED UP!!!

You see, the Sterling Town Government Hack Cronies were trying to keep the $33 Million D.P.W. Garage Mahal Scam AND the Special Town Meeting on the ‘down-low’–

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/down-low —

hoping you pissed-off taxpayers wouldn’t know enough to show up so they could pack the place with their tax-and-spend fellow cronies and ram through the D.P.W. Garage Mahal Spending Warrant Article.

In the past the Sterling D.P.W. used its electronic billboards to notify Sterling voters of upcoming Town Meetings. NOT THIS TIME, FOR OBVIOUS REASONS. THE ARROGANT, OUT-OF-CONTROL, SELF-SERVING D.P.W. PRICKS WHO WANT TO BUILD THE $33 MILLION GARAGE MAHAL MONUMENT TO THEMSELVES WANTED TO STAY UNDER YOUR RADAR.

YEAH, SO HOW’D THAT WORK OUT FOR THEM???!!!

DUE TO YOUR MASSIVE OVERFLOW TURN-OUT the Town Moderator was forced to postpone this Special Town Meeting to 13 November 2025.

SO COME BACK AND VOTE TO PROTECT YOUR WALLETS. SEE YOU THERE!

J.G.

HOW: Attend the Sterling Special Town Meeting
WHERE: Chocksett School Gymnasium, 40 Boutelle Road
WHEN: Monday, November 3, at 6:30 P”
WHY: To stop the Department of Public Works’ $33 million, 37,000 square foot truck garage/truck palace project (known as the ‘Garage Mahal’) and the HUGE, LONG-TERM property tax hike that would come with it.

Sterling D.P.W. officials want voter approval to build a monument to themselves– a $33 million ‘Garage Mahal.’ And if they get their way, Sterling homeowners will be footing the bill for the next 30 years through a borrowing bond that could raise your property taxes by roughly 11% according to Sterling Finance Committee member Mark Gauthier.

The only way to stop it is to show up and vote at the Special Town Meeting on Monday, November 3, to eliminate the preliminary design-phase request for $2.2 Million in funding. In their utter arrogance, D.P.W. officials refused to even consider building much cheaper carport/truckport structures to protect D.P.W. trucks from the weather, and also refused to consider cheaper pre-fab steel building options used commonly by municipalities and businesses, like those all along Pratt Junction and Chocksett Roads (including the MassDOT facility on Chocksett Road!). There are MANY steel building makers from which to choose design options and take bids.

THE PLAYBOOK NEVER CHANGES:

Here’s how this kind of wasteful Town of Sterling spending keeps happening:

A small group of insiders (cronies) always shows up for the Town Meeting. They know that the average taxpayer — busy with work, kids, and life — doesn’t have time for Monday night meetings. So, they vote themselves new facilities, new spending, and leave every Sterling property taxpayer holding the bag. SO, if you don’t show up and control these cronies you open your next tax bill and wonder how it got so high. There are only 8000 residents in Sterling (including children), and 22% of Sterling adults live on fixed incomes. Do Sterling D.P.W. trucks take precedence over the lives of struggling Sterling Senior Citizens? Thirty-three million dollars ($33 million) in new spending would constitute a crushing tax burden for our small-town taxpayer population across the board. NOTE: Both the Sterling Select Board and the Sterling Finance Committee are comprised of bloviating, gutless, posturing, tax-and-spend insiders/cronies too. Ignore their recommendations.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Before you skip this meeting, take a look at your property tax bill. Then picture that number going up by 11% for 30 years. Does that make your life easier or harder?

If you’re tired of endless spending and higher taxes, this is your chance to draw the line. Be there Monday night, November 3 at 6:30 PM.

Vote ‘NO’ on the ‘Garage Mahal’ appropriation/spending Warrant Article.

STAY INFORMED:

This previous posting provides additional details about the Sterling D.P.W.’s ‘Garage Mahal’ boondoggle:

ARROGANT, OUT-OF-CONTROL STERLING D.P.W. PRICKS INSIST ON THEIR PROPOSED $33 MILLION ‘GARAGE MAHAL’ BOONDOGGLE. THEY ADMIT NOT EVEN CONSIDERING  MUCH CHEAPER PRE-FAB STEEL BUILDING(S), AND THEY WANT HALF AN ACRE (20,000 SQUARE FEET) OF HEATED INDOOR SPACE FOR THEIR VERY SENSITIVE DIESEL TRUCKS

To get updates straight to your inbox, free of charge, scroll down on this Blog site and subscribe. You can always be one step ahead of the next Sterling Town Government boondoggle by doing so! 

WHAT: Sterling Special Town Meeting
WHERE: Chocksett School Gymnasium, 40 Boutelle Road
WHEN: Monday, November 3, at 6:30 PM
WHY: To defeat the Department of Public Works’ proposed $33 million ‘Garage Mahal’ boondoggle and its Proposition 2 1/2 property tax override/debt exclusion that would add significantly to your property tax bill.

J.G.

NO SURPRISE HERE FOLKS as the Sterling Finance Committee continues to cement its years’ long record of betraying Sterling property taxpayers, this time by endorsing the Sterling D.P.W.’s $33 Million ‘Garage Mahal’ Boondoggle that Sterling Finance Committee member Mark  Gauthier, just last year, said would increase Sterling property tax rates by 11% for the life of the 30 year bond that would be required to float that exorbitant, unnecessary, uncalled-for piece of shit.

SEE  https://www.sterling-ma.gov/sites/g/files/vyhlif1266/f/uploads/stm_warrant_2025_11_03.pdf

From a Sterling property taxpayer’s perspective the Sterling Finance Committee “is as useful as tits on a boar.” It is a collection of gutless, bloviating, posturing tax-and-spend gasbag wimps who should be disregarded as a matter of course.

AFTER ALL, WHO CAN FORGET THE STERLING FINANCE COMMITTEE’S SELF-CONGRATULATORY ARTICLE ON THE LAST PAGE (Page 20) OF THE JUNE 2025 STERLING MEETINGHOUSE NEWS— https://sterlingmeetinghousenews.com/virtual-paper/ –AFTER IT ENABLED THE ABSOLUTE SCREWING OF STERLING TAXPAYERS BY THE WACHUSETT REGIONAL SCHOOL DISTRICT AND THE STERLING D.P.W. DURING THE MAY 2025 STERLING ANNUAL TOWN MEETING???

I regard the Sterling Finance Committee with utter contempt and you should too.

J.G.

The arrogant, out-of-control PRICKS running the Sterling D.P.W. want to screw Sterling property taxpayers to the tune of $33 Million for their proposed 37,000 square foot DELUXE ‘Garage Mahal,’ of which 20,000 square feet (half an acre)–heated—will be devoted to luxury living for the D.P.W.’s VERY SENSITIVE diesel trucks.

According to Sterling Finance Committee member Mark Gauthier, commenting last year, this ABSOLUTE BOONDOGGLE will increase Sterling property tax rates by 11% for the life of the 30-year bond required to fund this ABOMINATION and result in the perennial screwing of Sterling property taxpayers expected to pay for it.

OF COURSE, the arrogant, out-of-control PRICKS running the D.P.W. expect to ram through Proposition 2 ½ property tax overrides/debt exclusions to fund this SPA FOR TRUCKS.

DON’T LET ANY OF IT HAPPEN. VOTE DOWN THIS PROPOSAL AT THE 3 NOVEMBER 2025 STERLING SPECIAL TOWN MEETING AND VOTE DOWN THE D.P.W.’s REQUESTED PROPOSITION 2 ½ PROPERTY TAX OVERRIDE/DEBT EXCLUSION DURING THE LATER NOVEMBER TOWN-WIDE BALLOT ‘ELECTION.’

JOIN THE FIGHT TO PROTECT YOUR ASSETS AND FINANCES NOW BY PUTTING OUT THE FREE LAWN SIGNS (SET OF 2) REPRESENTED BELOW. THE TEXT IS BLUE ON A WHITE BACKGROUND:

STOP THE STERLING

D.P.W. GARAGE

MAHAL BOONDOGGLE

DEFEAT THE STERLING

D.P.W. PROP 2 1/2 TAX

OVERRIDE/DEBT EXCLUSION

Call (978) 660-2806 to get your free set of lawn signs now.

J.G.