Auburn Select Board approves fire station savings plan, backs six town meeting articles

AUBURN -- October 27, 2025, Auburn Select Board backs fire station savings, OPEB funding, and six special town meeting articles. The board heard Monday that a plan to reuse excavated fill from the fire station construction site as cemetery fill, using after-hours DPW labor and private haulers at a cost of $60,000 to $70,000, is expected to save the town between $300,000 and $330,000 overall, with bids for the project targeted for mid-February 2026 and a construction start set for mid-April 2026. On the special town meeting warrant, the board voted 4-1 to recommend appropriating $250,000 from free cash to the town's OPEB trust and 4-1 to recommend $100,000 to the stabilization fund; Member Daniel S. Carpenter, who cast the dissenting votes, argued the figures should be reversed given a $4.7 million stabilization balance and looming infrastructure costs including a Water Street project estimated at $1.5 million. CFO Karen Harris told the board the OPEB liability has grown to approximately $67 million. The board also unanimously recommended a traffic study bylaw for the October 28 special town meeting over planners' requests for more time, with members Carpenter and Steve Chambers arguing an imperfect bylaw is preferable to nothing ahead of large development projects. Chambers abstained from a unanimous board vote accepting his own $4,800 donation to fund a cherry tree honoring Dr. Robert Goddard and a replacement holiday spruce at Goddard Park, timed to the centennial of Goddard's first rocket launch.