Dover Board of Selectmen Votes 3-0 to Add Three Debt Exclusions to May Ballot

DOVER -- April 10, 2026, Dover Board of Selectmen places three debt exclusion questions on May 18 annual town election ballot. Meeting in a special-purpose Friday Zoom session, Chair Robin Hunter, David Haviland, and Cameron Hudson voted 3-0 to ask voters to approve excluded debt for the town fuel island, the Dover-Sherborn Regional High School roof restoration and skylight replacement project, and Carroll Park parking lot and pickleball court improvements. Hunter argued the exclusion route protects the town's long-term levy capacity, warning that funding the capital program within the levy "makes this permanent" and would push Dover toward a Proposition 2 1/2 operational override within years. The board debated adding town center intersection improvements to the ballot but pulled back after Town Administrator Mike Tranfaglia warned that a failed ballot question could cost Dover a million-dollar grant and eliminate the option for decorative streetlight poles in the project design. Each question will appear separately on the ballot so that a defeat on one item does not doom the others; town meeting must also approve the underlying borrowing by a two-thirds vote before the questions take effect.