West Newbury Select Board Appoints Officers, Advances Pickleball and Library Plans

WEST NEWBURY -- March 20, 2025, West Newbury Select Board appointed two officers and moved a $138,000 pickleball project toward a spring town meeting vote at its March 20 meeting. The board unanimously named Nicholas Daly, a Groveland native with Merrimack College experience, as a full-time police officer set to attend the academy in June, filling a vacancy created by a retiring sergeant. Town Manager Angus Jennings reported a vendor quote of approximately $138,000 for a two-court pickleball facility near the Action Cove playground, with in-house labor potentially reducing the cost below $100,000; the Community Preservation Committee is set to take up a funding article on April 2. The board approved amendments to the town's indirect cost allocation policy, shifted stormwater permit-granting authority language to keep it formally with the Planning Board while preserving an existing regulatory delegation to the Board of Health, and endorsed the Evergreen Farm conservation restriction. On the library, Chair Wendy Reed pressed to hire an industrial hygienist before committing to a $24,800 heat pump replacement, saying persistent staff complaints since a 2019 DPH report suggest the root cause remains unresolved.