After eight sessions of debate, discussion, and voting, spanning more than a month, Town Meeting’s annual session finally wrapped things up on May 4.
But a few Town Meeting members couldn’t leave the outcome of one specific Article behind — Article 31.
The motion asks the town to charge residents a fee for disposing of more waste than a baseline volume that has not yet been determined. It passed with about 70 percent support.
The day after Town Meeting passed the motion, a handful of precinct reps and about 60 residents joined forces to gather signatures for a referendum on the Article.
They argued it was presented to Town Meeting without enough information on the new waste removal program Lexington wants to adopt and passing the motion would make the town less affordable.
“Our taxes are already high, they’re going to grow significantly following the vote to raise taxes for the high school, and this is a universal service — everyone throws away trash,” Dawn McKenna, a Precinct 6 Town Meeting member who helped gather signatures for a referendum, told the Observer. “The people that are going to be hurt by this the most and overly burdened are our vulnerable friends and neighbors.”
The idea to get signatures for a referendum came from Town Meeting members Brian Kelley, from Precinct 6, and John Rossi, from Precinct 1. They asked McKenna for her thoughts on a referendum and she got involved, too.
They needed to gather 708 signatures in five days to ask the Select Board to discuss a referendum and consider scheduling an election for residents to vote on the motion. They got 1,732.
“People were pouring out of the woodwork, we did not have to do a lot of outreach,” McKenna said. “It’s remarkable and I think it’s a testament to how strongly the community feels about this.”
The Select Board subsequently scheduled a special election for Tuesday, June 16, where residents can weigh in on Article 31.
The motion asks the town to update its Regulation of refuse disposal bylaw by removing specific materials from a list of what can be disposed of, stating the town will haul away a baseline volume of waste each week, and noting residents may be charged a fee if they dispose of more garbage than that baseline amount.
Lexington wanted to pass this motion because it ultimately wants to adopt a different waste removal system in the future. Right now, residents enrolled in the town’s trash removal program can use any (and as many) bins they want and workers in a trash truck will manually haul away their waste weekly.
In the future, the town wants to get each household one standardized barrel (Town Meeting passed Article 23, which asks the town to allocate $1.2 million to do just that). Those barrels will be compatible with automatic trash removal trucks that have a robotic arm to pick up barrels and dump waste into them without any manual labor. Many municipalities are going in the direction of automated waste removal, Maggie Peard, Lexington’s sustainability and resilience officer, told the Observer. Arlington, Braintree, Wakefield, and Andover, among many other communities use automated trash removal. If Lexington doesn’t adopt this system, it could have “very non-competitive manual (waste removal) proposals” in the future, she said.
“We want to be able to be prepared to move to automated and be able to accept a lower contract price overall,” said Peard.
The town has not decided what size those barrels would be and, absent Article 31, what residents do if they have a volume of waste greater than what their barrel can hold.
Lexington’s plan going into Town Meeting was to see if the precinct reps would vote in favor of buying new uniform barrels and allowing the town to impose the fee, and then finish conducting public outreach to determine what size barrels to get, Peard explained.
If Article 31 passes, the town would likely give residents the options to buy certain trash bags to throw out extra garbage and lease an extra barrel from the town at a cost.
If the town votes the fee down, it could consider implementing a system where garbage collectors don’t pick up any garbage not inside a resident’s barrel — residents would have to wait until the following week to dispose of extra waste.
“Without the ability to do a fee, you’re kind of forced into a much more restrictive program where you just need to wait until next week or find your own way to dispose of that waste,” Peard said. “I think many residents would be unhappy with that.”
Lexington wants to change its waste removal program because it has been paying increasingly more to dispose of waste, which is bad for the environment and costly for taxpayers, Peard explained. When the cost goes up, it falls on taxpayers, which is why the town wants to remove the word “free” from the bylaw — it’s not. Those costs have increased because Massachusetts has had to transport waste out of state due to local landfills filling up and closing, Peard said.
“Part of that cost is contingent on how many tons we’re producing in the community,” Peard said. “If we can reduce our waste as a whole as a community, that’s a really effective way to control costs.”
When Peard presented Article 31 to Town Meeting, it was met with mixed reactions.
Some people welcomed it, arguing it could ultimately benefit the environment.
“I’m concerned about disadvantaged populations outside of Lexington who will continue to breathe in our exhaust if we do not pass this common sense bill,” Janet Kern of Precinct 1 said during Town Meeting.
Other residents spoke up against the motion, however, arguing it would make the already expensive town less affordable and that passing it would be premature because the town hasn’t nailed down enough details of its new waste removal plan.
While the motion passed decisively, with about 70 percent support, opponents do not want to accept defeat, holding strong that passing the motion is the wrong decision for Lexington.
“The Town should have presented a clear, detailed plan — including specific fee amounts and barrel sizes — before proposing to remove the word ‘free’ from the trash and recycling collection bylaw,” Town Meeting member, Andrei Rădulescu-Banu, said to the Observer over email. “This would have allowed residents to understand the full implications and evaluate the proposal based on concrete information.”
“We all agree on the desirability of waste reduction. But we need a plan that imposes no extra costs on citizens,” Alan Seferian said to LexObserver over email. “And we need to know what it entails. Article 31 failed on both counts. Some try to distinguish between fees and taxes. That’s a distinction without a difference.”
McKenna argued this situation is like “history repeating itself,” recalling when Lexington attempted to adopt the “pay-as-you-throw” (or PAYT) system in 2001. Under PAYT, residents were charged fees based on the amount of trash they produced, which was supposed to incentivize them to put more of their solid waste toward composting, reuse, and recycling. The town’s PAYT program ended after a controversy that spawned a lawsuit, citizen petitions, and a ballot referendum overturning a Special Town Meeting action that would have allowed charging fees for waste removal.
“I know the battle background of what happened, how strongly people felt about having trash within the tax levy,” McKenna, who was on the Select Board in 2001, recalled. “That was an extra reason for me to take the temperature of where people were today.”
If Article 31 is overturned after the June 16 special election, the town would not include charging residents a fee for throwing out too much trash in its new program.
“The goal is that people, on June 16th, vote no,” McKenna said.
Lexington would have to consider another plan for excess waste to keep costs down, however.
The deadline to register to vote in time for the June 16 special election is 5 p.m. on June 5. The deadline to apply to vote by a mail-in ballot in this special election is 5 p.m. on June 9. There will be no early voting in this election. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. on June 16.
Correction: A previous version of this article stated that if Article 31 is voted down, the town could make residents buy certain trash bags or rent barrels from the town at a cost. Those are actually options the town is looking to offer as part of its new program if Article 31 passes.
A healthy democratic process relies on accurate information. Proponents are sounding the alarm that the word “free” was removed from the bylaw, while entirely omitting what was added. This change does not eliminate baseline trash pickup. Instead, it allows the Select Board to charge only those who exceed that baseline. This is fundamentally different from the “Pay-As-You-Throw” (PAYT) system rejected two decades ago; this is PAAT—Pay Above A Threshold. Every household still gets a baseline service, and that is codified into the bylaw. Voters deserve to make up their own minds based on the actual law, not a presentation that relies on omission. I have asked the referendum organizers twice on the Town Meeting Members list if they would commit to accuracy and transparency by sharing the full, official text of Article 31 during their campaign, and have received only silence. If the proponents are confident in their position, they shouldn’t need to hide anything. Will the campaign commit to transparency and sharing the full scope of the text with voters moving forward? https://www.lexingtonma.gov/DocumentCenter/View/16270/Article-31-Motion-Revised-3302026—Change-in-Regulation-of-Refuse-Disposal—PDF?bidId=
Nicola:
What is the “baseline” service you keep referring to? What’s that? You don’t know? Exactly!
If the Select Board deigned to tell us what the plan is, maybe there wouldn’t be an organized opposition.
Alan,
The baseline level of service was very clearly described by Maggie Peard in her presentation and then elaborated on by town meeting members speaking from the “yes” line. But just to make sure my understanding is correct, I asked Ms. Peard to confirm before I wrote this. The baseline level of service for all Lexington households will be, first barrel of trash or recycling collected at no charge, because it will be paid for out of the tax levy — the same service we currently receive. The Select Board will determine what fee, if any, will be assessed for additional barrels after the first.
One of the reasons I voted yes on Article 31 was because the inclusion of the word “free” in the bylaw made the bylaw a lie. According to my American Heritage Dictionary, free means “costing nothing, gratuitous, as in a free meal”. Paying for a town service out of the tax levy is still paying.
Alan, I note that you still have not answered my question about committing to transparency and sharing the full text of Article 31.
I find it interesting that Dawn McKenna and the supporters of overturning town meeting’s vote on Article 31 are hanging their hats on the result of a referendum that took place a quarter of a century ago, in 2002. Believe it or not, the Lexington of 2026 is not that same town. Half of the people who lived here then have moved on. It is absurd to use the results of a referendum from 25 years ago as a bellwether for what Lexington residents of today want and what they are willing to support.
In the Lexington of twenty five years ago, a few forward thinking residents were talking about climate change and global warming, but the town was not ready to commit its time, its tax dollars, or it’s goals to that fight. Would that Lexington have been ready to talk about a net zero police station or high school, electric police cruisers, or solar canopies over parking lots? My guess is no.
Just as we have matured in our thinking about climate change and global warming, we have also matured in our thinking about trash and recycling. Twenty five years ago, would the residents have accepted a zero waste resolution like the one town meeting overwhelmingly approved on April 6, 2022? In 2002, would the town have been ready for zero waste initiatives at the the public schools — initiatives that we accept without question in 2026?
The vote we make on the upcoming referendum, and the actions we take moving forward will make a statement about Lexington’s values. Will we continue to lead, or will we fall to the wayside because we were unwilling as a town to accept a change that clearly aligns with our stated goals for reducing solid waste, fighting climate change and global warming, and supporting social and environmental justice.
I know what my answer is. We cannot go back in time to a Lexington that no longer exists, as the people who oppose town meeting’s vote would have us do. On June 16th I will be voting to uphold town meeting’s vote on Article 31.
As a Town Meeting Member who voted Yes on Article 31 and who will be voting Yes to reaffirm Article 31 in the upcoming referendum, I would like to add:
• Article 31 is the fiscally responsible (conservative even) measure to address dramatic increases in municipal waste hauling and disposal costs that are impacting every town and city in Massachusetts.
• These costs are increasing dramatically and will continue to do so, whether we want to admit it or not. And the responsible thing to do is enable the town to reduce the waste that we as residents, put out on the curb every week, thereby lowing our costs and ultimately our taxes.
• Article 31 exists to save the town money and keep taxes from rising higher.
• Reversing Article 31, (which passed Town Meeting with a 70% majority after extensive debate), will tie the hands of the DPW, directly impacting their ability to negotiate the best terms when they renew our hauling contract.
Here is another important bit of information voters should know. The top 10% of households in Lexington put out as much trash as the bottom 50% of households combined. The current system is unfair as well unsustainable.
A final point. As others eloquently stated in comments above, there will be a baseline of service that will satisfy the weekly needs of most households, with no additional fees, like today. Our friends in the No camp say that without knowing each specific detail of that baseline program, we shouldn’t have voted on Article 31. What they don’t tell you is the reason we don’t yet know the details is because they are still being developed, based on community outreach—all of you living in Lexington—with staff and volunteers, and with the help of the MA DEP. If the program design had already been decided and then went up for a vote, I suspect the No camp would argue that they weren’t allowed to participate in the program’s development.
Imagine: Instead of undoing years of dedicated work and research as well as an overwhelming vote in Town Meeting, the No camp could put their energies into helping the town develop the best possible trash program, one that reduces waste, saves money, and maintains a high level of service. I really wish that is what we were doing, rather than spending all this time and resources on a referendum.
Double negatives can confuse me but it seems to be a simple question of whether we want all taxpayers to subsidize the few who create a lot of trash. Residents are paying for it either way.
There are multiple concerns being by residents about the metrics and data the town is using to set trash policy and to justify trash fees. I agree with these concerns which is why I will be voting *NO* on Tuesday, June 16th. Numerous times the Yes campaign has referenced a town trash audit in 2025 to build it’s case. However, this trash audit only included 10% of Lexington households, far from a representative sample.
Another tool the town is using to set trash policy is the online SurveyMonkey poll which the town and the Yes campaign have been advertising on social media. The intent is to collect feedback from residents about trash usage including bin size. However, there are major concerns with this survey including that it allows non-residents to vote, allows a person to vote multiple times from different devices, and that the questions project a bias that a 35 gallon bin size should be standard. To be more clear:
1. It is not a representative poll.
An open online survey is a nonprobability / opt-in sample. People choose whether to participate, so the town cannot know whether respondents reflect the broader resident population. Pew Research notes that opt-in online surveys are cheaper and easier, but their accuracy is uncertain because respondents are not randomly selected from the full population. AAPOR similarly warns that nonprobability methods cannot support the same population-wide inference as probability sampling.
2. No residency validation means nonresidents can respond.
If the survey is meant to poll Lexington residents but asks no residency-validating question, responses may include nonresidents, commercial interests, town employees who live elsewhere, advocacy groups, or people from nearby towns.
3. Multiple voting is a serious data-integrity problem.
SurveyMonkey itself says that even when “multiple responses” is off, a person may still retake a survey by clearing cookies or using a different browser or device. Even IP-based limits are not foolproof, because another computer can be used and shared IP addresses can wrongly block multiple legitimate people. So an open link should not be treated like “one resident, one response.”
4. Household vs. individual preference is unclear.
Trash service is usually household-based, but an open survey may collect one response from some households and several from others. A family of five could submit five responses while a single-person household submits one, or vice versa. That makes “percentage support” hard to interpret.
5. Digital-access and outreach bias.
Online-only surveys tend to overrepresent people who are digitally connected, already following town issues, active on local social media, or highly motivated. They may underrepresent seniors, renters, non-English speakers, lower-income residents, residents without time to follow town communications, and people who are satisfied with the status quo.
6. Advocacy campaigns can skew the result.
If a link circulates on Facebook, email lists, neighborhood groups, or advocacy networks, the results may reflect mobilization rather than broad public opinion. That does not make the input worthless, but it makes it unsuitable as a stand-alone basis for policy.
7. Question design can shape the answer.
Baseline trash policy is technical. Results can vary dramatically depending on whether residents are told the cost difference between 35-, 48-, 64-, or 96-gallon carts; overflow bag fees; impacts on recycling; enforcement rules; household-size exceptions; and senior/disabled accommodations.