Ide lectures Select Board on leadership during visit to Senior Center

When members of the Select Board and School Committee visited the Grafton Senior Center Wednesday, they were probably anticipating the usual concerns: the impending town override, higher taxes, trash bag fees, elderly services.

They were not expecting a lecture from Shelia Ide.

Ide, who became the town’s first female selectman back in the 1970s, lambasted the current board for not doing enough to grow the town’s economic base.

“The role of the Board of Selectmen should be s leadership role,” Ide said, to applause from the large number of seniors who turned out for the morning question and answer visit. “I haven’t heard one word abut what you have done to increase economic development.”

While board members protested that the town has been working on outreach, with Chairperson Jennifer Thomas citing plans for marijuana facilities, the transit village on Pine Street, and possible development of the current Highway Barn site on Upton Road, Ide said the board needs to be more hands-on.

In her time on the board, the town worked with both Shrewsbury and Westborough to bring Tufts University veterinary campus to the former site of the Grafton State Hospital. Later, Tufts covered the cost for the Grafton town planner with a grant.

“For a hot minute there, I convinced myself that Grafton was a perfect location for the Amazon campus,” Select Board member Ed Prisby said, remembering the online giant’s national search.

Otherwise, he noted that Grafton now competes with Millbury, Shrewsbury and Westborough for the same big businesses. “It’s a challenge to do this. I don’t know if we could do more.”

Ide said the Select Board, along with other town officials, need to get out and personally work with businesses, suggesting that they get out to Chamber of Commerce meetings and regional advisory boards.

“You have to meet these people,” she said. “You have to go to these chamber meetings. It worked before and you can do this again.”

Other seniors called for a moratorium on large town construction projects, noting that the library and highway barn, both now under construction, followed other debt exclusion projects like the high school, fire station and police station.

Another asked if Town Meetings could be changed to a weekend day. Many seniors find it difficult to not only stay out late for Town Meeting but have problems driving at night.