Town Government
Medfield Select Board
About the Board
Three people. That is the whole elected executive of a town of 12,799, and every Medfield voter helps choose all three. Each serves a three-year term on a staggered schedule, so one seat comes back around every spring. In the town’s own words, the Select Board is Medfield’s executive branch and its chief executive officers, empowered to administer and implement the decisions of Town Meeting and to set policy for the coordination of local government.
- Sets policy and direction for the whole town, and establishes the operating and capital budgets with the department heads under its jurisdiction.
- Hires the Town Administrator and the Assistant Town Administrator who run the town day to day.
- Controls the warrant, calling elections, drawing up the Town Meeting warrant and deciding what business reaches the floor for a vote.
- Wears two more hats. Under the Town Charter the board also serves as Commissioners of the Police Department and as the town’s Local Licensing Authority, and it fills vacancies in other elected offices.
Board Members
All three members are elected town-wide. After each annual town election the board reorganizes and chooses its own officers, and Medfield’s officers are a Chair and a Clerk. At the reorganization on March 31, 2026, the night after the annual election, Eileen Murphy nominated Osler Peterson as Chair and the roll call was three votes to none. Mr. Peterson then moved Ms. Murphy as Clerk, and that carried three to none as well.
Osler Peterson
Eileen Murphy
Gus Murby
The town routes contact to board members through the Town Administrator’s office at 459 Main Street, 508-906-3011. The current roster and every term expiry are posted on the town’s own Select Board page.
Meetings & How to Participate
- When: Tuesday evenings, roughly twice a month, at the Town House, 459 Main Street. Meetings run in a hybrid format and are recorded.
- Agendas & minutes: posted in the town’s Agenda Center, with approved minutes added afterwards.
- Public comment: the chair invites members of the public to come forward to the microphone, give their name and their address, and speak. Check the agenda for the procedure.
- Town Meeting: for the budget and the bylaws, the deciding vote belongs to the registered voters in the hall, which can include you.
What a Single Meeting Actually Decides
The board’s meeting on March 31, 2026 is a fair sample of the range. In one evening it reorganized itself, signed a letter of support for a $1,008,800 federal earmark toward the engineering design of the town’s wastewater treatment facility against a town match of $252,200, heard a resident press it on roughly $120 million of long-range capital needs, and voted to recommend the three budget articles that Town Meeting would take up five weeks later. Every one of those votes was taken in a room a resident could sit in.
Public hearings and meetings are where residents shape town decisions.