Town Edition
Worcester County
Phillipston, Massachusetts
Photo: John Phelan, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
For its first twenty-eight years this town was not called Phillipston. When it broke away from Templeton in 1786, the new town was named Gerry, after Elbridge Gerry, the Massachusetts politician whose name English later turned into the word gerrymander. The town traded the name for Phillipston in 1814, after a lieutenant governor, but it kept the thing that makes a small New England town worth understanding: it governs itself in a room. Phillipston runs on open Town Meeting, where any registered voter can stand up and vote the budget, and it hires no town manager at all. The three people you elect to the Board of Selectmen run the town themselves. This guide shows you how to get into the room.
Phillipston at a Glance
Sources: Massachusetts DESE, school and district profiles · US Census Bureau (data.census.gov) · Town of Phillipston.
- County: Worcester. Phillipston sits in the rural hill country of north central Massachusetts, bisected by Route 2 and serving as a northern gateway to the Quabbin Reservoir, first settled in 1751 and incorporated in 1786.
- Government: open Town Meeting, with an elected three-member Board of Selectmen that serves as the town’s executive and hires no administrator of its own. Bernard Malouin chairs the board.
- Schools: Phillipston belongs to the Narragansett Regional School District with Templeton, a district of about 1,365 students led by Superintendent Christopher Casavant.
How Phillipston’s Government Works
Phillipston runs on an open Town Meeting, which means there are no elected Town Meeting members at all: every registered voter in Phillipston is a member, and any of them can walk in, speak, and vote on the budget. Voters also elect a three-member Board of Selectmen and the town’s seats on the regional School Committee. The Selectmen serve as the town’s chief executive officers: they set policy, approve the bills, make appointments to town boards and offices, and carry the town’s business between Town Meetings, working out of an office staffed by an executive assistant rather than through an appointed administrator. So the money is voted by whoever shows up, and the direction and the daily work both belong to the board the voters elect.
Town Meeting
The legislative body, and it is not a committee. Every registered voter in Phillipston is a member. Town Meeting adopts the annual budget, passes town bylaws, and approves major spending. This is direct democracy in its literal sense.
Board of Selectmen
3 members elected town-wide to three-year terms. They set policy, sign the warrants that decide what reaches Town Meeting, appoint residents to many town boards, and serve as the town’s chief executive officers.
The Selectmen’s Office
The board’s own office at 50 The Common carries the town’s daily paperwork, staffed by an assistant to the board rather than an appointed administrator.
School Committee
Phillipston elects three of the eight seats on the Narragansett Regional School Committee, shared with Templeton. It sets district policy, approves the budget, and hires the Superintendent.
- Residents elect the 3 members of the Board of Selectmen, the town’s School Committee seats, and a long ballot of working town offices.
- The Board of Selectmen runs the town between meetings: it sets policy, decides what goes on the Town Meeting warrant, and carries out what Town Meeting votes.
- Town Meeting votes the budget and the bylaws, and every registered voter present can vote.
- You take part: pre-register at 16. A pre-registrant is on the list but is not allowed to vote yet. Once you turn 18 that designation comes off on its own and you are a registered voter in Phillipston, which makes you a member of Town Meeting with a vote on the floor. If you never pre-registered, register with the Town Clerk, and do it well ahead: the rolls close at 5 p.m. on the tenth day before any election or Town Meeting.
Civic Calendar
- Board of Selectmen: meets on alternate Wednesday evenings at Town Hall, or as posted, and each agenda is posted in advance on the town website.
- Town Meeting: the Annual Town Meeting is held in the spring, and the clerk posts the vote on every article afterward.
- Town elections: the Annual Town Election is held each spring to fill the town’s elected offices.
- State and federal elections: even-numbered years, and the Town Clerk offers early voting and vote by mail.
Explore the Phillipston Edition
- Board of Selectmen’s OfficeThe board that runs the town
- Board of SelectmenYour three board members
- School CommitteeSuperintendent & committee
- Town DepartmentsWho does what at Town Hall
- Boards & CommissionsWhere residents serve
- LegislatorsYour voice in Boston & D.C.
- Phillipston HistoryThe town once named Gerry
- DemographicsWho lives in Phillipston
- Non-ProfitsCommunity organizations
- Student DataPhillipston schools by the numbers
Your County Officials
Two of the people with the most direct power over your life are elected, and neither one sits on Beacon Hill. The district attorney decides who gets charged with a crime, and what they get charged with. The sheriff runs the county jail. The sheriff is elected by the voters of Worcester County. The district attorney is elected by the voters of a prosecution district, and Massachusetts draws eleven of those across its fourteen counties, so a district attorney’s territory does not always follow a county line. Both appear on your ballot in Phillipston. Now you know what to look for.
Massachusetts elects fourteen sheriffs, one for each county, and eleven district attorneys, one for each prosecution district. The job is the same everywhere: the charging decisions, the jail. Look up any town in the state and see who holds these two offices there.
Your First Civic Action in Phillipston
You do not have to wait until you can vote to be heard in your own town. Here is how to take a real concern to the people who decide.
- Pick the right body. Town policy, roads, and licenses go to the Board of Selectmen. Schools go to the School Committee. The budget and bylaws are voted by Town Meeting.
- Find the meeting. The Board of Selectmen meets on alternate Wednesday evenings at Town Hall, or as posted, and the agenda is posted in advance.
- Know your members. All three Board of Selectmen members are elected town-wide, so every one of them answers to you.
- Speak. Meetings are open to the public and residents may address the board.
- Or skip the trip. Report a pothole, a broken sign, or a plowing problem to the Highway Department at 978-249-6851, which owns the repair.
- Town offices: 50 The Common, Phillipston, MA 01331. Town Hall main line 978-249-6828.
- Town Clerk & agendas: Town Clerk 978-249-1733, with meeting agendas and minutes posted at phillipston-ma.gov.
- Public schools: Narragansett Regional School District, shared with Templeton, at nrsd.org.
Local government works best when residents show up. Find your Board of Selectmen, speak at a meeting on a Monday evening, or simply register to vote and take your seat at Town Meeting.