Town Edition
Franklin County
Warwick, Massachusetts
Photo: John Phelan, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
When the cable companies decided the hills of Warwick were not worth the wire, the town of 780 people voted to build its own internet instead. At Town Meeting in 2008 the voters put up about $40,000, the town bought the gear and trained its own installers, and the first customers came online in 2009. Warwick still owns and runs that network, and every May the same voters who built it raise their hands to set its budget. That tells you where power in this town actually sits: in a room full of neighbors deciding, together, what their town will do. This guide shows you how to get into the room.
Warwick at a Glance
Sources: Massachusetts DESE, district profile · US Census Bureau (data.census.gov) · Town of Warwick.
- County: Franklin. Warwick sits in the hill country of north central Massachusetts near the New Hampshire line, first settled in 1739 and incorporated in 1763, with about a third of its land protected inside the Mount Grace and Warwick State Forest.
- Government: open Town Meeting, with an elected three-member Selectboard that serves as the town’s executive. Alan Genovese chairs the board.
- Schools: the Warwick Community School is the town’s own elementary district of about 47 students; students continue their schooling outside Warwick once they finish. Kate Carbone is Superintendent.
How Warwick’s Government Works
Warwick runs on an open Town Meeting, which means there are no elected Town Meeting members at all: every registered voter in Warwick is a member, and any of them can walk in, speak, and vote on the budget. Voters also elect a three-member Selectboard and the School Committee that oversees the town’s elementary school. The Selectboard serves as the town’s executive: it sets policy, approves the bills, appoints residents to town boards and offices, and carries the town’s business between Town Meetings, working out of an office staffed by a part-time Town Coordinator 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 Warwick is a member. Town Meeting adopts the annual budget, passes town bylaws, and approves major spending. This is direct democracy in its literal sense.
Selectboard
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 executive.
The Selectboard’s Office
The board’s own office at Town Hall carries the town’s daily paperwork, staffed by a part-time Town Coordinator who works for the three elected members.
School Committee
Elected town-wide by Warwick’s voters. It sets policy for the Warwick Community School, approves its budget, and hires and evaluates the Superintendent.
- Residents elect the 3 members of the Selectboard, the School Committee, and a long ballot of working town offices.
- The Selectboard 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 Warwick, 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
- Selectboard: meets about every two weeks on Monday evenings, and each agenda is posted in advance on the town website.
- Town Meeting: the Annual Town Meeting is held in the spring; the 2026 meeting was May 4, and the clerk posts the vote on every article afterward.
- Town elections: the 2026 Annual Town Election was held May 18, when 47 residents filled the town’s elected offices. The next is in spring 2027.
- State and federal elections: even-numbered years. The clerk posts the current state primary and state election dates.
Explore the Warwick Edition
- Selectboard’s OfficeThe board that runs the town
- SelectboardYour three board members
- School CommitteeSuperintendent & committee
- Town DepartmentsWho does what at Town Hall
- Boards & CommissionsWhere residents serve
- LegislatorsYour voice in Boston & D.C.
- Warwick HistoryThe dog tax that built a library
- DemographicsWho lives in Warwick
- Non-ProfitsCommunity organizations
- Student DataWarwick 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 Franklin 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 Warwick. 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 Warwick
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 Selectboard. Schools go to the School Committee. The budget and bylaws are voted by Town Meeting.
- Find the meeting. The Selectboard meets about every two weeks on Monday evenings, and the agenda is posted in advance on the town website.
- Know your members. All three Selectboard 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. The town posts a form to be added to the agenda.
- Or skip the trip. Report a pothole, a broken sign, or a plowing problem to the Highway Department at 978-544-6349, which owns the repair.
- Town offices: Warwick Town Hall, 12 Athol Road. Selectboard office 978-544-6315 x3, staffed by the Town Coordinator on weekdays.
- Town Clerk & agendas: Town Clerk John Paganetti, 978-544-8304 ext 4, with meeting agendas and minutes posted at warwickma.org.
- Public schools: the Warwick Community School, warwick-k12.us, for the town’s elementary grades.
Local government works best when residents show up. Find your Selectboard, speak at a meeting on a Monday evening, or simply register to vote and take your seat at Town Meeting.