What's happening around town.

Powder Point Bridge: not historic, still at the table

The federal ruling that today's bridge doesn't qualify for the National Register arrived at Town Hall in writing last week, and the reasoning hasn't changed: the original burned in 1985, and the span that replaced it the next year isn't the original and doesn't meet the federal test. Save Powder Point Bridge, which asked for the listing, at least keeps the consulting-party seat it was granted in August, so it will have a say as MassDOT designs a concrete-and-steel replacement that the state calls close to maintenance-free and many residents would rather see built in wood. The Selectboard takes the subject up again on October 19, and the group has put its case online at saveduxburybridge.org; our bridge history covers the 1892 original and everything since. Sources: WATD 95.9 FM and the Duxbury Clipper on the federal review and the group's website.

107 High Street: a landowner's safe-harbor play

The second 40B now has a backstory. Erik Koplovsky, whose family has owned the land for about 60 years and still works its cranberry bogs, told officials from both towns that Miramar is what got him going: 60 rental townhouses on 14.7 acres in Duxbury and 6.7 in Pembroke would add enough to the town's affordable count, all rentals included, to earn it a temporary safe harbor from new 40B filings, and he says he'll walk away if the numbers don't work. Only 12 units would carry income limits, 20 would sit inside the 100-foot wetland buffer, and every road and the septic system would be in Pembroke, whose officials asked what their town gets out of the deal. Planning Board member Tag Carpenter, who went on a site visit that couldn't leave the road because the woods were too thick, told colleagues the unit count is too high, and comments are being taken at Highstreet40B@duxbury-ma.gov. Sources: Duxbury Clipper and the Town of Duxbury.

Schools: $10 million of needs, $2.1 million of asks

Asked what the buildings and equipment need, school staff added it up to about $10 million and pared that to a $2.1 million capital request for fiscal 2028. The list runs from a new roof over the Alden School cafeteria and two failing rooftop heating and cooling units at Chandler to classroom sound systems and projectors 13 years old and no longer supported, the network switch that ties the district together, and a lawn mower, since the schools and the DPW, who lend each other theirs, both had one break this summer. Committee members pointed out that the spring override pays for operating budgets, not roofs. The same night, Duxbury Youth Soccer asked for support on a $372,000 Community Preservation application to regrade, re-irrigate and re-sod Ray Coppens Field next to Chandler, worn down by a league that has grown from 500 players to 900, with the catch that the field would be off limits to soccer for a year while the sod takes. Sources: Duxbury Clipper on the capital budget and Coppens Field.

The Clancy case: the defense wants witnesses

Lindsay Clancy's bid for an outright acquittal failed on October 1, when Judge William Sullivan ruled that a reasonable jury could have found every element of murder proven, so her defense has moved on to the two claims he has yet to decide. In an October 7 filing, lawyer Kevin Reddington asked that the November 2 hearing take live testimony and sworn statements, with the judge putting some narrow questions to the one juror who held out, or else be pushed back until witnesses can appear. One claim is that the jury was influenced from outside; the other is that a second trial would be double jeopardy, because the judge called a mistrial after a note from the jury without pressing the foreperson for details, and so never learned whether a lesser remedy would have worked. As of October 9, District Attorney Timothy Cruz still had not said whether he will seek a retrial. Sources: Boston 25 News, WHDH 7News and CNN.

Duxbury Bay: the crabs held their own

This year's horseshoe crab count on the bay landed between the last two, 0.56 crabs per square meter against 0.60 in 2025 and 0.55 in 2024, over 30 volunteer surveys run from late April to July 1 on the high tides around each new and full moon. Males outnumbered females every time out: the best daytime showing, May 18, turned up 34 females and 68 males, and a June 12 morning found 90 males and a single female. The number that counts most for the future, the density of spawning females, slipped to its lowest since 2010, and the watershed association expects the state's 2024 ban on taking crabs between April 15 and June 7 to take a few years to register. Duxbury has been surveyed for 18 years as one of 16 sites in the Division of Marine Fisheries' statewide count, so anyone walking the flats in May may be stepping around a data point. Sources: Duxbury Clipper and the North and South Rivers Watershed Association.

Miramar: the town makes its own offer

The Selectboard announced October 5 that Duxbury intends to buy Miramar, the 30-acre former Catholic retreat at 121 Parks Street, and will bring the purchase to a special Town Meeting; the board cited the water supply, aquifer recharge and open space, and named no price or funding source. Two numbers worth keeping nearby: the developer paid $8.75 million for the land this year, and the town's unspent Community Preservation balance sits around $2.76 million. The 100-house 40B a purchase would head off, a quarter of it priced as affordable, met a skeptical Planning Board on September 30, where members found it oversized and doubted that a $5.32 million sewer tie-in with Kingston could go forward without Duxbury's blessing. Sources: Duxbury Clipper on the purchase plan and the Planning Board review.

Town water: a one-year pause on new hookups?

The Selectboard, wearing its other hat as the town's water and sewer commissioners, opened a hearing October 5 on freezing all new connections to the public water system for a year and handed the idea to the Water and Sewer Advisory Board, with residents getting their say on November 9. Lots already on file at the Registry of Deeds, buildings already standing, and projects already holding a building permit would be exempt, and MacNab stressed it would stop new water service, not construction. The backdrop is years of pumping past the state permit, roughly 18 million gallons over in 2025, although this summer's first-ever total ban on outdoor watering saved about 32 million gallons and should bring 2026 in under the limit, which the town hasn't managed in decades. The costlier headache is PFAS: four of the town's ten wells test above federal limits for the chemicals, and filtering them out will not come cheap. Source: Duxbury Clipper.

Election Day: early voting opens Saturday

Early voting for the November 3 election starts Saturday, October 17, at Town Hall, 878 Tremont Street, and runs through October 30, two Saturdays included. The ballot is long, two pages printed on three sides, and Town Clerk Sue Kelley reckons its nine statewide questions are a record, so anyone voting by mail should send back both pages; a missing one is counted as blank. The town's October 13 notice sets the registration deadline at 5 p.m. October 24 and lists October 25 for mail-ballot requests, two days earlier than the date reported in September, so sooner is safer, and on Election Day the polls at the Lt. Timothy Steele building on St. George Street are open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sources: Duxbury Clipper and the Town of Duxbury.

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This page is a pointer, not a replacement, for the town's real news infrastructure. The Duxbury Clipper (weekly, since 1950) is the paper of record and deserves the subscription. The Local Seen carries full video of town meetings. The Town's E-Alerts deliver official notices by topic. Know something we should note here? Send a tip.