Kingston Town Meeting Approves $63.7 Million Budget, Indefinitely Postpones Road Petition

KINGSTON — June 6, 2026 — Kingston Annual Town Meeting approves a $63.7 million operating budget and indefinitely postpones a disputed road acceptance by three votes. Voters at the June 6 meeting, presided over by newly elected Moderator Michael Cowett with 118 residents present, passed the fiscal year 2027 budget unanimously, approved $700,000 in borrowing for a new ambulance, and endorsed six Community Preservation Committee appropriations totaling more than $900,000, including two conservation land purchases and $75,000 for historic cemetery stone restoration. Finance Committee member Derek Billnitzer acknowledged the town's forward-looking fragility, saying "I do not have an answer" when asked whether Kingston could sustain level services in FY2028. The meeting's lone recorded vote — 52 to 49 — indefinitely postponed a citizen's petition to accept Captain Jones Way and Barrowsbrook Circle in the Jones River Estates subdivision as public ways; Town Counsel Kate Federoff advised that a homeowners association's notarized agreement to pay $27,000 to remove a non-standard speed hump would not be legally enforceable once the town accepted the road.