Town Meeting 2026 – A Summary of Session Two – funds approved by members could help restore hockey as an official sport at Saugus High School

By Mark E. Vogler

Town Meeting members during the second session of the Annual Town Meeting last Monday night approved a measure that would support efforts toward the return of a hockey program at Saugus High School. Members by a unanimous voice vote approved Article 22, which provides $215,000 from the Supplemental Student Support Reserve Fund for supporting the Saugus Public Schools Athletic and Fine Arts Departments by offering programing, tutoring and student study centers for students involved in athletics, the band and chorus. The money budgeted for athletic equipment includes more than $59,000 for hockey.

“That was a 65-year-plus program at Saugus High School that was allowed to drift away six years ago,” Saugus Middle-High School Principal Carla Scuzzarella – who is a Precinct 10 Town Meeting member – told her colleagues in advocating in support of Article 22. “We now coop with Peabody and the Saugus students make up the majority of that team. So, we would like to have our own program back again, and to get it started up. It’s a program for a number of students.”

“I’m trying to keep kids at Saugus Middle-High School. It’s a program that will help keep a number of students at our school and it’s students we don’t want to lose,” she said.

Precinct 10 Town Meeting Member Jenna Nuzzo, who is a Saugus High School teacher, also spoke in support of Article 22. “Hockey was so big in Saugus when I was younger, and I’m not even from Saugus and I knew that,” Nuzzo said.

“So to bring it back, I think, is amazing and I don’t see why it is a problem to support students and give them opportunities that other districts and towns have,” she said.

Scuzzarella said “the gist” of Article 22 is a tutoring program that would be mandated for students who participate in athletics, band and drama. “We have other options for students who are not involved in those afterschool programs. And the reason that those are selected is because these are students I can force to come for academic tutoring, or study time or whatever we want to call it,” she said. “We’re calling it a study zone, because in order to play, participate in a play or be part of the band, they have to be academically eligible. The same academic eligibility applies to all of those young people. So that’s the most important piece of this.”

Additional musical instruments and uniforms are also included in the budget, according to Scuzzarella. She noted that when the operating budget was crafted, the school had less than 20 students in the band program. There are now close to 50 students in the High School band program, she said. There are another 30 students in the sixth grade who are interested in becoming part of the band.

“Our band is actually going to be marching in the Memorial Day parade for the first time in many years,” Scuzzarella said. “And you will notice they don’t have any uniforms. They will have their band t-shirts on with varying items for the bottom – shorts, chinos, whatever. So we would like to get this [the band] back in running the way it used to be – so that’s the big chunk there for additional instruments as well as uniforms.

AT A GLANCE: In the second session of the Annual Town Meeting, members took action on 18 of the 46 articles on this year’s warrant, approving 16 of the articles, indefinitely postponing one and referring one back to its maker. Forty-eight of the 50 members were present for the second night’s proceedings, which lasted more than three hours. Precinct 2 Town Meeting Member Peter A. Rossetti, Jr. and Precinct 8 Town Meeting Member William E. Cross III notified the clerk they would be absent from the meeting. Precinct 8 Town Meeting Member Anthony J. Lopresti was absent from the initial attendance roll call, but later appeared at the meeting.

A MOMENT OF SILENCE: At the outset of the meeting, Town Moderator Stephen N. Doherty requested members to keep in their prayers the family of the late Massachusetts State Trooper Kevin Trainor, “who was recently killed in a tragic accident with a wrong-way driver while in the line of duty on Route 1.”

SUPPORTING STRUGGLING STUDENTS: Members approved eight articles totaling $1.1-million from the Supplemental Student Support Reserve Fund to help student achievement at all levels in the school district.

NO HUNTING IN PRANKERS POND AREA: Members continued their discussion and deliberations of Article 36, which would have placed restrictions on hunting within the limits of any park, playground or public property. Precinct 10 Town Meeting Member Peter Delios proposed an amendment that would strike the wording of the original article while adding the words “No hunting of any kind in the Prankers Pond area.” Board of Selectmen Chair Debra Panetta, who authored the article with Precinct 1 Town Meeting members, called it “a very good compromise.” Members voted 46-1 with two absences in support of the amendment. Precinct 2 Town Meeting Member Robert J. Camuso, Jr. was the only member opposing the amendment. The amended article passed on a 29-18 vote.

WHAT’S NEXT: When the 2026 Annual Town Meeting resumes deliberations next Monday at 7:30 p.m. in the second floor auditorium at Saugus Town Hall, members are expected to consider several articles on the warrant that don’t involve financial implications or financially related articles which have already been reviewed by the Finance Committee.