Bellingham Select Board honors 19-year member, picks senior center parking design

BELLINGHAM — June 8, 2026 — Bellingham Select Board marks the retirement of 19-year member Anne Odebashian and votes on parking, housing, and cemetery business. The board declared June 1, 2026, "Anne Odebashian Day," presenting a proclamation signed by Chair Michael R. Packer and members Jennifer Altamonte, Dawn Martinez, and Cody Spencer in recognition of Odebashian's combined 36-plus years of service across the Select Board, town clerk's office, and School Committee. The board unanimously approved Concept One of four proposed senior center parking expansion designs, a $65,000 federally earmarked project that must reach engineering completion by June 30; the favored option adds 44 spaces on flat terrain adjacent to the existing lot. Joe Altamonte was appointed to the Cemetery Commission on a 4-0-1 vote, voluntarily declining the position's stipend on the record. The board also unanimously supported a Local Initiative Program application to designate two units at Whitman Acres, 267 Blackstone Street, as affordable on the town's Subsidized Housing Inventory, and voted to waive a permit denial for a former machine shop at 11 Summer Street so that engineer Owen Heron's Acceleration Engineering can seek a special permit for Navy prototype work.