Social media post by Erin Straub
For too long, too many of us have treated local government as background noise — something that happens quietly while we go about our lives (I, too, have been guilty of this). That has to change, starting now.
I’m a Sudbury mother whose child attends Camp Sewataro and genuinely loves it. My son doesn’t get a vote in what happens to that property — no camper does. But their summers, their friendships, and their sense of a place that’s truly theirs are exactly what’s on the line in this process. If the adults in this town don’t pay attention now, the kids who love that camp won’t have had any say in whether it’s still there for the next generation.
That’s why this fight matters to me, and why I think it should matter to all of us, whether or not our own kids go there.
At the 2026 Annual Town Meeting, voters rejected a $20,000 warrant article to fund a land consultant study of the Sewataro/Liberty Ledge property, 200 to 75 — the second time in four years residents have turned down that kind of study.
And, this summer, at the town’s own public input session, residents ranked keeping Camp Sewataro operating first, a weighted priority score of 156 against just 23 for the second-place theme, while affordable and senior housing drew only one or two priority votes.
The 2019 vote to buy the property was never a single-issue mandate. One longtime observer who was present for both the sale and the Town Meeting that approved it recalled that ‘half of the town meeting voted on this as anti-housing and the other half of the town voted on it because they wanted to preserve the camp’ — and in practice, those two motivations have largely pointed the same direction ever since.
And yet weeks after the May 2026 vote, a Select Board member brought that same rejected study idea to the Sudbury Housing Trust, which then pushed the Liberty Ledge/Sewataro Advisory Committee to reconsider housing on specific parts of the property. A different committee member described camp supporters as “a very vocal minority” that has “almost closed people’s minds” on the issue — language worth noting given that the 2019 purchase passed with more than two-thirds support and the town’s most recent input session put the camp first.
One more fact deserves wider attention: the camp operator, not town taxpayers, covers the day-to-day maintenance and repair of the property under the current agreement, and pays the town an annual fee plus a share of camp revenue: $200,000 a year rising three percent annually, plus roughly $115,000 in additional revenue share in each of the last two years. The town’s debt service on the original purchase is a separate, fixed cost that exists regardless of what happens on the land — it doesn’t go away if the camp does, and a housing development would carry its own infrastructure and carrying costs too.
To be clear, no formal development proposal for Sewataro exists, and only a future Town Meeting vote can authorize any real change to the property.
Turnout Already Proved the Point
We saw the flip side of this at the May 20 Special Town Meeting, when turnout jumped roughly fourfold to nearly 1,000 registered voters and directly changed the outcome on other contested warrant articles. When Sudbury residents actually show up, decisions reflect the town. When we don’t, a much smaller group — however well-intentioned — ends up shaping outcomes for everyone else, including outcomes for kids who have no vote of their own.
What We Can Do Now
Follow the Sewataro process directly: the advisory committee’s recommendations go to the Select Board by October 31, and any real change to the property still requires a future Town Meeting warrant article and vote. There is still time to make your voice heard by writing the Select Board directly.
Show up to Select Board meetings and Town Meeting, especially when Sewataro or other high-stakes property and budget items are on the agenda.
Register and vote in local elections and Town Meeting, not just in presidential years.
Read warrant articles and committee reports before meetings so your vote reflects your own judgment.
Talk to neighbors, especially other camp families, about what’s actually on the table.
If you support preserving Sewataro, please connect with Friends of Sewataro.
We don’t all have to agree on what Sewataro, or any other issue, should become. But we should all agree that the town’s future should be decided by the town — and that includes standing up for the kids who love this camp but can’t yet stand up for themselves at a podium or a ballot box. The law already puts the real power in our hands. Let’s actually use it, for them.
See you at the next Town Meeting.
