Bellingham Selectboard Votes to Honor Odebashen, Expand Senior Center Parking

BELLINGHAM -- June 1, 2026, Bellingham Selectboard honors retiring 19-year member Ann Odebashen and votes on senior center parking, affordable housing, and a defense-firm permit waiver. The board unanimously approved a concept one parking expansion design for the senior center, adding 44 spaces using a $25,000 congressional earmark with a June 30 deadline, over a competing design that would have added 49 spaces but introduced more angled-parking conflicts. Joe Altamonte was appointed to the Cemetery Commission 4-0 with one abstention, declining a stipend on the record. Owen Heron, co-founder of defense engineering firm Acceleration Engineering and a former Navy unmanned-vehicle program lead, won unanimous approval of a permit-denial waiver at 11 Summer Street so he can seek a Planning Board special permit for a shock-testing and prototype manufacturing facility. The board voted 4-1 to support a Local Initiative Program application designating two units at Whitman Acres, 267 Blackstone Street, as affordable housing toward the town's subsidized housing inventory. In her farewell remarks, Odebashen, whose combined service as board member, town clerk, and School Committee member totaled 36-plus years, told incoming officials: "You're one vote. That one vote can be important."