The Council voted to authorize outside legal counsel, at the municipal rate, to represent the town and individual councilmembers named as defendants in a lawsuit filed by HT Auto LLC — the junkyard operator whose licensing dispute has been a recurring town enforcement issue. The Planning Board's Rankin Estates hearing followed. The applicant presented supplemental traffic data (including new counts taken while school was in session, and disclosure of a fatal 2024 crash that fell outside its original three-year study window), a blasting-compliance memo, and a written legal rebuttal to resident Michael Meo's argument that the project's recreation fields are unnecessary and inappropriate. A dispute arose over whether a 2019 water-resource report could be entered into the record without its author present for cross-examination. Frustrated by a pattern of both sides submitting new material only 24–48 hours before hearings, the board set a firm July 16 deadline for any further evidence and continued the hearing to July 23, 2026 — explicitly described as likely the final hearing before a vote, barring emergency. In the meeting's final minutes, the applicant handed the board a newly-printed exhibit eliminating the project's third, southernmost recreation field entirely.