The Special Town Meeting was a Straw Poll, albeit an important one

From recent history, consider the sequence of voting on FS1. It was approved at the May Annual Town Meeting by a vote of 75% Yes, 25% No based on 503 votes. In the June Special Town Election the break down was 46% Yes and 54% No with 2293 votes. In the September Special Election it was 44% Yes, 56% No with 4207 votes cast. So the initial result at Town Meeting was not representative of the final vote.

The recent Special Town Meeting had 768 voters (at least on the first article) with 56% Yes and 44% No. Being even closer to 50/50 and given the sample size, we can make no broad conclusions about what the voters of Westwood think about the "lawsuit." There's also the issue of the difference of mechanics between the how a Town Meeting operates and a town wide election. The Special Town meeting began in the evening (it began 30 minutes late at 7 PM) and went until about 8:45 PM. There were speeches and you had to sit through them to actually vote. By contrast, a town wide election is run between 7 AM and 8 PM and one need only stop in when convenient to cast the ballot. The entire process might take 5-10 minutes.

So the description of a "straw poll" is an accurate one, but it doesn't have to be interpreted as being dismissive. For example, consider the Republican Iowa Straw Poll that didn't have any actual effect on who got the state's electoral votes, but was described as being a symbol of a particular candidate's campaign viability. With regard to how the Westwood Select Board proceeds, they might have other inputs as well, like emails, phone calls, e.t.c, in addition to their own judgement.