On a cold December morning at the Senior Center, Acton Town Manager John Mangiaratti did what he has been doing since 2018: shared coffee, invited questions, and offered residents a candid look at how their town is being run. The December 12 edition of Java with John featured a wide-ranging discussion of budgets, construction projects, housing, traffic, energy, and public safety, grounded, not in abstractions, but in the practical realities of municipal governance. Mangiaratti opened with a reminder that while most residents are thinking about the end of calendar year 2025, town officials are already halfway through Fiscal Year 2026.…