Town Meeting will take place this year on Saturday, April 2, and town elections will follow on Tuesday April 5.
The vote of the selectmen—whose job it is to choose the time and place—was unanimous at Tuesday’s Board of Selectmen meeting. The date this year is nearly a month earlier than the 2010 gathering, at which attendance was unusually low. Town meetings are traditionally held throughout New England in the early spring, when the weather—mud season—is often bad, spring sports have not yet taken to the field, and a warm indoor gathering can seem inviting.
Two weeks ago, the selectmen wavered and briefly considered keeping the meeting in May when they heard from Town Center Sewer Building Committee (TSCBC) Chairman Chris Ashley that final cost estimates for his project might not be available until then. In 2009 the selectmen promised taxpayers that if the cost of the new sewer was greater than $2 million, they would return to Town Meeting for approval to proceed. Ashley had hoped to have contractor bids for the work in hand by April, at which time he would know whether ATM approval was necessary or not. But delays at the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) have made that result impossible.
“It will take at least another 12 weeks,” Ashley told the selectmen Tuesday. So the selectmen will stick to their original meeting time, and if the sewer construction estimates are higher than planned—which Ashley and others think unlikely— the selectmen will call a special town meeting later this year.
In what turned out to be a marathon three-hour meeting, the selectmen also debated and decided the fate of nearly 50 articles submitted for their approval by town boards and, in one case, a citizens’ petition. The most controversial of these were three requests for design money to plan the renovation of three town buildings. (See related article, “Two warrant articles…” on page 1.) In addition, the BOS approved a home-rule petition that, if approved by the state legislature, would authorize the town to provide tax relief to senior citizens. Other articles ask for money to treat catch basins with larvicide to control mosquitoes; abolish the Harvard Housing Authority, which has been partially superseded by the Harvard Housing Trust; and establish a new hazardous flood plain overlay district in Harvard.
The final list of articles will be available when the Town Meeting warrant is sent to the printer.
