The first day of school may not be the best time for a Special Town Meeting. It’s likely the last thing some busy families need is something else to squeeze in on Wednesday, but there are some important items on the warrant that have meaningful consequences for the immediate future of the town.
The lead-up to articles 1 and 2 has been covered extensively in this newspaper. For a refresher, please visit our archives at www.harvardpress.com. If approved, these articles would add two Ayer Road parcels to the Large-Scale Ground-Mounted Solar Photovoltaic Facilities Overlay District, which was created in 2010 when Harvard voted to become a Massachusetts Green Community. This Special Town Meeting brings to resolution an issue Harvard has been wrestling with for several months, whether to enable development of “solar gardens,” community facilities providing shared use of photovoltaic solar generating capacity for residents and businesses unable to install systems on their own property. If the Town Meeting votes are positive, solar gardens totalling nearly 500 kilowatts will be allowed to be constructed in the Commercial District on Ayer Road.
For background on articles 3, 4, and 5, see our coverage in this week’s paper.
With the vote at last Town Meeting to go ahead with a nearly $4 million renovation of Town Hall, the next step is to decide where to put Town Hall operations during construction. One idea is to use the old library; another is to rent office space somewhere in town. Meanwhile, supporters of Harvard’s Center on the Common, the nonprofit cultural group that evolved from the Pilot Project, hope to keep growing the cultural center at the old library.
While these issues won’t be settled at Special Town Meeting—warrant articles 4 and 5 only give Selectmen authorization to act as lessee and lessor, if they so choose—it’s the beginning of an important conversation, and the discussion will give town residents a chance to weigh in on what they would like to see done with the old library and how far they’re willing to travel to conduct business at Town Hall.
Special Town Meeting is on Wednesday, Aug. 29, at 7 p.m. in Cronin Auditorium. The full warrant is available on the town’s website. We encourage all residents to sacrifice a couple hours from our dwindling stock of late-summer evenings to attend.
