Annual Town Meeting drew a crowd of 326 to Cronin Auditorium Tuesday night, as residents gathered to vote on bylaw changes and have their say on how the town should raise and spend its money. After three hours, only 25 of the 57 warrant items had been decided, and exhausted voters moved to adjourn. When the meeting reconvened Wednesday, it took more than three hours to work through the remaining 32 items, but in the end Moderator Bob Eubank was able to declare the job done, taking the need for a third night off the table.
Throughout both nights, the pace ebbed and flowed, as articles such as the $23 million town budget (Article 4) and the citizens petition for a charter committee (Article 33), passed with little discussion, while other seemingly non-controversial articles drew unexpected opposition. In the end, Town Meeting rejected three articles — Article 22 (free cash), Article 36 (appointment of town constables), and Article 55 (erosion control) — and passed the remaining 54, some with amendments, friendly or otherwise.
Attendance was highest during the first hour Tuesday night as the crowd swelled in anticipation of the vote on paying for a feasibility study and schematic designs of the ailing Hildreth Elementary School. But first, residents celebrated Rick Maiore, this year’s Citizen of Note, and then wrestled through contentious discussions of roadside tree maintenance (Article 13) and the local option meals excise tax (Article 15). Both articles passed after voters made it clear that how Harvard cares for both its natural and commercial resources are topics of increasing importance to the voting public.
Prepared for a hard sell
Prepared for a hard sell, members of the school building and visioning committees stood up on behalf of Article 23’s feasibility study. Some residents asked what the steep $500,000 price tag would include. SusanMary Redinger of the School Committee responded that the study, which will be reimbursed at a rate of nearly 45 percent by the state, will provide schematic designs and full plans for the whole school building, not just the K-wing, to determine improvement needs such as fire safety, mold remediation, traffic patterns, and Americans with Disabilities Act compliance issues. Voters approved the feasibility study with a majority vote.
Once that article had been decided, scores of attendees left Cronin Auditorium and headed home, missing the most contentious discussion of the evening, an unexpected debate over use of nearly $300,000 of this year’s $1.36 million free cash windfall. Free cash is the money left unspent at the end of a fiscal year. Harvard’s bylaw calls for that money to be set aside in a fiscal piggy bank—the Capital Stabilization and Investment Fund—reserved for the purchase of items with a cost greater than $20,000 and a lifetime of more than five years. Transferring money to that account requires a two-thirds vote by Town Meeting.
With the renovation of Hildreth House scheduled to start this year at an estimated cost higher than the amount approved by Town Meeting a year ago, supporters wanted the Capital Planning and Investment Committee to guarantee some of that money would be reserved to cover an unspecified cost overrun.
When committee Chairwoman Debbie Ricci balked at the request, a succession of speakers urged attendees to vote against Article 22, thereby blocking the transfer of nearly $300,000 into the capital fund. When the vote was finally taken, after 45 minutes of debate, opponents won the day, and the measure failed to reach the two-thirds vote needed to transfer the funds. But while free cash remains free, it’s not necessarily available for the Hildreth House project.
After the meeting, Tim Bragan, Harvard’s town administrator, asserted that Harvard’s bylaw would prevent using the money for Hildreth House unless it was first deposited into the capital fund. “They won’t be able to use it,” he said. There were rumors Wednesday that the capital committee might move that night to have the vote reconsidered. However, Moderator Eubank quickly dispelled them at the start of Wednesday’s meeting.
The vote on Article 22 came just as the clock was about to strike 10 p.m. After Town Meeting quickly approved the purchase of a pickup truck and a wide-area mower, both of which will be paid with money currently in the capital fund, Moderator Eubank called for a motion to adjourn. Cronin Auditorium quickly emptied.
A smaller crowd
Wednesday night a much smaller crowd of just under 200 returned to wrestle with the rest of the warrant. But these voters showed remarkable zeal for debate, at points standing in lines four people deep to wait their turn to comment or amend.
The four articles proposing changes to town government had a mixed reception. To the surprise of its proponents, Article 33, which proposed the appointment of a charter committee, passed with no comment. But articles to alter the responsibilities of the town administrator and manner of selecting the town clerk and constable drew more questions. Attendees agreed to let the selectmen delegate the signing of invoices and the town payroll and to change the position of town clerk from an elected to appointed office. But they voted down a similar proposal to appoint the town constable, and rejected significant changes to the town administrator’s authority as delegated by the Selectmen under Article 34, which was divided and only sections 1, 2, 8, and 11 passed.
A preference for Saturdays
Even late into the evening, voters were thoughtfully commenting and questioning warrant items. An amendment on Article 49 saw residents increase the sum funding the town planner contractor position from $52,000 to $60,000, a vote of confidence for the value of the planner’s work as well as his substantial institutional knowledge of Devens. And citing concerns of over-regulation in the proposed Erosion Control Bylaw, voters rejected that proposed law change.
The last nighttime town meeting was held two years ago. When Eubank asked attendees whether they preferred a weeknight or Saturday meeting, a majority voted for the latter.
