The Select Board voted unanimously Tuesday night to endorse a seven-article warrant for the upcoming Special Town Meeting, scheduled to convene Monday, Oct. 22, at 7 p.m. in upper Town Hall.
Four of the articles request additional money to pay for projects or costs that have arisen since Annual Town Meeting in May. Voters will be asked to allocate a total of $77,500 from the town’s available fiscal 2019 money to purchase a second paper and cardboard compactor for the town’s Transfer Station ($37,500) and to convert an existing athletic field on Ann Lees Road for use as a regulation softball field ($40,000), replacing a field that will be lost during and after construction of the new elementary school. The warrant also asks for an increase in Fire Chief Rick Sicard’s salary this year to align it with the amount recommended by the town’s recent personnel study. The exact amount has not been determined, Assistant Town Administrator Marie Sobalvarro told the Press. In 2017, Chief Sicard was paid $93,609. The personnel study recommends a range between $91,631 and $123,710 (or $44.05 to $59.48 per hour).
Article 3 is likely to spark the most discussion. The measure asks to spend an additional $200,000 to help pay for construction of an ADA accessible front entrance to the old library and make the building code-compliant. The amount is needed to meet the higher-than-estimated $672,114 cost of the project. The article also adjusts the sources of revenue for the construction. Since passage of the original article in 2017, the town has received a $191,000 grant from the Mass Cultural Facilities Fund. And rather than borrowing the $383,000 authorized at that time, the town proposes to borrow $200,000 as excluded debt. The principal and interest due for that loan would be added to homeowners’ tax bills, an amount that Sobalvarro estimates would raise a taxpayer’s total by about $0.16 per $1000 of assessed value.
Articles 1 and 2 consist of amendments to the town’s bylaws to bring them into conformity with the recently passed Town Charter.
The Select Board’s endorsement of the Oct. 22 warrant is contingent on whether school officials ask for time to report progress on the elementary school project about to get underway. If they do not, Article 7 will be dropped.
Look for more discussion in the Oct. 19 pre-Town Meeting issue of the Harvard Press, which will include our trademark “Warrant in Plain English.”
