Seven percent of Harvard’s registered voters donned masks and turned out for Spring Town Meeting last Saturday, May 15, approving 21 articles, including the largest budget in town history, but rejecting a study to rethink zoning for the commercial district and the Select Board’s plan to sell Bromfield House.
The meeting, held outdoors under tents on a warm and partly sunny afternoon lasted for 4 1/2 hours, with more than half that time devoted to discussion of three articles: a $300,000 plan to develop new form-based zoning for Harvard’s commercial district (one hour); the proposal to sell Bromfield House but keep its land (one hour); and a new bylaw that aims to encourage development of senior-appropriate housing (45 minutes).
In contrast, the vote to approve the five-page, $34 million omnibus budget for fiscal 2022 took less than three minutes, with nary a query or objection. That budget includes a last-minute revision—voted by the Select Board moments before the start of the meeting and buried in its motion—to use $20,000 of next year’s expected budget surplus to relieve pressure on the budget of the Harvard schools.
For a summary of how Town Meeting voted, see the table below.
The first order of business was to elect Victor Normand temporary moderator to replace the absent Bill Barton. Following his swearing in, Normand stepped to the podium, saying, to laughter, that he now understood what it might be like to be a guest host on Jeopardy. After recruiting vote counters and leading the assembly in the Pledge of Allegiance, the meeting got underway, with Town Clerk Marlene Kenney to Normand’s right, and Town Counsel Mark Lanza and other town officials seated in front of him.
Votes on every article except one were decided by a show of the day-glo orange cards issued to every attendee by the meeting registrars, and all but two passed. The first to fail was Article 8-7, which proposed a market study of Ayer Road’s commercial district. It was the only article for which a count was requested. The measure required a two-thirds majority, but failed to muster even a simple majority, and was voted down 149-106. (For more on Article 8-7, see story.) Article 11 regarding Bromfield House also required a two-thirds majority, but no count was required to observe that fewer than that number were in favor of selling the house but keeping the land on which it is located, as the article proposed. (For more on Article 11, see story.)
Old library roof
The question of whether to replace the roof and gutters and repair the upper masonry of the old library was expected to be controversial, but Article 14, which proposed the town borrow additional money to complete the work, had no opponents. Voters had already appropriated $480,000 for the project in 2019, but the damage proved more extensive than estimated at that time. Both the Finance and Capital Planning and Investment committees recommended against spending more to fix the roof. Support for the measure, however, was helped by news that the Massachusetts Cultural Council had awarded the town a $200,000 grant last week, lowering the additional amount to be borrowed to $676,134 and the project total to $1 million.
After Normand declared the article had passed by the required two-thirds majority, there was sustained applause, punctuated by a shout from outgoing Select Board member Lucy Wallace to vote for the borrowing at Town Election on Tuesday. On Tuesday a majority of voters did vote in favor of the project, passing ballot Question 1 653–313.
The three tents erected for town meeting—the main “circus tent,” a tent for couples, and a mask-free tent for those unable to wear a face covering because of medical issues—were nearly full until midafternoon. Some attendees brought their own lawn chairs and blankets and sat outside, basking in the summerlike temperatures.
Citizens of Note
At 2 p.m., following passage of Article 10, Normand paused official business to recognize Harvard’s 2020 Citizens of Note, Ellen and Bruce Leicher. Wallace did the honors on behalf of the Select Board, reading from the citation printed at the front of this year’s town report.
“If there is a common theme in Bruce’s and Ellen’s activities it is stewardship,” she read. “Stewardship of our natural world and mentoring the next generation of stewards. If there is a common attribute to describe the Leichers, it is dedication, dedication to their committees, community and in seeing projects through to completion.” (For more about the 2020 Citizens of Note, see story.)
Wallace herself, who is stepping down from the Select Board this year, was honored for her 35 years of service to the town with a bouquet and warm words from current Chair Alice von Loesecke, who praised Wallace for her institutional knowledge and grace as a colleague. As Wallace stepped to the microphone to respond, Normand joked, “You can be as long-winded as you like.”
“I know I do tend to that,” she responded, but her answer was succinct. “What makes Harvard so wonderful is the number of people who get engaged as volunteers. I would say, I’ve gotten back … tenfold, a hundredfold what I’ve put into this town.”
Another resident, Tony Shaw, was also recognized for his 40 years as a volunteer firefighter in Harvard, as was the Harvard Fire Department itself, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.
Bromfield House
Following this 10-minute interlude, attendees turned their attention to Article 11, which concerned the disposition of Bromfield House. Debate continued for nearly an hour, ending in a brief moment of parliamentary confusion when Peter Warren, speaking from his seat, moved the question. Normand first told the speaker he had to “get in line” and wait his turn, as required by Robert’s Rules of Order. But Normand reversed course, he later told the Press, after being informed by Lanza that he could, at his discretion, allow the motion. The motion to end debate and vote, which required a two-thirds vote, passed easily, but the article did not.
Senior housing
Following the defeat of Article 11, the remaining attendees made quick work of the next nine articles, halting at Article 20 for another debate, this one lasting 45 minutes, over the purpose and consequences of the new senior housing bylaw it proposed.
Several speakers worried the manner in which the bylaw defined senior housing would allow families with over-55 parents and grandparents to move into units meant for older people and wouldn’t solve the lack of senior housing at all.
Normand, at one point, stepped out of his role as moderator to say that the article defined senior housing in a way that is consistent with federal law, so that “When [housing] production policy amendments do come before a town meeting, they’re facilitated by this amendment.”
The Planning Board accepted one friendly amendment, and speakers offered others, none of which passed. In the end, the article passed with the required two-thirds majority.
Ten minutes later, Town Meeting was over and attendees were headed home.
Stats
Town Clerk Marlene Kenney reported in a Monday morning email to the Press that 307 of Harvard’s 4,411 voters had signed in for some or all of the proceedings, a slight increase from the 290 who attended last year’s gathering on June 20, at the height of the pandemic.
Residents appear to have taken in stride the Select Board’s decision this year to stop mailing warrants to all voters. According to Kenney, Town Hall registered one objection to the change in mailing policy, mailed nine warrants by request, and saw a handful of warrants picked up ahead of time.
