Last month’s hastily convened Special Town Meeting ended almost as soon as it began. On the morning of Dec. 17, 70 townspeople gathered in the sunlit meeting room of upper Town Hall, and with no debate, approved both articles of the meeting’s one-page warrant.
The Select Board had called the emergency Special Town Meeting two weeks earlier to correct an error in the amount of the current fiscal year’s town budget and to ratify the votes of the fall session of Annual Town Meeting held Oct. 16.
Article 1, which passed unanimously, reduced Harvard’s fiscal 2022 budget by $914,332—from approximately $34 million to $33.1 million—correcting the amount erroneously appropriated by voters at the first session of Annual Town Meeting on May 15, 2021. The cause was a flawed motion that failed to include offsetting sources of revenue contributed by the schools.
The correction lowers the amount taxpayers must contribute to this year’s budget from approximately $30.7 million to $29.8 million. With the new number in hand, the Department of Revenue quickly approved the fiscal 2022 tax rate of $17.89 per $1,000 of assessed property valuation recommended by Harvard’s assessors. Director of Accounts Deborah Wagner signed Harvard’s paperwork three days later on Dec. 20, and third quarter tax bills were mailed to residents before the end of the year.
Article 2, which also passed unanimously, ratified the votes taken at the Oct. 16 session of this year’s Annual Town Meeting, including $2.6 million for a new senior center and $965,096 for a fire truck.
Select Board Chair Stu Sklar explained to meeting attendees that the article had been added at the request of the town’s bond agency, which, he said, “wanted us to wear a belt and suspenders.” According to Sklar, the agency, which packages and markets Harvard’s municipal bonds to investors, sought assurance that the October votes authorizing the two expenditures were valid. Voters had already approved debt financing for both measures at Town Election Nov. 3, but Sklar later told the Press the agency thought it was unusual for such large borrowings to be taken up at a fall town meeting.
“More like two belts and suspenders,” commented Town Counsel Mark Lanza after the meeting. In a brief conversation he said the bond agency had been uncomfortable with what it perceived to be a discrepancy between state law and Harvard’s Charter regarding the timing of an annual town meeting. State law says that a municipality’s annual meeting must conclude by June 30. Harvard’s Charter says the meeting “shall be held during February through June,” but while the document allows for multiple sessions, it does not say when the final session must conclude.
By passing Article 2 by more than the required four-fifths vote, December’s Special Town Meeting eliminated whatever ambiguity might exist. Lanza said that in his experience, a town charter always trumps state law on such questions.
Last month’s meeting was the first large public gathering in Town Hall in more than a year. Masks were required. Clerk Marlene Kenney and Assistant Clerk Catherine Bowen planned for slightly more than 70 attendees. Seats were lined up to face the massive meeting table at the front of the hall, where Kenney and Moderator Bill Barton were seated. Most attendees arrived shortly before the start of the session, signing in with registrars Steve and Nancy Cronin, collecting their ruby-red voting cards and a copy of the warrant, and heading for a seat. After a pledge of allegiance and two votes, the meeting was over. There was no debate on either article. Total elapsed time: less than five minutes.
Town officials had been worried that fewer than the required quorum of 50 voters would attend. In the end, nearly every seat was occupied. In an informal poll, attendees said they had learned of the meeting from the Dec. 10 issue of the Harvard Press, by word of mouth, or from a townwide alert emailed to subscribers at 9:30 a.m. the prior morning.
