Voters at this year’s Fall Town Meeting will be asked to approve seven articles that range in scope from bills left unpaid in fiscal 2022 to a bylaw that would authorize the town in time of drought to restrict the outdoor water use of private well owners.
Select Board members approved the meeting warrant, 5-0, Tuesday night. The semiannual gathering, open to registered voters who reside in Harvard or on historical Harvard land at Devens, will convene in Cronin Auditorium at Bromfield on Saturday, Oct. 1, at noon.
Fall Town Meeting is the second session of the 2022 Town Meeting, the town’s legislative body, and is traditionally devoted to nonfinancial business, such as changes to the town’s bylaws. This year the Planning Board submitted no such requests; the Board of Health and Select Board, however, submitted two. The warrant also includes four financial articles, and these will be reviewed by the Finance Committee, whose recommendations can make or break a spending article.
The Select Board took no position Tuesday night on any of the seven articles. The board is expected to make its own recommendations at its next scheduled meeting on Sept. 20.
Here’s a summary of the fall 2022 warrant; the Press will examine each article in greater detail in upcoming editions of the paper. And watch for our traditional “Warrant in Plain English” in the Sept. 30 issue of the Press.
Warrant for the 2022 Harvard Town Meeting, second session
Article 1: Pay prior year bills.
Two outstanding fiscal 2022 bills remain to be paid that total $941. They will be paid for with money from the Stabilization Fund, the town’s piggy bank for unbudgeted expenses.
Requested by: Select Board on behalf of the Finance Department
Article 2: Police Department, radar poles and electrical work.
Passage of this article will pay for new poles and electrical work to permanently mount the town’s existing mobile radar systems. Cost is $3,200, which will be paid for with money withdrawn from the Stabilization Fund.
Requested by: Select Board on behalf of the Police Department
Article 3: Fire Chief contract and funding for the contract for fiscal 2023.
A vote is required to approve the most recent contract negotiated between the town and Fire Chief Rick Sicard—and to pay the $13,293 owed for fiscal 2022. The amount owed will be withdrawn from the Stabilization Fund.
Requested by: Select Board
Article 4: Recreation/beach director.
This article asks Town Meeting to create a new permanent position in town government: director of recreation and the town beach. The position would be paid for during the current fiscal year, fiscal 2023, with money appropriated for a beach director in the fiscal 2023 omnibus budget, supplemented with money drawn from the beach revolving fund. Money for the position would become a permanent line item in future town budgets.
Requested by: Parks and Recreation Commission and the Select Board
Article 5: Adopt bylaw allowing noncriminal disposition for certain town codes.
Passage of this bylaw would allow the town to resolve violations of nearly two dozen bylaws by treating them as noncriminal violations and levying fines. The article includes the fines currently on the books and names the enforcing authority for each. These will be reviewed and perhaps revised by town departments and boards prior to Town Meeting.
Requested by: Board of Health, but on the advice of town counsel, the article was expanded to include all relevant town bylaws.
Article 6: Adopt bylaw regulating outdoor water usage.
This seven-page bylaw would replace the town’s current bylaw governing the use of town water—Chapter 117 Water Supply Conservation—in its entirety, and give the town power to restrict outdoor water use everywhere in Harvard whenever a “state
of water supply conservation,” a “state of drought,” or a “state of water supply emergency” is in force. The new bylaw would for the first time allow the town to restrict outdoor water use by owners of private wells, the water source of most homeowners in Harvard. Its purpose, as the text states, is to empower the town to protect area aquifers should they be threatened by severe droughts caused by a warming climate, ensuring an adequate supply of water for drinking and fire protection, and to protect the quality and quantity of water in local aquatic habitats such as ponds, rivers, and wetlands.
Requested by: Board of Health
Article 7: Expand Harvard Common Historic District to include the Bromfield House property.
The town center historic district does not include the Bromfield House. Passage of this bylaw would add it.
Requested by: Historical Commission
