News and events in Southborough, MA

Annual Town Meeting opens next week (weather permitting). As I posted earlier this week, the meeting is scheduled for Saturday, June 13th at 1:00 pm with Sunday as the raindate. 

Voters will be asked to wear facemasks to the meeting. Once in their safely spaced seats, they can remove them for as long as they remain seated.

Since it’s an outdoor, daytime meeting, the limited presentations will rely on speakers and handouts – nothing projected on a screen. (Hopefully, most of the handouts will be available online sometime next week. I’ll share them when posted.)

Today, the Town posted confirmation of how it plans to handle the Warrant for a (hopefully) streamlined meeting.

Basically, the Town is looking to focus on the Articles that need to be handled before the start of the July 1st fiscal year. Others that can wait (especially controversial ones) they hope to postpone to a Special Town Meeting in the fall. (That date has yet to be determined.)

Selectmen and the Moderator have publicly assured that any Articles indefinitely postponed “for convenience” of voters this spring will be taken up at the fall Special. Citizen Petitioners won’t need to collect signatures again, since Selectmen can sponsor their Articles for the Warrant (even if they don’t support them). Given those assurances, it appears that all sponsors impacted have agreed to cooperate.

The gameplan was formed when the meeting was planned for indoors. On June 1st, the decision was made to move outdoors. Selectmen and the Moderator decided to stick with the plan to streamline the meeting. In a meeting yesterday, Town Administrator Mark Purple explained that the notice would have been too short for sponsors to prepare to present additional Articles. It would have set them up for failure. 

On Tuesday night, other reasons were raised. Selectman Marty Healey noted that the number of voters who feel comfortable showing up and debating Articles may be low. And Selectwoman Lisa Braccio noted that rain isn’t the only weather concern for the meeting. Voters may have to sit outside on a hot day. (Moderator Paul Cimino assured that he would try to keep the meeting moving quickly and bottled water will be given out for free.)

“Critical Articles” up for vote

Below are Articles that Town boards plan to ask voters to decide on as written in the ATM 2020 Warrant.

Annual administrative/financial authorizations:

Article 2: Acceptance of PILOT Payments
Article 3: Annual Borrowing authorization
Article 4: Authorization of contracts in excess of 3 yrs.
Article 8: Fiscal Year 2021 Water Enterprise budget (Click here to see the figures)
Article 13: Capital maintenance fund – ($100,000 for the ongoing maintenance of capital equipment and systems associated with town buildings
and facilities.)
Article 15: Annual authorization of revolving funds (spending limits for previously authorized accounts)
Article 16: CPA – Administrative (The budget and set asides as required under the Community Preservation Act)
Article 17: CPA – Burnett House bond (required annual payment for previously approved project)
Article 18: CPA – Library façade bond (required annual payment for previously approved project)

Article 5: Salary Administration Plan

The Personnel board’s recommended adjustments to the by-law that governs policies and pay structures for non-union Town employees. This years changes are explained in this summary and demonstrated in this redlined version. The board doesn’t plan to make a presentation but will be available to answer any questions.

Article 6: Amend borrowing authorization for PSB

This is to reduce the amount allowed for the Public Safety Building project. It was created to highlight to Town Meeting voters that the Town carried through on its promise to work to keep costs lower than the funding they requested.

The original Article budgeted for a $22.6M project with 10% based on contingencies for unforeseen issues. Currently, the project is projected to come in at $19.5M. (The building is complete but there are a few outstanding items the contractor is working on.) The Article doesn’t state the amount to be rescinded, but PSBC Chair Jason Malinowski confirmed on Tuesday that they plan to rescind $3 Million at this meeting and hopefully another $100,000 in a future year.

Article 7: Fiscal Year 2021 budget (Selectmen will move to replace the Article with an amended budget with reduced spending. That is still in flux. Click here for related stories.)

Article 9: Capital Budget (Non-borrowing)  [click to keep reading…]

Tagged as: annual-town-meeting-2020

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