Cheshire Selectmen Close Town Warrant
CHESHIRE, Mass. — The Selectmen closed the warrant for town meeting on Tuesday after adding in two last-minute debt exclusion items.
The annual town meeting is set for Tuesday, June 7, and will include requests for a new police cruiser and a Department of Public Works truck.
The new cruiser is estimated at $40,000 while the DPW truck will run nearly $125,000.
Town Administrator Mark Webber said the town does not have enough money left in free cash to cover the cost and will have to go for a debt exclusion to borrow the money.
He said the town is $15,000 away from the levy limit.
"It will have to be a debt exclusion because we don't have any other money," Webber said.
He said voters will have to approve the two items to allow borrowing at town meeting and, 45 days later, the town will hold a special election to approve the debt exclusion. This election would take place July 11.
Payments will not begin until fiscal 2018.
DPW Director Peter LeFebvre said it will take nine to 11 months to receive the new truck.
"We can't order anything until after the election, and if we ordered it in July, we aren't going to get that thing until February," he said. "So in other words, we aren't getting a truck this year."
Webber said this would not matter because in order to get the truck sooner, the town would have had to have held a special town meeting in the winter.
LeFebvre said he did bring it to the town's attention but Webber did not recall it.
LeFebvre, who plans to retire next year, suggested that the town not put the truck article on the warrant because by the time the truck arrives there will be a new director.
"I wouldn't even put the truck on there. Leave it for the next superintendent so he can spec it out," he said. "Why get something the new superintendent may not even want?"
The selectmen left the article on the warrant and noted they can take it off at town meeting if they so choose.
Also approved on the warrant was the town's nearly $5.5 million fiscal 2017 budget. Webber said he plugged in 2.5 percent for last week's disputed Board of Health salaries so it was consistent with the rest of the town increases and the board's original ruling.
Chairman Paul Astorino said he was happy with the budget.
"We are under the levy limit and we are doing our jobs to the best of our ability with the funding we have," he said. "There are a lot of things we would like to do but we can't afford it all."
In other business, LeFebvre said there is a pipe on Wells Road that will soon need to be replaced.
"You got four pieces of pipe joined together, three boiler tubes, and one corrugated pipe and the corrugated pipe is giving out," he said. "We had a sink hole the other day ... so that's going to have to be replaced."
He said they will need to bring on an engineer.
Tags: debt exclusion, police cruiser, town meeting 2016, town meeting warrant, trucks,
