Cheshire Selectmen See Complete Town Warrant
CHESHIRE, Mass. — The selectmen signed and reviewed the final draft of the 15-article warrant for the June 13 annual town meeting.
Town Administrator Mark Webber went through the questions at Tuesday's Selectmen's meeting and pointed out finer details not standard to an annual town meeting warrant. That includes a number of articles to adopt Massachusetts General Laws for town meeting and function purposes.
• Article 2 will approve the budget of $5,592,863, which is $100,223 more than this year's budget.
• Article 3 will ask town meeting to use $170,000 of free cash to offset the tax rate. This will leave a $15,000 buffer before the town hits its levy limit.
Selectwoman Carol Francesconi said this would leave the town with $81,000 in free cash, which she did not feel comfortable with.
"I worry about free cash for next year ... last year we had a lot of money that came back from the state and federal government," Francesconi said. "This year we are not going to have that. I worry more about next year's budget than I do this year's budget."
• Article 4, a standard town meeting article, will ask the town to borrow and appropriate any additional sum of money for the Department of Public Works that will be reimbursed by Chapter 90 funds from the state.
• Article 5 will ask the town to transfer $15,000 of previously allocated money that was needed to allow Cheshire membership in the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission's Kinder Morgan Natural Gas Pipeline working group.
Now that the pipeline has been suspended, the town would like to use the funds to pay BRPC to create the town's master plan.
• Article 6 will ask the town to borrow $125,000 to purchase a new DPW truck and Article 7 to borrow $36,000 to purchase a new police cruiser.
"Typically, $36,000, you would prefer to use free cash but we really don't have enough to do that," Webber said.
Both of these items must also pass a debt exclusion vote at a special election to be held later.
• Article 8 will allow the town to establish a conservation commission that will be appointed annually. One member will be a selectman. Previously, the select board acted as the Conservation Commission.
• Article 9 will see if the town will accept a general law that will clearly define the powers and duties of the town moderator.
• Article 10 will see if the town will accept a general law that will define the process for town meeting action and subsequent approval by the attorney general of general town bylaws.
• Article 11 will see if the town will accept a general law that provides for the denial, revocation or suspension of permits and licenses to those who have not paid any local taxes, fees or any other municipal charges.
"It is really the codification of what you have been doing here for a number of years and what most towns do," Webber said. "We just were unsure if we went to town meeting and if they accepted it."
• Article 12 will see if the town will accept a general law that allows any public office to be closed on any or all Saturdays.
• Article 13 will see if the town will accept a general law that defines the process of placing a nonbinding public opinion advisory question on town ballots.
• Article 14 will see if the town will accept na general law that will allow for the establishment of one or more tax title collection revolving funds for the tax collector.
In other business, Webber said he has received a packet from the engineer responsible for the Sand Mill Road Bridge repair project. He said this is the second round of communication between the state and the engineer.
"This is his response on the second round of responses, and I don't know if there will be any more of these," Webber said. "I don't know when the approval will come, I don't know when we can go out to bid, and I don't know when this project will be done but that is the process."
He said once the state approves the plans, the engineer can get the plans bid ready.
Police Chief Tim Garner said there has been no findings on the alleged purposeful scattering of nails outside of the fire station.
Last week, firefighters found galvanized nails scattered over the pavement in front of the garage doors at the station.
In a Facebook post, the Fire Department said it appeared as though someone planted the nails in attempt to deflate fire truck tires.
Garner said other nails have been found in the area and without surveillance, it's hard to tell if the nails were placed by someone or were dropped by accident.
"We found some more across the street in the gutter so they could have very well have fallen out of somebody's vehicle and spread over," Garner said. "It could of. I don't know ... they were on Route 8 in the breakdown lane, too."
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