Busy Nights Ahead For Town Meeting

     Town Moderator Robert W. Parady said that his best estimate for length of this year’s Spring Town Meeting is three days. There are 29 articles on the warrant for the Annual Town Meeting and 11 on the Special Town Meeting warrant.
     The action begins Monday at 7:30 PM at Bourne High School’s Beth Bourne Auditorium, when voters start to address issues that include a much-disputed proposal to change the town’s noise bylaw, as well as a request to raise property taxes for the expansion and renovation of the Jonathan Bourne Public Library.
     Articles up for the vote also include a proposed targeted override designed to add five new officers to the Bourne Police Department.
     Mr. Parady said that, even with his expertise, it is often hard to predict which articles will be in contention and which will flow smoothly through the process. Some small ticket items, in terms of dollar amounts, were much discussed during this year’s budget process.
     Those items included contention over a rise in the amount of money selectmen receive for expenses. Discussion of that proposal centered on the fact that the selectmen’s expense money is paid in a lump-sum fashion instead of as a reimbursement, making some people want to characterize the payment as salary. Selectmen’s salary is $1,500 each, for a total of $7,500. Adding in the rise in expenses proposed as a part of the Fiscal Year 2009 budget would give selectmen $2,400 each for combined salary and expenses.
     Another much-discussed proposal, this one made by the Capital Outlay Committee, would commit $22,000 for a further study that would include funding options for the building of a wastewater treatment plant in Bournedale, one that could expand to serve the area of Bourne north of the Cape Cod Canal. Capital outlay members thought the study money would be well spent, giving  the town a better idea whether grants, loans, or money from private developers might be available to lower the cost of the project to the town. Opponents of the project disagreed with the expenditure.
     Mr. Parady said that sometimes a zoning bylaw change, for example, elicits unforeseen opposition. Town Meeting always holds some surprises.
     Bourne’s annual meeting will be opened at 7:30 PM on Monday, or as soon thereafter as a quorum is present. That meeting will then be recessed at about 8 PM, and the Special Town Meeting convened.
     If Mr. Parady’s prediction as to the length of Town Meeting holds true, Town Meeting will be continued to Tuesday night, resuming again on Monday, May 12, if there is still business to be conducted after Tuesday night. By custom, Town Meeting does not run three consecutive nights, because, historically, attendance has dropped drastically on the third night.
     In Bourne, Annual Town Meeting articles that have been deemed necessary for the function of town government are addressed at the beginning of the annual meeting in the order in which they appear in the warrant. All other Bourne Town Meeting articles are addressed in the order in which their number is drawn during the meeting by a representative from the town clerk’s office.
     The Budget
     The Fiscal Year 2009 budget tops the list of those Annual Town Meeting articles necessary to run the town.
     Article 3 asks voters to approve the budgeting of approximately $50 million for Bourne’s  regular, annual expenses. It is set out in full in the Voter’s Handbook, along with the finance committee’s report on fiscal matters. That operating budget will be balanced with the use of $611,381 in free cash reserves.  
     The finance committee, which has been supportive of the budget process, will make its formal recommendation as to the budget at Town Meeting. It has already voted to recommend the town’s two enterprise budgets, for the Department of Integrated Solid Waste Management and the sewer department. The ISWM budget shows expenses up 8.4 percent, due primarily to increases in utility and gasoline costs, engineering services, insurance, and salaries. The Sewer Enterprise Fund budget is described by the finance committee as “bare bones.”
     Voters will also be asked to approve the use of a little over $1 million in Community Preservation Act funds and $5.25 million for capital improvement projects, $2.2 million of which is for work on Phases IIA and IIIA of the landfill. In recommending approval of that article, the finance committee noted that several items are being funded from sources such as the dedicated waterways fund, retained ISWM and Sewer Enterprise Fund earnings and transfers from authorized, but unused, past borrowings.
     Police Override
     Article 20 asks voters whether they would be willing to raise property taxes to add five officers to the police department, enabling the town to put a fourth cruiser on the road. If approved at Town Meeting, this article, which asks whether the town can raise and appropriate $370,000 for that purpose, would be in effect only if voters subsequently approve an override of the Proposition 2 1/2 tax levy limit at the May 20 town election. A general override is required  because the expense of retaining those employees will remain in future years. The finance committee says an override for that amount would add 8 cents to the tax rate, translating to $24 for the owner of real estate valued at $300,000. FinCom unanimously  recommended approval of the article.
     Library Override
     Voters will also be asked whether they want to authorize the town to borrow $6.3 million toward the $9.1 million needed for the construction, renovation, and addition to the Jonathan Bourne Public Library, built as a school in 1924 and last renovated in 1985. The library has received a grant of $2.8 million from the state. The Friends of the Library are expecting to be able to raise $500,000 and thus reduce the amount of the town’s share, bringing it down to about $5.8 million. The implementation of this article, if approved at Town Meeting, is contingent on a successful debt exclusion vote at the May 20 municipal election. Assuming the library raises the money it anticipates, a debt exclusion for $5.8 million would cost the median Bourne property taxpayer about $42.97, or 11 cents for every $1,000 of their property’s assessed value, during the first year of the loan. By year 20 of that loan, that number would be down to $23.30.
     Those impact numbers are based on a home assessed at $375,000, using the town’s assessed valuation for Fiscal Year 2008.
     Noise Bylaw (Special Town Meeting)
     The proposed changes to the noise bylaw are found in Article 1 of the Special Town Meeting warrant, as printed in the Voter’s Handbook. Since there are only 11 articles on that warrant, and those will begin to be addressed at 8 PM on Monday, this article might be reached on the first night of Town Meeting.
     Kelly M. Morley, a Shearwater Drive, Cataumet, resident, has become a spokesman for all those people kept awake by noise from nearby bars and restaurants. Her name, followed by “and others” appears in the handbook as the sponsor of a citizen’s petition that asks that the town’s noise bylaw be amended to include establishments with liquor licenses.
     That would mean no restaurant or bar with an entertainment license could have noise that is audible 150 feet from its property line. Those establishments are currently exempt from the bylaw, and governed only under their licenses.
     Ms. Morley agreed to present that article at Town Meeting.
     Discussion of the amendment, first proposed by Selectmen Judith W. Conron and Linda M. Zuern, began to look as if it would pit business people against tired town residents.
     The finance committee, charged by the town charter with advising Town Meeting voters as to all warrant articles, heard from all sides of the noise controversy several weeks ago, but took the matter under advisement. Committee members will vote on the measure on Monday, just prior to the start of Town Meeting, announcing their position on Town Meeting floor.
     FinCom member Michele W. Ford said at the last FinCom meeting that she had been doing some research and came across a Rutgers University website. Rutgers has a Noise Technical Assistance Center, part of the air and noise training program at the New Jersey institution’s Department of Environmental Sciences. Ms. Ford said that site not only offers assistance to towns, it has several model bylaws posted online. Based on those models, she said, Bourne’s existing bylaw is archaic. The model bylaw had specific provisions for everything from residential areas to businesses on top of residences. She urged for time to allow selectmen to find a compromise that would satisfy both residents and businesses, and urged selectmen to rewrite the bylaw, whatever decision voters make at Town Meeting.
     The town’s Bylaw Committee opposed the proposed bylaw changes, saying selectmen needed a comprehensive rewrite of the noise measure and suggesting that the town create a bylaw committee comprising both residents and business people. At their April 22 meeting, selectmen decided to give that committee the opportunity to take on the challenge of rewriting the bylaw, if it would agree to do so.
     Odds And Ends
     Other significant articles to be discussed include:
     Zoning bylaw changes, minor changes to the Local Comprehensive Plan recommended by the Cape Cod Commission, and a request for approval of funding for an inventory of all municipally owned facilities, including a review of their condition and recommendations as to necessary renovation or replacement.
     Money was left over after the completion of a feasibility study looking at the possibility of building a new department of public works facility. Now that the study is complete, voters will be asked if the unused money can be used for engineering and design work.
     Town Meeting attendees will be given a short overview of the results of the DPW study at the start of Town Meeting on Tuesday.
     Among the other 10 Special Town Meeting articles is one that addresses the payment of several bills received after the close of the fiscal year and one that increases the number of bylaw committee members from five to seven. Another proposed article would give the Buzzards Bay Water District control over the town-owned lot it uses for parking, allowing the district to make improvements to the property.
     An article would give the town permission to spend $10,000 more than voters had previously approved to replace the town’s pump-out boat. The bids for that boat came in higher than expected. Permission to purchase a new patrol boat is also on the special’s  warrant. If that measure is approved during the Special Town Meeting, instead of being made a part of the capital outlay budget for next year, the boat could be purchased this season rather than after July 1, 2008, when FY09 begins.
     A variety of studies would be funded if several other articles are approved: an operational study of the landfill, paid for by the landfill’s enterprise fund; the use of $35,000 for a consultant or other assistance in coordinating community and economic development projects, such as the Buzzards Bay revitalization efforts; and $10,000 so that the planning board can use its consultant to begin work on revised zoning bylaws.
     The Bourne Finance Committee has voted on and recommended approval of all of the Special Town Meeting articles except for two. FinCom will make a recommendation as to the noise bylaw proposal and a proposed amendment to the Fiscal Year 2007 budget on the floor of Town Meeting.
     The proposed amendment of last fiscal year’s budget would authorize using $273,000 that was budgeted for the Group Insurance Account, but never spent, to pay for last winter’s snow and ice bills, as well as to pay for the assistance the Assessor’s Office needs to prepare for its upcoming property revaluation year.