HANSON – The Select Board conducted a final review and voted to close the Town Meeting warrant at its meeting on Tuesday, April 9.
Town Administrator Lisa Green said there were no changes to the special Town Meeting warrant, but said the annual Town Meeting warrant changed in view of the new budget figures.
“Town Counsel did review the articles and provided information, suggestions and edits,” Green said.
Vice Chair Joe Weeks questioned putting the budget article near the end of the warrant.
“I get putting the budget in the back to try to strategically keep people in Town Meeting as long as possible,” he said. “But part of me questions whether or not people are going to be able to make judgments, because you do see people that kind of follow along with what we are doing.”
Green noted the budget is Article 5.
“One of the budgets is Article 5,” Weeks replied. “If we’re giving two budgets I think they should be side by side.”
Select Board member Ann Rein asked which should be moved.
“That’s tricky,” said Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett. “I’m neutral about where it is, but they do need to be side-by-side.”
Weeks advocated for placing both budget articles early on the warrant. Town Counsel Kate Feodoroff agreed, more from a practical standpoint, as it is not legally required.
“I don’t like the idea of putting it early in the meeting because I fear once the decision is made about the override or no override, we’re going to have a mass exodus, and we [then] won’t have a quorum,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “That’s just a reality. I know it will happen.”
Weeks said the budgets have to be moved up, because he disagrees with having Town Meeting make decisions on capital expenditures without approving the budget first.
“I’d be afraid to put them at the end, because what I you [lose] a quorum, and then you don’t have a budget,” Feodoroff said.
Weeks agreed that would present a worst-case scenario.
“People won’t leave,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “I’d bet on that and I’m not a betting person, because that’s the main reason people are going to be coming to the Town Meeting.”
“I don’t disagree, but I think we have to vote on the budget before we start spending money,” Weeks said.
The School budget, which had been Article 32, was then moved up to Article 6.
“We don’t need to know the order in order to close the warrant, because we’ve voted on placing and what order they are doesn’t really matter,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said before the board voted to close the warrant.
Town Planner Anthony DeFrias provided some information on Article 4, pertaining to a Right-to-Farm bylaw, as well.
“If you recall, in our last meeting, we just felt like we should have the Planning Board kick the tires because it was going to be a zoning bylaw [changes] and have some impact,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
The Planning Board, on April 8, met to discuss the article and offered it comments, including asking the Select Board to table it until the October Town Meeting to allow further discussion and research of the law, and that the Select Board consider seeking an opinion from town counsel as well as from communities that have implemented the Right-to-Farm law.
The board voted to postpone the article to the October Town Meeting.
“I think that’s kind of where we were at,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We just felt that we needed more info because we weren’t sure if there would be pitfall for the unwary, so I think all those suggestions are excellent.”
She added that board has asked town counsel to review the bylaw.
“Town counsel is not going to necessarily advise us on whether this is good for Hanson or not good for Hanson,” she said. “That’s our decision, but I do feel it’s a good idea to talk to other towns and find out if there were pitfalls for the unwary that [they encountered]. … And there wasn’t any particular sense of urgency to get this done. We were just trying to be responsive.”
The budget, on the warrant as Article 5, was being reviewed by the Finance Committee that night, as Town Accountant Eric Kinsherf had finished the budget article that day, Green said.
Article 6, covering zoning violation fines from the Building Department, was questioned by Feodoroff.
“If it’s housed in the Zoning Bylaw, it needs a public hearing, [and] I don’t know if that’s happened,” said Feodoroff, who attended the meeting virtually. “It needs to be published and a public hearing.”
She said that, if it is a Zoning Bylaw change as the article suggests, the Planning Board must hold the hearing. Because of the time required for posting hearing notices in the newspaper – twice within the two weeks before a hearing – the Select Board postponed the article to the October Town Meeting.
Article 10, involving new equipment for the Highway Department, using free cash, were recommended, despite Kinsherf’s warning that it is unaffordable at this time as the articles would leave only $311,000 in free cash.