Chilmark would hike spending 8%
School costs, road repairs, cell phone reception and national policy will be among the topics addressed when Chilmark voters gather for their annual town meeting later this month. Chilmarkers face a $417,091 increase in the town’s overall operating budget, an eight percent hike mostly fueled by the cost of town employee salaries, benefits, and insurance.
Voters take up the 37-article annual town meeting warrant at 7:30 pm Monday evening, April 26, in the Chilmark Community Center.
Two days later, on Wednesday, April 28, Chilmark voters will head to the polls located in the community center between noon and 8 pm to elect town officers and take action on eight ballot questions.
Chilmark voters will be asked to approve six separate Prop 2.5 override questions totaling more than $585,000.
In the largest Prop. 2.5 override, question four asks voters to approve $176,555 to fund the town’s assessment for the Up-Island Regional School District and the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School.
Question five asks voters to approve $92,639 to fund the town’s operating budget.
Other ballot questions include $47,435 meant to enhance emergency medical services; $13,096 for the Dukes County Regional Housing Authority; and $5,663 to increase library staff hours.
Voters will also be asked to pay for a bond to construct a cap for the Tabor House Road landfill. A corresponding warrant article sets a maximum amount of $250,000.
But Warren Doty, Chilmark selectman, said that figure will be amended on town meeting floor to approximately $100,000 based on a low bid received by the town.
Question eight asks voters to weigh in on national affairs and oppose the USA Patriot Act as part of an Island-wide grassroots effort to restrict implementation of provisions of the anti-terrorism legislation.
In the town’s only electoral contest, J.B. Riggs Parker, 70, a retired corporate attorney and former Vineyard Steamship Authority member, will vie with Mary Murphy Boyd, 25, a second-grade teacher at the West Tisbury School for a three-year seat on the Chilmark board.
Town Budget Rises
The Chilmark operating budget for fiscal year 2005, which begins July 1, 2004, is $5,378,198 and represents more than an eight percent increase over the 2004 budget.
The biggest hit comes in the form of benefits for town employees, the cost of which has grown from $525,469 to $593,226, a 13 percent increase. The largest share of that is a jump in retirement costs, from $122,071 to $173,376.
While all Chilmark employees received cost of living increases of approximately four percent, some employees will see higher salary increases of up to 14 percent when combined with grade and step increases tied to longevity and job categories.
For example, the salary of Tim Carroll, executive secretary would rise from $64,687 to $74,166 placing him on a par with police chief Tim Rich who will receive a 4 percent increase. Additional working hours will increase the salary of tax collector Polly McDowell from $43,514 to $49,588.
The salary of fire officers would rise from $22,850 to $26,000.
The cost of general government — which includes the office of the selectmen, treasurer, and planning board, plus legal expenses — will increase by $52,282, approximately eight percent, from $660,668 to $712,950.
The total cost of public safety, second only to education expenses in the share of tax dollars, will rise from $824,353 to $870,787, a six percent increase.
Regional assessments will also increase. Most notably for the Up-Island Regional School District, where the budget will rise from $1,513,900 to $1,689,598.
The town’s assessment for the regional high school will also increase modestly, from $378,488 to $379,345. In total the cost of education will rise from $1,892,388 to $2,068,943, a nine percent increase.
Chilmark taxpayers will see the town’s share of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission budget rise from $125,064 to $125,858.
Total public works — which includes the cost of road maintenance, snow removal, and trash collection — will increase from $318,109 to $346,228. Driving the increase is the regional refuse district assessment which will go from $73,608 to $87,334.
Total culture and recreation, which includes beach, library, and park expenses, will rise from $349,210 to $378,826.
Public safety, zoning top warrant
Public safety, police, fire, and emergency service will be the focus of several warrant articles. All are recommended by the finance advisory committee.
The fire department is requesting voter approval to spend $25,000 to purchase rescue tools and equipment.
The police department is asking for $26,000 to purchase and equip a new police cruiser; and $75,000 to pay for renovations and improvements to the Menemsha School for use by the police department which lost its previous space in the Menemsha Coast Guard station.
Six separate articles, totaling $47,435 in spending, would improve the delivery of emergency medical service in the tri-town district. Voters will be asked to approve a request to accept an ambulance from Aquinnah, provided by the Wampanoag Tribe and pay a share of operational costs; pay for the town’s share of costs for a third seasonal EMT; and upgrade Tri-Town ambulance service to the paramedic level.
Efforts to provide more affordable housing are behind an amendment to the town’s zoning bylaws which would provide incentives for developers of cluster zoning willing to provide affordable housing.
The lack of affordable housing also underpins a request to authorize the selectmen to take property along Middle Line Road already owned by the town by eminent domain in order to clear the title. The town has been unable to reach an agreement with the owner of a 25 percent interest in the clay rights to the land in question, effectively preventing anyone from digging a foundation or securing a mortgage.
By petition
Two articles appear on the warrant through citizen petition.
Article 22 asks the town to authorize selectmen “to lease space atop the tower at Peaked Hill to a wireless company who can provide good service to up-Island.”
The Chilmark area provides notoriously poor cell phone reception. The current radio tower, which required an act of the legislature due to an existing conservation restriction, is used only for public safety agencies including the police and Coast Guard.
Bea Atkinson, one of the sponsors of the measure, said that with technology changing so quickly it is time to take another look at the site for cell phone use.
The Patriot Act, passed by Congress soon after the attacks that brought down the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, killing thousands of people, expanded the powers of law enforcement to combat terrorism.
Article 20 seeks to develop a process under which town employees would respond to requests for information under the provisions of the USA Patriot Act. The article instructs any town employee contacted by state or federal agents and asked to assist or cooperate with an investigation under the provisions of the Patriot Act “to not comply,” and refer the person seeking information to the selectmen.
It would then be up to the selectmen working with town counsel, “to weigh the constitutionality of such orders and the ramifications of following or not following them.”
Supporters of the measure claim that the Patriot Act erodes or destroys basic freedoms guaranteed to all Americans in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
In an OpEd published in The Times on April 1, Zee and Bill Gamson, Chilmark residents and two of many co-sponsors of the article, recalled the abuses of the McCarthy era to bolster their argument that the act “runs counter to rights protected by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments.”
Among other things, they said the Patriot Act allows law enforcement to conduct secret searches of an individual’s home and “gives law enforcement broad access to our personal educational, medical, financial, sales, library, etc. records without probable cause of a crime. It also prohibits the holders of this information, like librarians, from disclosing that they have produced such records, under the threat of jail.”
In an OpEd published in the same issue of The Times, U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan, an Island seasonal resident, said the USA Patriot Act is a “critically important law enforcement tool.”
Mr. Sullivan said a flyer printed in support of the measure and frightening claims made by opponents of the act were misleading and untrue. He urged island voters to get the facts.
Following a point-by-point defense of the act, he said, “The bottom line is that preventing terrorism is hard. But it is the calling of our time. We need the updated and common sense tools the Act provides to get this job done. I am confident that, armed with the facts, the voters of Martha’s Vineyard will agree that we, as a nation, need these tools.”
Tuesday night, Ron Rappaport, town attorney for both West Tisbury and Chilmark, told voters assembled for West Tisbury’s annual town meeting that pasage of an identical article would place town employees at risk of being in violation of federal law. and he could not in good concience recommend it.
The article was indefinately postponed.
