In Edgartown, voters happy to spend. All done.
Edgartown voters debated, but not for very long, and they spent, but not more than they were asked to spend. And just after 9 pm - about the time voters in the neighboring towns of Tisbury and Oak Bluffs likely realized they would have to return on additional nights - Edgartown voters filed out of the stately Old Whaling Church having approved a $26 million operating budget and most of the 53 warrant articles.
A total of 257, or eight percent, of Edgartown's 3,094 registered voters attended annual town meeting.
Today voters go to the polls in the Town Hall meeting room, between 10 am and 7 pm, to elect town officers. There are no contests, but voters must decide seven ballot questions, worth $829,470 in Proposition 2.5 override requests.
Even as voters continued to file in, at the scheduled 7 pm start, town clerk Wanda Williams confirmed that a quorum of 155 voters had assembled. With a bang of his gavel, moderator Philip "Jeff" Norton kicked into action.
In the time reserved for town reports, selectman Art Smadbeck described the fiscal caution that had guided budget decisions. He said the town would be under its levy limit by $125,000. That cushion is important, Mr. Smadbeck said, because of uncertainty over how much money the town will receive from the state.
Forty-nine of 53 articles on the annual town meeting warrant required action by voters. Procedures rather than money were at the heart of several of the issues voters raised.
The first article to attract an objection, Article 5, combined a request for adjustments to seasonal wage scales with a request to create the position of finance director and establish a salary at the town's highest grade level.
Pia Webster, a town employee, said that the town should not be establishing new positions in a year when it was not providing cost of living adjustments. At the very least, she said, the creation of a new job should be treated in a separate article.
Ms. Webster laced her arguments with repeated bodyweight metaphors. Following a reference to Ben and Jerry's ice cream, she said, "The town is supposed to be getting slim."
Exercising his trademark humor, Mr. Norton, who has grown in his job as moderator over more than two decades of service, said, "I wish you'd stop talking about that."
Pam Dolby, town administrator, explained that a finance director is needed because of increasingly burdensome financial requirements. No money was attached to the new positions, she said, which would be funded from existing departments.
A voter said the town had no business voting on a position without a job description.
At Mr. Norton's suggestion, the article was split in two. Voters approved the seasonal adjustments and turned down the creation of a pay grade for a finance director.
Voters barely blinked as they reviewed the town's $25,978,007 operating budget for fiscal year 2010, which begins on July 1. They could take some comfort in the fact that some line item numbers were the same or less than in the previous fiscal year.
Article 13, a request to appropriate money into various community preservation fund accounts, included a request from Peter Vincent, chairman of the Community Preservation Act (CPA) committee, to reduce the amount it expected to place in the reserve fund from $403,100 to $370,000. The reason, he explained, is that the Department of Revenue had said that the state's matching share, once 100 percent, could possibly be reduced to 29 percent. The committee wanted to be cautious, he said.
As anticipated, a request for $195,000 in CPA funds to restore and repair parts of the Edgartown Public Library's Carnegie building sparked debate. Larry Mercier, a member of the finance advisory committee, argued that unlike most of the articles on the warrant, this one did not carry the committee's recommendation.
"We did not come to the decision lightly," said Mr. Mercier, the town's former town highway superintendent. He said the committee's objections were based on a feasibility study for relocating the library. Any repairs should be made after the library is brought up to current building code standards and not before the library is moved, he said.
Pat Rose, chairman of the library trustees, also quoted from an engineering study to buttress the argument that moving the building would not affect needed interior work. And delay would mean the building would only deteriorate.
Tom Durawa, fin com member and former selectman and teacher, said it is not a question of how well the library served the community. The question is the timing, and the timing is wrong, he said.
Bob Fynbo disagreed. The timing is perfect, he said, in terms of creating jobs and bringing workers into town.
The arguments went back and forth. Call the question, said several voters. The article carried handily.
A request for $15,000 from the CPA fund to help pay for design services to help convert the cafeteria of the old school into a theater and community space was tripped up when it was explained that the town had yet to select a proposal for the design services. Voters objected to putting the cart before the horse. The article carried but with an amendment making it contingent on acceptance of a proposal.
Debate over a request for $27,842 to fund an engineering study and survey for a proposed bike path on Chappaquiddick was avoided when bike path committee member Peter Wells asked that the amount be reduced to $6,270. He asked that voters not argue the issue now and assured them that the committee intended to search for middle ground in order to find the best possible solution to the issue.
The article carried with no debate.
A request for $5,000 to evaluate the possibility of placing wireless antennas on the top of the Katama Farm silo and the Chappaquiddick fire station was greeted with little angst. Pete Vincent, chairman of the conservation commission, said placement of wireless antennas could generate approximately $50,000 annually for the town.
Mr. Smadbeck said the town wanted to find out what was feasible. Issues of service and aesthetics would be balanced when the time came to look at proposals, he said. He said selectmen thought it was a good idea to keep moving on it.
Jane Varkonda, conservation commission agent, said any proposal would need to go to the planning board. The water tower was added to the study with an amendment.
A request to fund the dredge program brought a complaint about changes to Bend in the Road Beach as a result of the disposal of dredge spoils. Norman Rankow, long-time chairman of the dredge committee, said management had been the program's "Achilles heel." He said the committee had recently hired a knowledgeable foreman. "We've been running the program by committee and that is no way to run a business," he said.
Mr. Rankow outlined the benefits to the town of the recent work that included additional beach, a dune system that would protect the beach and planted dune grass.
Voters quickly moved through the remaining articles. At 9:06 pm voters marched out amid a quiet murmur of discussion.
