West Tisbury cancels special town meeting, as business dwindles

By Heather Curtis - November 1, 2007

Following a meeting of the town finance committee (FinCom), on Monday West Tisbury selectmen decided to call off the special town meeting scheduled for November 27.

The decision to cancel the meeting followed the elimination of three separate money requests that reduced the warrant to four articles.

In a joint meeting with the selectmen on Monday, the FinCom voted 3-1 to transfer $3,250 from the reserve fund for the Board of Assessors to cover costs related to departmental training for its new assessor. In another 3-1 vote, they transferred $12,000 to the town hall building committee to cover the costs of printing bid documents and specifications and costs related to public hearings during the town hall renovation design and bidding phase.

Following the FinCom actions, selectmen Glenn Hearn and Jeffrey "Skipper" Manter voted to cancel the special town meeting. Selectman Dianne Powers, who was out of town, did not attend.

At last week's regular selectmen's meeting, the selectmen had indicated that the special town meeting might be cancelled after a request to appropriate $15,000 from free cash to replace a shed at the tennis courts was dropped from the warrant because of a procedural misstep. Mr. Hearn pointed out that the project had not gone before the capital improvements committee, which is required for all expenditures of more than $10,000.

Richard Reinhardsen, parks and recreation committee member, said the committee had no problem with getting everything organized and looking to the spring town meeting.

With the special town meeting warrant down to five articles, Mr. Manter said the meeting might not happen. The selectmen wanted to wait until Monday night's meeting with the FinCom before making the final decision to cancel the meeting.

In other business at last Wednesday's selectmen's meeting, members of the town energy committee received approval to meet with town counsel Ronald Rappaport to discuss questions related to a proposed project to build a wind turbine at the West Tisbury School.

Heather Curtis is a contributing reporter.