West Tisbury voters will be asked to weigh in on eight spending requests, two of which relate to the development of affordable housing on a lot adjacent to the fire station on the Edgartown–West Tisbury Road when they convene for a special town meeting at 7 pm Tuesday in the West Tisbury School.
“There isn’t a whole lot to talk about, actually,” selectman Richard Knabel told The Times Tuesday when asked to comment on the warrant.
Mr. Knabel explained the sticking point over the affordable housing proposal for a town-owned parcel of land at 565 Edgartown Road.
“The town approved four units of housing on that spot for low-income rental housing, but the affordable housing committee really wants to have nine units,” Mr. Knabel said. “The housing committee said that there was a mistake as to how the article was worded, and they want the town to reconsider so they can build nine units instead of four.”
The housing would be for people earning 80 percent or below the area-wide median income standard. Voters will be asked to spend $50,000 for predevelopment.
There is nothing “on paper” yet, as first it must be determined if there will be four or nine units.
Mr. Knabel highlighted the issue. “I should point out that there are neighbors that are not the least bit happy about the effort to go to nine units, and there are some neighbors there who are not even happy about the four,” he said.
Voters will also be asked to appropriate $57,000 to fund changes in the personnel bylaw. “Every five years the personnel bylaw and classification and pay schedule is reviewed,” Mr. Knabel said, “and then it must be approved by town meeting. This was not done in time for the April [annual] town meeting, so it’s being done now at the special, so the changes, assuming the town goes along with it, can happen in this fiscal year. If we have to wait until April, that would create a real problem for handling it, because we would have a lot of arrears to pay retroactively and so forth.”
Voters will be asked to spend $12,500 on maintenance work at the Howes House and $4,000 to relocate a light at the intersection of State Road and Old County Road. “When the state rebuilt the intersection, they essentially moved it, and the streetlight that is there really no longer provides the kind of coverage that we like to have in an important intersection,” Mr. Knabel said. “It looks like the only way we are going to get a streetlight where we want it is to pay for it ourselves.”
A request for $6,000 to repair a section of the decrepit cemetery fence is “the latest chapter of a now long-running saga,” Mr. Knabel said. At one point voters appropriated $75,000, but that was not enough, and the funding was withdrawn, leaving no money for repair or replacement.
“This is now one of the worst sections of the fence that is literally falling down,” Mr. Knabel said.
Voters will also be asked to take up a list of changes in the sign bylaw.
