Oak Bluffs postpones special town meeting

Town administrator expects business to be delayed until spring 2021.

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Oak Bluffs special town meeting has been postponed until spring 2021.

Oak Bluffs has postponed its special town meeting that was slated for Saturday, Nov. 14, at 12 pm amid concerns about the increasing number of COVID-19 cases on the Island.

The decision to postpone the meeting — which was scheduled to be held indoors at the Oak Bluffs School — was made by town moderator Jack Law in consultation with the health department. 

“As a result of the recent uptick in coronavirus cases on the Island, our Islandwide metrics, according to Health Department statistics, place us in the red zone at the present time,” town administrator Robert Whritenour wrote to The Times in an email. “With both an increase in cases on the Island and across the commonwealth, our board of health requested reconsideration of the upcoming town meeting date.”

The 18-article special town meeting was scheduled in part to decide on several warrant articles that were moved from the annual town meeting warrant on June 16. That meeting was postponed several times due to the pandemic, and the warrant was slimmed down to comply with Gov. Charlie Baker’s request that town meetings be shortened.

The delay of the special town meeting will not affect town finances as those were set at the annual town meeting. 

“It will be unlikely that we will be able to actually hold a town meeting until early spring,” Whritenour wrote. “Additional delay will be in the areas of implementing the Capital Improvement Program recommendations for the current year as well as delaying our bid to gain Green Community status. These issues will be pursued in addition to the petition articles to regulate consumer plastics as soon as it is practical to conduct a town meeting.”

Green Community status provides a roadmap and financial support to municipalities that cut energy use by 20 percent over five years, and meet four other criteria. One of those criteria is for the town to adopt the Massachusetts building stretch code for energy efficiency. Buildings constructed to the stretch code use significantly less energy than buildings constructed under other codes.

Another important article is for $510,000 to construct a 50-space park-and-ride lot on town land on the corner of County Road and Pennsylvania Avenue. The project would be funded by a Proposition 2½ debt exclusion, which is a temporary increase in property taxes.

Voters would have also decided on appropriating $200,000 for a 20 percent match for a $1 million Massachusetts Seaport Economic Council Grant for improvements to the North Bluff area.

Other articles included funding $55,000 for maintenance projects for the library and the Kennebec Avenue public restrooms, $50,000 for a dump truck for the highway department, $32,000 for a shellfish department truck, and $25,000 for maintenance to the Ocean Park bandstand.