With renovations to Howes House indefinitely delayed, West Tisbury is looking to instead use funding for a project to remove invasive trees at its upcoming special town meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 16.
The town meeting, held at 6 pm at the West Tisbury School, will consider just four articles.
In the warrant, West Tisbury requests redirecting $66,150 that was originally approved by voters during the annual town meeting in April 2022 for Howes House renovations. Work on the up-Island senior center has been indefinitely postponed and the funding still remains unspent. Instead, the town is looking to use this funding to pay Wilkinson Ecological for the “design, permitting, construction, and restoration costs” to remove 20 “large invasive grey willow trees from the town-owned Mill Pond.”
Meanwhile, the town is also looking to amend its “map and lot sign numbers” section of its bylaws with clearer language.
The other two requests include funding transfer requests: moving $8,984.24 from “health insurance appropriation” to the unemployment compensation stabilization fund and moving $108,000 from the town treasurer’s personal services line to the treasurer’s professional services line to fund contracted services.
I can just imagine the cost of removing one tree…enough to pay a salary for a year. When is West Tisbury going to have a senior citizen discount on taxes?