Tisbury town meeting is Saturday

A full three months after selectmen voted to postpone town meeting, and 74 days later than they expected to do the town’s business, Tisbury voters will head to town meeting on Saturday, June 13, at 1 pm, wearing masks, to conduct the town’s business under a tent on the field at Tisbury School. The town has set up specific protocols for the meeting.

On March 13, Tisbury was the first town to postpone its annual town meeting as the pandemic took hold, and has since delayed it twice. (You can delay a town meeting only in 30-day increments.) 

Along with the annual town meeting warrant, there are two special town meetings for voters to consider.

The annual town meeting warrant has 33 articles, but voters will be asked to skip 14 of them both to save money and to avoid lengthy debates. Among the articles that town leaders are suggesting be put on hold are $170,000 for a master plan, $98,000 for two pickup trucks, and $30,000 for communications equipment.

On the special town meeting warrant, zoning issues, how to spend money generated by short-term rental taxes, and managing plastics are being held for another day. 

Because the articles remain on the warrant, however, voters could move to consider them.

That is likely to happen with a petitioned article by the kids of Plastic Free MV to ban plastic bottles of 34 ounces or less, a measure that the kids were able to get approved in three up-Island towns last year. While selectmen are asking voters to hold off on that article, in a letter to The Times, the kids of Plastic Free MV urge voters to pass the restriction.

Voters will also be asked to approve the town’s $29.8 million budget, and to deal with other funding articles required to keep the town operating into fiscal 2021.