Early Town Meeting Puts the Crunch on Local Committees and Departments

With an early special town meeting this year, the advisory committee is just one of the groups finding out that time is now at a premium.

With the meeting scheduled for Nov. 4, committee members are worried that the date does not give the 13 person group a chance to properly review and give their recommendation for articles on on the warrant.

“It’s still tight logistically to get everything done we need two weeks before. It’s just really tight. All we can do is what we can do,” committee member Larry Thomas told the selectmen.

Recently, chairman Paul DeFazio recommended pushing the town meeting to the second of third week of November but a move would shorten the six month period needed to create the plans for an article to build a new town hall at the annual town meeting in May.

The meeting was moved from it's usual December date to accommodate an article that would fund the planning process for a new town hall.

“We’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. If we move it forward we’re giving AdCom plenty of time but we’re pushing town hall,” selectman Jim DeVellis said at last week’s selectmen meeting.

With previous attempts to obtain the funding needed to design and create a plan for a new town hall, this may be the one of the last chances to get money needed so something can be proposed in May.

“This is our opportunity if we miss it, we may not get this chance for some time,” selectman John Grey said.

Usually the advisory committee meets once a week with the early meetings used for introductory purposes. But with only weeks until the town meeting, extra sessions may be needed to address each issue. White there were initially 14 article set for the special town meeting, there are now seven due to the limited time available to study the articles.

To help cut down the articles, departments were asked which of their articles could be put on hold or withdrawn.

DeVellis suggested ranking the seven remaining articles by priority to make sure the advisory committee can address the most pressing articles.

If extra time is needed to review articles, selectmen chairman Mark Sullivan proposed a second special town meeting early next year.

“If they can’t vet these out we’ll have another meeting in January. It’s not that big of a deal,” Sullivan said.

The warrant has been closed for the special town meeting and will likely be approved at the selectmen’s next meeting on Sept. 17.