Politics & Government

First Night Of Sherborn's Annual Town Meeting Results

Funding for the Pine Hill Access Road was unable to get a two-thirds vote for approval.

The first night of the 2011 Sherborn Annual Town Meeting is in the books with 17 articles being voted on, and all passing but one line in Article 9 regarding the Pine Hill Access Road project.

The funding for the , Article 9 Line 1, failed to get the necessary two-thirds vote, by a vote of 161 for yes and 99 for no, in a secret ballot, Tuesday night.

The article was hotly contested with several residents and town officials coming to the microphone to state their case as to why or why not they wanted the Pine Hill Access Road.

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“From a public safety perspective the need for the Pine Hill Access Road is critical for the safety of our children, the school staff, our parents and the many volunteers that make Pine Hill part of their daily routine,” said Sherborn Police Chief Rick Thompson.

 “The only means of entry and exit to our Pine Hill School is not safe and has the potential to delay response by emergency personnel, should, God forbid, there be a true emergency,” Thompson said.

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The cost of the proposed project would have been $440,228. Jolanta Eckert, chair of the Capital Budget Committee said that they are looking to keep capital investments at about $2 million over a five-year period.

“What I wanted just to make sure that every taxpayer understands is in addition to this request, there are a number of new requests that are on the ballot and we have about $800,000 worth of capital requests that are either legally mandated or are absolutely critical that we’ve determined that we will be asked to vote on in the next few minutes. And so you need to really think about this in the context of that,” Eckert said.

The motion failed to pass by 13 votes.

There were several key articles that did get passed including Article 3, which was a vote to accept adding a local meals tax of .75%, which according to Sherborn Board of Selectmen chair Paul DeRensis would give Sherborn about $30,000-$35,000 annually.

Article 11 passed, which was a vote to see if the town would approve borrowing authorized by the Dover-Sherborn Regional School Committee for the funding of reconstructing or repairing the . The project is mandated by the state Department of Environmental Protection because the current status of the facility in place has been deemed non-compliant.

The preliminary design of the project (Article 12), was passed by the voters, allowing them to apply for a state grant that could fund up to 50% of the construction costs of the project.

Before the vote Selectmen George Pucci urged voters to support the passing Article 12.

“The Board of Selectmen is in unanimous support of this being passed to go forward. Just to remind the voters that we’re not being asked to fund anything at this point. If a no vote on this and not allowing it to go forward, the library folks cannot even apply to the state for this grant. So we will never know how many millions would be contributed to the project, we will never know how much the library was actually able to fundraise for the project and we’re urging you to support this project,” Pucci said. 

The second night of Town Meeting is scheduled for Thursday, April 28 at 7:00 p.m. at the Lindquist Commons at the Dover-Sherborn Regional High School in Dover. If necessary, a third night of Town Meeting would be held on May 3 at the Sherborn Community Center at 7:00 p.m.

 

Here are the results of the first night of Town Meeting as follows:

Article Result Article 1 Motion Passed Article 2 Motion Passed Article 3 Motion Passed Article 4 Motion Passed Article 5 Motion Passed Article 6 Motion Passed Article 7 Motion Passed Article 8 Motion Passed Article 9

Line 1- Motion Failed

Line 2- Motion Passed

Line 3- Motion Passed

Line 4- Motion Passed

Line 5- Motion Passed

Line 6- Motion Passed

Article 10 Motion Passed Article 11 Motion Passed Article 12 Motion Passed Article 13 Motion Passed Article 14 Motion Passed Article 15 Motion Passed Article 16 Motion Passed Article 17 Motion Passed


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