Tuesday, April 23, 2013

2013 Town Meeting - Night One

Arlington's Annual Town Meeting started up tonight.  We made reasonable progress.  It was nice to have most of the expected reports submitted on the first night for a change.  I hope that will keep things moving right along.

We started with the easy moves of reelecting Elsie Fiore as the Measurer of Wood and Bark and James O'Connor as the Assistant Moderator.

The zoning bylaw changes were next.  There were only three, because the town is preparing a new master plan, and that will likely propose changes to the zoning.  In the meantime, we are only making smaller changes.  The recommended vote on accessory apartments was for no action, so we passed on it.  We had a long discussion regarding marijuana dispensaries.  In the end, I voted with the minority for the proposed bylaw (the article failed) and with the majority for the one-year moratorium.  We will need to come back next year and put zoning restrictions into place.

Next was a vote to approve an easement from the town to allow Verizon to move a few poles so the Thompson School could have a better drop-off area.  That passed easily.  We also voted to change "junk" dealers to "second-hand" dealers; the older language is from the State, but new store owners found it offensive.  We then passed on Article 11 regarding changing the restrictions on certain town properties - the no action recommendation was confirmed.

The most debated article of the night was regarding the adoption of electronic voting during town meeting.  There was an excellent presentation and a lively debate.  In the end, we voted for open accountability, and passed both the authorizing language in the bylaw and a sum of money to be used next year to fund a pilot program.  We then adjourned for the night.

If you have any questions about my votes or what happened at the meeting, please send me a note.

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