Special Town Meeting - January 25, 2016

I completely forgot to complete my notes from January's special town meeting.  Here are my partial notes.  If I tried to complete them now, I'm sure it wouldn't be accurate.

Tonight was a Special Town Meeting to discuss several financial issues related to the schools.  Articles 2 and 3 were related to the renovations to the Stratton School.  This is the last of the elementary schools to be renovated.  The first article was to appropriate funds to lease modular classrooms to house the students during the build.  The second was to fund the renovations.  These votes represent the completion of the town's commitment to replace all the elementary schools.  Both measures passed easily.

The fourth article was to use some of the town's annual reserve fund to provide two modular classrooms at the Thompson School to help alleviate overcrowding.  Although this school was completed recently, it is already over-enrolled.   The funding mechanism from the state didn't allow to build the school larger that was originally required.  The vote was complicated by two amendments.  The first sought to change the funding to the capital budget.  The second sought to direct the community preservation committee to allocate its funds to the recreation department, so those funds could be returned to the capital budget to pay for the classrooms.  In the discussion, there were several problems brought forth with the proposed amendments.