2012 Town Meeting - Night Six

Welcome to the end of week three.  We picked up with our discussion regarding rubbish collection.  The proposal was to require leftover garbage on the curb be removed before 9:00pm that day.  There were two amendments intended to extend that period in case trash pickup was delayed or skipped.  In the end we went with the more succinct language extending the period to 9:00pm the day after normal pickup.  This was the final action of the special town meeting, which was then adjourned.

The next item was an attempt to reconsider article 32 regarding merging town departments.  The proponent felt that by agreeing to accept the report, we were starting down the consolidation path, and he wanted to prohibit further research on this topic until it could be acted upon by Town Meeting next year.  The vote did not meet the threshold, and the article remained closed.

The next three articles dealt with Minuteman Tech.  The first was a request to the Minuteman retirement board to allow the town to repay the court judgement against it over a period of ten years rather than all at once.  The is related to pension obligations based on the Minuteman pensions being overseen for a period of ten years in the 70's and early 80's.  The superintendent stated his intention to support this request with the board.  We then discussed whether to approve the school's operating budget.  There was significant discussion about the inequalities inherent in the way Minuteman is administered; we have 30% of the students and costs, but only 6% of the voting power.  It was proposed to cut the amount of money requested in protest, but since the other communities approved the budget, we were obligated to pay the full amount no matter what.  We voted down the substitute motion and approved the allocation.  The third item received no action.

The final topic of the night was gas-powered leaf blowers.  The proposal is to ban them outright in town due to the noise levels and their tendency to blow whatever happens to be on the lawn onto adjacent properties.  We'll pick this up next time