2013 Town Meeting - Night Six

Tonight was the night of a thousand appropriations, and the last night of Town Meeting 2013.  We appropriated funds related to water & sewer facilities, committees, commissions, town celebrations, water bodies, signs, pensions, benefits, reserves, cemeteries, and other funds.  I had a question about how we reimburse people for eminent domain takings if we don't know who owns the property.  (The town holds the funds until the owner can be identified.)  We finished up a little before 10:00.  It was a fun year, and I think we did a good job responding to the concerns of our constituents.  Happy summer to all.

2013 Town Meeting - Night Five

I apologize that I missed the first half of tonight's meeting.  I had to appear before the Everett ZBA on behalf of a client, and the meeting took longer than expected.  I arrived right as break was called.  I missed the review of the Minuteman budget, but I understand it was passed.

When things started after break, we completed the review of the town budgets.  Apparently there was an amendment proposed to transfer $300K from the reserve to the schools to offset student fees.  (It was discussed at the start of tonight's meeting, so I missed it.)  I try to avoid additional expenditures without offsets elsewhere in the budget, so I voted against it.  The amendment did not pass, but we approved the overall budget for the year.

We approved the creation of a stabilization fund for special education funding, so funds budgeted but not spent in a given year can be retained and made available in a future year should needs change.

We ended with a long discussion of the capital budget.  An amendment was presented reallocating funds for a parking study towards new trees to replace those lost last year.  There was a lot of fun discussion about whether a tree was a capital expense and whether one could bond a tree.  In the end we voted down the amendment and approved the budget.  Since it was nearly 11:00, we adjourned until Wednesday.

Town Website Survey

The town's public information officer has asked town meeting members to spread the word about an online survey regarding the town's website.  If you have not taken it yet, please take a few minutes to improve the town's delivery of services.

Thank you,

 

 

Take the Town Website Survey

The Town of Arlington is in the process of updating its website, arlingtonma.gov, with the goal of making it more user-friendly for visitors and more efficient to update for staff.  We would like to learn more about our site visitors, how you use the site and how you view the Town. Your candid responses will be helpful in guiding us as we make early decisions about the content and tone of the Town’s website.

The deadline to take the survey is Wednesday, May 15th. It is anticipated that the new website will be launched in the fall of 2013.

 

The brief nine-question survey can be found here.

 

Direct link in the event the embedded on above does not work.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/5H38TPG

Joan Roman
Public Information Officer
Town of Arlington, MA
www.arlingtonma.gov

2013 Town Meeting - Night Four

Well, depending on how you look at it, we either did next-to-nothing or quite a bit tonight.  We started with hearing several reports:  Uncle Sam, School Department, and the Building Committee.  We then opened with Article 25, which proposed creating an exemption from taxable personal [business] property valued under $2000.  This saves the town money, because it cost more to collect the tax than the tax generated.  Yeah.

We then started into the main budget.  We discussed legal, public works, treasurer, a few others, and spent the last portion of the night on the school budget.  The common topics were sand, salt, trees, and athletic fees.  We adjourned in the middle of the school budget, and we'll pick up with that on Monday.