Thoughts on the Sturbridge Town Meeting Warrant

Monday, June 6 is the annual town meeting in Sturbridge. In the small towns of New England this is a tradition which goes back to the founding of our communities. Unlike towns like Southbridge as an example, who no longer hold "Town Meetings" in the same sense as Sturbridge does, this is the main way for voters to have a say on exactly how their money is spent,

Read the history of
New England Town
Meetings from
Amazon

The Town Meeting Warrant and Report of the Finance Committee is interesting reading, and I will write more on it in days to come. For now, I will concentrate on the warrant and some of the articles. 

In Sturbridge, the annual budget is voted on line by line. You have the right to challenge (or put a hold on) any line item. If you don't think the Town Manager deserves his salary, you can put a hold on it, and there will be a discussion on it later. The process is to go through each item, line by line, and at the end of this process to approve those with no holds and then go back and discuss the ones with holds. I am not an expert on this by any stretch of the imagination, and I know some salaries are based on signed contracts, etc. and may not be able to be changed, but hey, go for it anyway if you feel the need.

Let's look at some of the things which they want your tax dollars for this year.

Article 5, 6:  $13,050.00 to preserve historic documents by scanning and digitizing them. In my opinion here is an example of an expenditure, while it would be nice is not necessary. I love history, I love old records, but should I as a taxpayer be required to pay for them? In the report of the Finance Committee they talk about what good shape the town's finances are in, but they also say they don't know about the state's finances are in which could affect state aid. In times of uncertainty, should we be saving wherever we can, just in case?

Read about OSV
from Amazon

Article 7, 44:  Remember when they told us what a good deal it was for us to accept the "Donation" of land from OSV because we would have all this land for recreational use and it wouldn't cost us anything? Well now they want $8,101.24 for some bridges at the Camp Robinson Crusoe area and $10,000.00 for trails.

Article 9: Some people may think their s*** don't stink, but it is going to cost you a whole lot more to get rid of it when they approve the budget for the Sewer Department. It will go from $4.59 to $7.97 per 100 cubic feet of stuff. Personally I think I''ll start using the backyard. Okay, just kidding, all you angry environmentalists can keep your emails, I'll just wait until I get to work to go.

Article 25: It's not often I agree to the various amendments to the Town's Zoning By-laws but I actually agree with this one. Currently the zoning laws regarding parking for businesses are pretty restrictive, basically because there is no room for parking due to these restrictions. This will fix that allowing businesses to share lots, something they can't do now.

Article 29: Remember all the snow this winter and the moaning and groaning about having to shovel your sidewalks within 24 hours, vote yes on this one and you will now have 48 hours. Now, if we have another winter like last winter, where it snowed every two days, you could get away without shoveling, at least until they figure out a way to color code the snow so they know which fell on which day.

Article 47: Since we didn't check on this when we remodeled the Town Hall, and we can't use the front doors, we need to spend another $10,000.00 to get a change in the laws or something so we can use the front doors. I will vote "Yes" on this, I would rather be able to use the front doors of the Town Hall then cross a bridge in the woods.

And then there is the budget. Unfortunately the link I sent has the budget with it, but it isn't all that easy to read, and you really need to go through it line by line. You can see from the pie chart that fifty eight cents of each one of your tax dollars goes to education. The problem is due to the "rules" you can't really determine where that money is going. Many residents have advocated for this to change in the past and this is something maybe we in the tea party need to push forward.

In addition, if you remember at one of our meetings we had a representative of the Board of Health who was pushing the "Pay as you go" plan for the town landfill. She said this money would be used for the operation of the landfill. This is a great idea if they in fact do it, and this same philosophy should be used in other departments as well. For example, from my days on the Fire Department, I seem to recall that all funds collected from the Ambulance went into the General Funds (I apologize if I am wring although I don't believe I am), shouldn't these be used for the Fire Department? I think it is time to run the town like a business as much as possible, where if a department collects money they should have first crack at it. More to come on this as well.

So that's it for now. As I stated in the beginning of this rather long post, I will also write my thoughts on the recommendations concerning the Fire Department soon. See you at the Town Meeting and I think I will even wear my Tea party shirt!