Town Meeting: Final Thoughts

Can we stand one more post about the Sturbridge Town Meeting? it will be the last, I promise, maybe.
There was quite a bit of discussion about something called the "Commercial Tourism District Plan". This was part of three separate articles and totaled $180,000. The questions seemed to revolve around what benefit tourism is to Sturbridge. The problem was there was some misunderstanding about exactly what the "Commercial Tourist District Plan" is. Many, myself included, thought it was some kind of conceptual plan to bring tourists into town, when in fact that isn't it at all.

The Commercial Tourist District actually refers to a zoning district in town, and the plan is how we can improve it. The improvements include such things as traffic patterns, making it more attractive by burying utility lines, things like that. Whether brick sidewalks are included in this was not discussed. Once this was explained to me I actually voted for it. This would be the first step needed if we are to apply for any state money to get work done in this area. Now of course the state money comes out of my pocket just like the town money does, but this would benefit the town as a whole unlike one certain segment of it.

And then there was Article 23, which would regulate collection receptacles. Even though there appears to be no problem right now the Board of Selectmen feels that we should have one anyway. Okay, I understand the premise that we should deal with it before it is a problem, but as was pointed out, there appeared to be some holes in the bylaw.

Finally there was Article 31which was a citizen petition to buy 310 Main Street. Why? Well,, I guess it was becasue we once talked about moving the Town Hall from the Town Hall becasue there wasn't enough room and if we bought this building we wouldn't have to do that. Now, I may be in error here, but didn't we just remodel the Town Hall (nice job by the way) and the Center School so we would have plenty of room? Thought so. We voted it down.

Okay, that's it on the Town Meeting in Sturbridge. Next up: A scathing expose on.... wait, there is no scathing expose that i know of. maybe I'll have to go into Southbridge.