Town meeting season wraps up today when voters in Aquinnah take up a number of requests related to the Aquinnah Circle, along with zoning changes aimed at creating more affordable housing, and a $4.2 million annual budget.
The annual town meeting begins tonight at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Aquinnah Old Town Hall. Moderator Michael Hebert will preside over the session. There are 44 articles on the warrant.
The budget marks a 5.6 per cent increase over last year, due largely to increases in the areas of public safety, public works and education.
The department of public works, the board of assessors and the board of health are all seeking higher payrolls beginning in the new fiscal year. A town meeting article and a ballot question will ask whether the town should assess an additional $54,043 in real estate and personal property taxes to pay for the increases. Town administrator Adam Wilson said the departments “are asking for significantly more hours and wages based on evaluations of job descriptions and additional holdings that have come into the town.”
Town accountant Emily Day said in an email that maintenance of the Gay Head Light, which the town acquired from the Coast Guard last year, means more spending for buildings and grounds and public works. Incoming town employees meant a modest decrease in some department salaries, and the town plans to retire the debt on a fire truck in fiscal year 2017, she said. But spending proposals are up almost across the board.
Voters will be asked to approve $450,000 for a new pumper truck — the largest spending request on the warrant — which would require both a two-thirds majority vote and a debt exclusion to be decided at the annual town election. At a selectmen’s meeting this spring, fire chief Simon Bolin said the old truck had driven only 8,600 miles, but that its pump was in disrepair. “We’ve Band-Aided it together as much as we can,” he said.
The town also hopes to use $5,500 from free cash to purchase a thermal imaging device for the fire department, and $55,000 for new dump truck for the department of public works.
Spending requests related to the Circle include $25,000 for the continued restoration of the Gay Head Light, which was relocated last year; $10,520 to pay the final mortgage on the Vanderhoop Homestead; $15,000 for restoration work at the Aquinnah overlook; and $8,000 for continued planning and analysis in the area. All the money would come from community preservation funds.
Other proposals for the Circle include a temporary digital media exhibit by Film-Truth Productions that would highlight the history of the Gay Head Light and its relocation. The Aquinnah-based film company is producing a full-length documentary on the project that it plans to release this summer. A $15,000 request would cover staffing for the exhibit.
A $5,000 request would help the town execute a conservation restriction that it placed on 2.1 acres near the lighthouse after discovering last year that the relocation would eliminate 0.7 acres of potential habitat for the endangered broad tinker’s weed. The tradeoff was required by the Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program.
“We’ve been given a pretty elaborate conservation restriction plan and we might have to outsource the work needed for that,” Mr. Wilson said.
Another article asks whether to protect a parcel on Moshup Trail by granting a conservation restriction to Vineyard Conservation Society. Mr. Wilson said the town had acquired the land through a tax taking and that it couldn’t be developed since it lies within a district of critical planning concern (DCPC). That request also requires a two-thirds majority vote and approval at the town election.
A total of $52,880 would fund various housing efforts, including $28,800 for mortgage costs related to a property at 45 State Road where the town plans to offer two resident homesites. The Island Housing Trust would buy and develop the two lots, which total 6.3 acres. A purchase and sale agreement is in the works.
Voters will also decide whether to transfer control of a six-acre lot near the former landfill to the selectmen for the purpose of developing additional community housing.
The town planning board has proposed a series of bylaw amendments that could provide still more affordable housing in town. Among other things, the amendments would allow accessory apartments for year-round occupancy, and would provide more flexibility when it comes to income qualifications for affordable housing units. The new rules would also eliminate a restriction on leasing houses for more than a year.
Another zoning change would allow for large ground-mounted solar arrays at the town landfill without a special permit. The town hopes that will meet one of the criteria for becoming a green community, a state designation that comes with increased funding opportunities. Another request, to adopt a building stretch code that increases efficiency requirements for construction, would likely satisfy another of the criteria. Other measures were adopted by the selectmen last year.
Aquinnah will be the last town this spring to decide whether to adopt a ban on single-use plastic bags in checkout lines. Edgartown, Tisbury, West Tisbury and Chilmark have all adopted the ban, proposed by Vineyard Conservation Society. The Oak Bluffs selectmen voted in March to conduct further study before bringing it to a vote.
To correct an inconsistency in the existing town bylaws, voters will be asked to remove language that allows overnight anchorage in Menemsha Pond as long as a boat’s heads are sealed. The amendment would not allow any overnight anchorage in the pond.
Another amendment would increase the fines for violating a bylaw requiring dogs to be leashed and restrained. Fines of $5 and $10 for first and second offenses would increase by $10. A fine of $25 for a third offense would increase by $5. Dogs would also be prohibited at Red Beach to protect sensitive shellfish habitat.
Spending requests related to the town hall campus would include $15,000 for a space needs assessment and $8,500 for a ventilation system at the police station. The town also hopes that voters will approve $7,500 for updated websites for the town and Gay Head Light. Webmaster Liz Witham said the town website was created in 2009 and its core software has never been updated.
“Since 2009, the way people use town websites and what they expect from them has really changed,” Ms. Witham said this week. “People expect things to be up there right away, they expect a lot of things to be online. . . . This overhaul will incorporate the way that people are now using the internet.”
Voters will be asked to transfer $80,000 from free cash to the general stabilization fund to replace money taken out last year to handle an unexpected deficit. As it turned out, the deficit was itself a miscalculation, and the town ended up with a surplus.
“You just had a situation where you weren’t getting the anticipated revenue from taxes, and there were a couple of other administrative missteps made,” Mr. Wilson said this week. After the $80,000 transfer, there would still be $270,000 left in free cash, which he attributed to under spending and an influx of tax revenue.
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