Selectmen place items on Town Meeting agenda
As Spring Town Meeting draws closer, Selectmen added items to the meeting agenda and voted to recommend some items already on the agenda Tuesday night.
Selectmen closed the warrant for the annual Spring Town Meeting on Feb. 17. The board has until March 17 to close the warrant for the Special Town Meeting. Both are held as part of the same meeting on April 27.
Selectmen placed ten items on the special meeting agenda Tuesday, including items funding entry into a Plymouth County retirement benefits program, funding the expansion of the Agawam Cemetery and granting a liquor license for the restored Glen Cove Inn at 167 Onset Ave.
Selectmen also unanimously voted in favor of three Community Preservation fund items already on the Town Meeting agenda.
One seeks $100,000 to allow the Harbormaster Department to rebuild the deteriorated 12th Avenue Onset boat ramp. The total cost of the project is $167,000 but Harbormaster Garry Buckminster previously secured $67,000 in grant money from the Bouchard oil spill settlement.
The second seeks $90,000 to build three tennis courts at the Wareham High School./Middle School property. High School tennis coach Geoff Swett said he has raised $90,000 in private funding that will go toward the project if it can garner the $90,000 in Community Preservation funds.
The third seeks $45,000 to enable the Wareham Open Space Committee to rehabilitate the Oakdale Playground at 23 Apple St.
Selectmen Alan Slavin and Judith Whiteside both brought up the issue of maintenance of the tennis courts, which would fall to the schools, and asked if there were any cost estimates.
The state Community Preservation Act was adopted by Wareham voters in April 2002. The funds come from a 3 percent surcharge levied on residential property above the first $100,000 of assessed property. The state partially matches the locally raised funds. That money must be used for historic preservation, affordable housing, preservation of open space or recreation.
At Tuesday's meeting, Town Administrator Derek Sullivan said that due to an increase in state aid from the governor, the town's budget gap of $2.2 million has been reduced to about $1.8 million.
That gap is the difference between the requested budgets of town departments and projected revenue from the town. Sullivan also has a balanced budget draft that maintains the department requested amounts and bridges the gap by cutting from the school department.
Some form of a balanced budget must go before Town Meeting voters on April 27.