In the absence of the chairman and against the wishes of one of the two selectmen present, the Rochester Board of Selectmen took no action on April 11 towards setting a special town meeting to bond the town’s share of $224,000 of the Old Rochester Regional School District’s $600,000 five-year capital plan.
The consensus among the Finance Committee and Selectmen Brad Norse and Naida Parker was to forego a special town meeting and simply bond the $224,000 through a debt service decrease in the year to follow.
“There’s no need to call a special town meeting for something that, in my mind, is good management,” said Rochester Finance Committee Chairman Kristian Stoltenberg. “I think the selectmen should simply adopt the plan … and I don’t think it’s necessary to go for a debt exclusion. I think we can simply put it into our existing debt service.”
Parker stated that she agreed with Stoltenberg. But, in fairness to the absent third Board of Selectmen member, said Parker, “I don’t have a problem with this, but I don’t want to be excluding one of the members from the conversation.”
Town Administrator Michael McCue reminded Parker of the looming deadline for a special town meeting should the board ultimately decide to move in that direction. “It needs to be done before … May 20,” he told her.
Parker still felt the board should wait for Chairman Richard Nunes before voting on the bonding process, she said.
“I have a feeling it’s not going to change anything,” said Parker, “Give the full board the opportunity to vote on it because it wasn’t put out there that we were going to be making this decision tonight.”
McCue conveyed Nunes’ preference to the board, saying Nunes is in favor of foregoing a special town meeting as well and also favors ORR’s capital plan.
“I’m just concerned about deadlines,” said Morse. “I want to make sure that we bring some end to this.”
Parker replied, “If it was you or I who was … absent to make a final decision, I would hope that the other members of the board would extend the courtesy to us to allow us to be involved in the final decision-making … so that nobody is excluded.”
“I realize that,” said Morse, “it just has to get done.”
The Board of Selectmen will meet on Thursday, April 14 at 11:00 am to take the vote on this matter with all three selectmen present at the Rochester Town Hall.
By Jean Perry