It wasn’t the smoothest Town Meeting on record, but Moderator Kirby Gilmore, selectmen, town administration, and the voters got the job done on June 8, passing the fiscal year 2016 budget, as well as the Planning Board’s limited commercial district zoning bylaw amendment, among other things during the roughly two hour-long Rochester Annual Town Meeting.
Voters did reject the Board of Selectmen’s proposed Article 10 – to slow the annual advancement of step rate increases for non-union town employees – in the form of an indefinite postponement of the article motioned by Highway Surveyor and Fire Department Captain Jeff Eldridge.
The intent of the article, said Board of Selectmen Chairman Richard Nunes, was to save the town money by stretching out the three-percent annual performance-based step rate that non-union employees get every year. Nunes said the article proposed a longer time frame for advancing in step rates, which stops at step 10, currently at 10 years. Eldridge, however, was already poised at the microphone to speak in opposition to the article before Nunes even began to speak.
Eldridge challenged selectmen to overhaul the entire Compensation Plan for the employees and “fix all the deficiencies” instead of amending just one piece of it. This was followed by some confusion over motions made to adopt and to indefinitely postpone and which one should be voted on first. The motion to indefinitely postpone the article passed.
Assessor Diana Knapp left the doors of Rochester Memorial School after Town Meeting adjourned angry over an article that was rejected by voters due to what she considered unclear explanations by selectmen and Town Counsel Blair Bailey, which she said was confusing to voters. She said the article was presented “in poor taste.”
Article 22 proposed allowing elected members of the Board of Assessors to serve in appointed positions under the direct supervision of the Board of Assessors. This article was prompted by the recent election of Debra Lalli, a clerk in the Assessors’ Office, to the Board of Assessors. Adoption would not have affected Lalli’s position; rather, it would have affected future assessors looking to fill appointed positions.
Knapp said the problem for voters was not in the article itself, but with the way the article was put on the warrant. Selectmen, during one of their meetings, decided to remove the article, and subsequently Knapp collected ten signatures to have the article placed back on the warrant, which selectmen did.
During Town Meeting, though, it was discovered that the clerk’s office never verified and certified the signatures on the petition, which caused doubt amongst the voters.
“The Board of Selectmen voted to put the article back on [the warrant],” said Knapp during a follow-up interview. “Naida [Parker] is the town clerk. I guess if you aren’t supporting it and you got your wish…”
However, Selectman Parker was on vacation during the meeting and the days following when selectmen voted to return the article to the warrant, acknowledged Knapp.
“It wasn’t a clean article,” said Knapp.
Lalli said, as a clerk in the Assessor’s Office, she ran for the Board of Assessors because nobody else was. Lalli ran unopposed.
Selectmen motioned to indefinitely postpone its Article 14 to allocate $9,900 for a consultant to codify the town bylaws, as well as its Article 16 to change the town election hours. Article 17 to establish a semi-annual preliminary tax payment system was also indefinitely postponed at the selectmen’s request.
The articles that were adopted were as follows:
Special Town Meeting Article 1 to transfer $85,000 from free cash to cover the snow and ice removal deficit; Special Town Meeting Article 2 to supplement the ORR transportation budget in the amount of $22,946;
Annual Town Meeting Article 1 to accept the annual report; Article 2 to fix the salaries of town elected officials; Article 3 to amend Part IV of the Personnel Bylaw; Article 4 to create a revolving account in connection to the Tax Title process; Article 5 to approve the FY16 budget of $19,593,758; Article 6 to authorize revolving accounts for certain town departments; Article 7 to allocate $300 for shellfish planting in Marion; Article 8 to appropriate $305,717 for infrastructure repair; Article 9 to fund the Open Space and Recreation Plan with $1,500; Article 11 to transfer $8,000 from free cash to fund the OPEB audit; Article 12 to appropriate $15,000,000 from free cash to future OPEB obligations; Article 13 to fund an irrigation pump at the Dexter Lane Fields for $5,000; Article 15 to amend the Fingerprinting Bylaw to include language referencing the FBI; Article 18 to dissolve the Industrial Development Financing Authority; Article 19 to amend the Flood Plain District affecting the New Bedford Waterworks area; and Article 20 to amend the Zoning Bylaw to add Mixed Use Development in a Limited Commercial District.
By Jean Perry
