A number of residents weren’t pleased when their request to speak on Town Meeting floor about the $2 million ORR project was ignored or interrupted by Town Moderator Kirby Gilmore demanding questions only, no comments. Still, the Annual Town Meeting voters spoke loudly on May 20 in favor of Article 15, allowing it to proceed to the ballot of a Special Election called for July 10.
The three Tri-Towns will have to approve the Proposition 2 ½ exemption at the ballot box.
A slide presentation presented by proponents of the artificial turf, track repairs, and auditorium lighting and sound upgrades was interrupted before it was over, resulting in a growing line of residents to the microphone with questions after Gilmore cut ORR School Committee member Tina Rood off before she could answer a few of those potential questions.
With three slides still left, Gilmore interrupted Rood, saying, “Thank you, we enjoyed your comments.” A number of voices shouted out from the room, “Let’s take a vote!” Someone moved the question, but Gilmore did not recognize the request, something the elected town moderator did several times that night during various article discussions.
“We are finished with the presentation,” asserted Gilmore. When someone called for a point of order, Gilmore wouldn’t entertain it.
When ORR graduate Julia Melloni spoke at the mike about her years in the drama club and the safety hazards of some of the equipment, Gilmore interrupted, “Do you have questions?”
“Guess not!” she replied.
Former ORR School Committee member James O’Brien was allowed to speak on behalf of his confidence in the longevity of artificial turf, urging support for the project.
After a series of questions, someone again moved the question, which Gilmore recognized and passed, with applause.
Once the affirmative vote to adopt the article was over, many people rose to leave only to have to return for a hand count that someone requested. But when they again showed their pink cards, it was clear the ‘ayes’ had it. Looking at the few pink cards up for the ‘nays,’ Gilmore said, “Eh, you guys lose, motion passed!”
The voters also adopted Article 15 allowing for an overlay district that will accommodate Ken Steen’s proposed 40R affordable housing development on Routes 58 and 28, now known as Rochester Crossroads.
The Board of Selectmen took a stand in support of this article, also supported by the Planning Board and presented at Town Meeting by Chairman Arnie Johnson.
There wasn’t as much discussion as town officials had anticipated, and the two-thirds vote was completed by a hand count, with Gilmore confirming the article’s passing with a knock of his mother’s wooden potato masher to the podium. (He couldn’t find his gavel.)
Voters also approved Article 16 to create zoning for adult use recreational marijuana retail establishments. The vote passed with only two quiet ‘nays’ from the crowd.
The residents voted overwhelmingly in favor of Article 18 to change the part-time town clerk position from an elected position to an appointed one.
Selectman Greenwood “Woody” Hartley presented the motion as a way to provide more service to the townspeople by ensuring there was always someone in the office during Town Hall business hours, something that is currently lacking since the town clerk currently has no assistant clerks.
“We also felt the timing was right; Naida has announced her retirement,” Hartley said, giving the BOS nine months to post the job description.
Resident Jean Armstrong opposed the article, saying, “If the town clerk is elected, they are responsible to the people of the town, not to the three people who hire [and pay their salary.]
“There’s no reason, in my opinion, to change to having an appointed town clerk,” she said, eliciting some applause.
David Arancio, member of the Zoning Board of Appeals, said electing the town clerk would bring “transparency and accountability to position.”
“Just for the record,” said current Town Clerk Naida Parker, “I believe around 2001, [Richard Cutler] … sat with the Finance Committee and said that the Town Clerk’s office should be a full-time position.” She continued, “There was never a time … that I would not have leapt at the opportunity to have a full-time position with a living wage.”
Parker took umbrage to a comment that the town clerk earns approximately $38 an hour based on the 19.5 hours a week the position apparently requires.
“I work … 23, 24 hours a week: I would be very happy … to cut back to 19 and a half hours if that is your wish,” Parker said.
Planning Board member Ben Bailey said the article has nothing to do with a living wage. “It has to do with accountability and the ability to do the job,” he said. He criticized Parker for not having published a hard copy of the Town Bylaws in three years.
Town Counsel Blair Bailey came to Parker’s defense, saying the Town has been working with her to codify the bylaws before publishing the again. “She has been working [on codification]; I didn’t want anybody to think that wasn’t the case,” Bailey stated.
Resident Matthew Monteiro asked if it would be a conflict of interest supervising an employee tasked with overseeing their reelection, which Bailey stated was not a conflict.
The article passed, forwarding it to the ballot for a town-wide vote.
Still on the topic of the town clerk, Parker was struck down in her motion to amend the town clerk’s salary line from the $36,981 the Town recommended to the amount she recommended, $38,981. She said she’s spending more time at Town Hall working on state requirements and next year is a presidential election. She also wants to have ample time to train someone who is interested in running for the town clerk position in 2020.
The Finance Committee chairman said he found the 2 percent COLA salary increase the committee recommended to be “fair.”
“She knows what the job entails; she knows what FinCom recommended,” said Christian Stoltenberg. “She’s asking on her own to boost it, and we denied it.”
The vote to amend her salary line was a big loud ‘no’ from the voters.
The voters eventually passed the rest of Article 4, the fiscal year 2020 operating budget totaling $22,086,913; however, not until after a bit of resistance on behalf of one resident who wanted to reduce the Assessors Office line item by $75,000. He felt the Board of Assessors in the past valued his home incorrectly and he wanted to right that wrong somehow.
Another resident said in the past he had to spend money on Conservation Commission matters. “It really pissed me off,” said Dustin Lally. “You can just come up here and say, yeah, let’s just drop the whole budget? I didn’t realize you can do that,” he said in apparent irony.
That amendment failed.
At one point the rain was so loud the people in the back could barely hear over the torrential downpour onto the RMS cafetorium roof.
Voters accepted an article to join the SRPEDD-led (Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic Development District) electricity aggregation, allowing Rochester, the last town in the region not already a part of it, to join.
The aggregation includes communities represented by a consultant to accept bids from competing energy suppliers and lock the towns into a fixed, lower rate for a contract period.
Article 24, a citizen’s petition seeking $20,000 (from each of the Tri-Towns) to fund the handicap access portion of a press box at ORR, failed, with no support from town officials.
Justin Shea, president of the ORR Athletic Boosters, explained how his non-profit organization raised $55,000 to rebuild the press box that was demolished 16 years ago at ORR, but now with newer Americans with Disabilities Act requirements, the press box now must be handicap accessible.
The article that was identical on all three of the towns’ warrants and passed in Mattapoisett and Marion, got some static from town officials demanding that Shea’s article has to specify where the money would come from to fund the request. Shea’s article, like all the other articles in the Rochester warrant, only stated “…to raise and appropriate and/or transfer from available funds…”
Shea was clearly confused as he paused and tried to come up with one available funding source. He selected the town’s Stabilization Fund, amended his motion, only later to be told by town counsel that, since the funding would come from the Stabilization Fund, the vote needed two-thirds majority to pass.
Shea wondered what other funding source he might choose instead to need only a simple majority, but was told there was no other source.
“It sets a precedent that I don’t like,” said Hartley, saying that he was uncomfortable appropriating tax dollars to a private organization. “A donation from the Town of Rochester. … Is that what we should be doing with out tax dollars?”
All three selectmen voted against the article, as did about half of the voters. Without the two-thirds majority, the article failed.
Articles that passed with no or minimal discussion: Article 1, to accept the annual reports from Town officers and committees; Article 3, to amend the Personnel Bylaw’s Classification and Compensation Plan; Article 5, capping the spending limits on various revolving funds; Article 6, $300 for planting shellfish in Marion; Article 7, acceptance of Chapter 70 funds; Article 8, to appropriate $15,000 towards the Town’s future OPEB (other post employment benefits); Article 9, to appropriate $98,703 in capital plan funding broken down as follows: $28,000 for extrication tools for the Fire Department, $35,00 for a stand-by generator for the highway barn/fire station 3, $30,377 for RMS math curriculum three-year contract, and $4,280 for new public use computers at the Plumb Library; Article 10, $10,000 for the Board of Assessors to conduct revaluation of property; Article 11, to enter into the SRPEDD municipal electricity aggregation; Article 12, property tax exemption for Gold Star parents; Article 13, property tax exemption for veterans whose property has been conveyed to a trust; Article 14, to impose a local 3 percent sales tax on gross receipts from adult use recreational marijuana, which is the formal acceptance of M.G.L. c. 64N Section 3; Article 17, to amend the Old Colony Regional Vocational Technical High School agreement; Article 20, to put $100,000 into the Capital Improvements Fund; Article 21, to put $50,000 into the Road Improvements Stabilization Fund; Article 22, to put $100,000 into the School Assessment Stabilization Fund; Article 23, to put $100,000 into the Stabilization Fund.
Rochester Annual Town Meeting
By Jean Perry