Town Meeting: March 16, 2021

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0:05 The Town Meeting warrant has been announced. Marblehead’s annual town meeting will be held starting Monday, May 3rd at 7 p.m. outdoors at the Star of the Sea Church back parking lot. Chris Stevens from the Marblehead Reporter and Wicked Local Marblehead joined me this week to give a preliminary look at some of the warrant articles that could spark discussion during the meeting. Chris, thanks for joining us on our annual perusal through the Town Meeting warrant. You’re welcome. Thanks for having me. Let’s skip the first few articles as we usually do. Those are the more of the housekeeping things that go by pretty quickly. And we’ll start with articles 20, 21, and 22, which are the collective bargaining articles for fire police and municipal workers. Yep. Everything goes a question mark at this point. Yeah. I’m not even sure if they’ve finished negotiations, but I’m sure there’ll be a cost of living increase at least. It’ll be interesting because everybody knows this is, again, another tight fiscal year, so it’ll be interesting to see what comes with those. And it’s always interesting that everything all comes up. I mean, the teachers are negotiating this year too, I believe. So everything seems to come up altogether every year. I mean, every three years, the town takes a hit. And it does flow into article 23 on the budget. And again, this year, the department hasn’t been told to keep an even keel on the budget except for whatever needs to be increased for contract-wise.

1:41 Yeah, contract. So yeah, everything is pretty much level funded at this point. But even level funding things, you know, the cost of things just goes up every year. So even level funding isn’t really level funding. So going to article 32, which is the first that exclusion override article listed on the warrant, the fire department is looking for that pumper truck. This was on last year’s warrant, initial warrant, not included in the second version of the warrant. Yeah, no, they pushed it off one year. And I don’t think they can probably push it off again another year. I think they need it this year. And with a town like this, densely populated houses very close together, especially in the historic downtown area. Absolutely. You need all the help you can get. Yeah, it’s not one you want to mess with. I don’t think that’s when you really want to question. Article 33, demolition by neglect. That sounds familiar. This was on last, or at least a version of it. I don’t know if I didn’t read through it, both of them exactly to see if they’re exactly the same. No, I didn’t either. I’m assuming it’s pretty much the same. I don’t know. It’s sponsored by the old and historic districts commission. And it says its purpose is to encourage owners to find people who could purchase, preserve, rehabilitate or restore buildings, rather than demolish them and works with the building commissioner to get that going before demolition permits are issued. When does this become an overreach? I think we talked about this last year. You have a family in town, maybe they’re seniors, they’ve lived in this house their whole life, they just don’t have the means to keep it up, but they can’t bring themselves to sell it.

3:23 Does the town have a right to step in and take that house away from them? I don’t know. You’re messing with people’s private property and I feel like that may be an issue for some people. The other article that is coming up that will look for dead exclusion override is article 35, the Abbott Public Library renovations. And as we’ve kind of seen over this COVID issue, the library has been kept closed to public use because of air quality issues and things that this article is seeking to remedy. But with COVID and everything, even when they were able to maybe have a few people come in, they really didn’t have any, you know, they didn’t really open up the way they could have. No, and I feel like I wonder if the, I mean, I don’t feel like they have been campaigning about this very strongly. You know, as you said, the library’s been closed. So it’s not like they can do tours, they can’t bring people in to say this is why we need it. And I just, you know, I don’t think people are gonna be blindsided by this. It was on last year and they graciously took it off because they felt it just wasn’t the right time and it wasn’t just because due to COVID. But I just wonder if people will be, if they’ll look at it this year and go, oh yeah, I forgot about that. Or, you know, if this will be a surprise to people. I don’t know. Article 36 is an interesting article. It’s a citizen article.

4:53 And it seems, from the way I read it, it sounds like this idea passed in 1973, replacing the signs around Black Joe’s Pond and that conservation area. Apparently back in 1973, town meeting voted to name that area the Joseph Brown Conservation Area. And those signs either never went up for whatever reason, or again, it wasn’t a mandated thing. It was just a, hey, wouldn’t it be nice if the town did this? It could have been, yeah. Yeah, I wonder that because I would think otherwise they may not need an actual article for it. It might be something they could just go to the Board of Selectmen and say, hey, we need to do this. So yeah, it’ll be interesting to hear the history behind that. Article 37, transparency and accountability, which among other things provides a direct line of contact to all elected officials, creates an ethics board, and things of that nature. The ethics board, I find interesting. I’m not really sure how that is going to, I’d be interested to hear how that is going to play out, what her plan is for that. Article 38 is an addition or an amendment to the Peace and Good Order Town by-law, which would include prohibition of disruptive behavior from boats, beaches, public ways along the water. My guess is that this is a result of, for the last couple of summers, there have been issues, as in Browns Island, I think, where people are drafting.

6:30 And it’s, yeah, and it’s been, that’s an enclosed area. That’s a tough area. And I don’t, as someone who also lives near the beach, I don’t blame them. The next Article 39, Megan Sweeney requests to have a change to the Board of Selectmen, in that an alternate would be appointed, so that if somebody can’t finish out their term or passes away, like recently has happened, that the alternate would step in and be that next person in line, and have staggered two-year terms, and then also term limits to three terms of those two-year terms, or six years in total. I don’t know how I feel about that. I mean, I like the idea of staggered terms, but I kind of feel like that is your term limits. I mean, go to the ballot box. One year I get, I always thought it was very bizarre, Marblehead is the only community I know that has one year for this election. So you’re sort of always in campaign mode. This next article, again, sponsored by Megan Sweeney, has to do with diversity. And I’m not exactly sure how this would work, but it is changing the bylaws to more gender inclusive pronouns. And also changing the name of the Board of Selectmen to the Select Board. But then adding, amending screening committees to reflect a commitment to diversity and inclusion.

8:10 I think that is an interesting one. This is one of the articles where I think, this is a huge ask. I mean, I feel like it’s got three different asks in here, which may be too much. A number of towns are now looking at their bylaws and trying to make them more gender neutral, which I get. And a number of communities are changing to Select Board. Swamscoot is also looking at that. I don’t know that they’ve done it officially yet, but I know they’re also looking at that. I agree with you. I’m not really sure about the screening committee, selection committees, and how all that would work. Article 41 is an article sponsored by James Zissen for Sidewalks No Removal. And we’ve had these on before. Basically, he’s looking for a three foot wide pathway to be shoveled within 24 hours with waivers available for elderly and people who aren’t able to do it on their own. And enforcement by the police department with first a warning and then $50 fines after that. And James Zissen also in Article 42 has asked for a three year staggered term for the selection, matching what the school committee does with two, two, and one. Yeah, that makes sense to me. Three years is, and you know, it’s pretty much what every community does, and three years. Yeah, I just think makes makes sense. And then the final article we’re going to look at is another article on the use of gas powered leaf blowers.

9:44 This would have certainly been simplified. Yes. I love that the leaf blowers are back. I don’t know why. It just makes me happy to see them on there. Kathy Breslin is the sponsor of this one. And again, it’s asking for gas powered leaf blowers can be used the day after Labor Day through the day before Memorial Day. So basically from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Professionals can I use them? Yeah, homeowners can use them. There is no restriction on individual homeowners and you know, we’ll see how that goes. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense. I’ll tell you, they were very close last time. I thought Buck Rader was an excellent salesperson. They need to get him up and speak for this again because I thought he she sort of brought it home better than anybody else. And they were very, very close last time. So I don’t know this may it may pass this may be the year for it. Chris, thanks for joining us again. You’re welcome. Thanks for having me. I always appreciate it.