On Monday night, June 8 2009 three towns held three separate town meetings to consider Mass Development’s request to rezone the land surrounding Vicksburg Square located in the heart of Devens.

Here’s how it went down -

Shirley –  Approved

Havard – Approved

Ayer – Failed

What does it all mean?  Passage by majority vote in ALL THREE TOWNS is required for the zoning changes to be approved.  One NO VOTE by the town of Ayer defeated the proposal.  We shall see what happens next and what fall out there will be from the vote in Ayer.

As a practical matter, the current zoning and housing cap remains unchanged for the Devens Enterprise Zone. 

I will keep you informed about what comes next.  Check back in soon.

Super Town Meeting

 Tonight – Monday June 8, 2009

7PM Cronin Auditorium, Bromfield School

 

The Towns of Ayer, Harvard and Shirley will be simultaneously convening three special town meetings at the request of Mass Development to consider the approval of a rezoning of land at Devens surrounding Vicksburg Square (adjacent to the Rodger’s field).  In addition, amendments to the zoning map and Devens Re-Use plan must also be approved.

 The warrant is identical in each town and must be approved by majority vote in each town without any amendments.

 A Super Town Meeting is required by Chapter 498 of the acts of 1994 to make any changes related to the governance or regulations that apply to the Devens Enterprise Zone.

 Follow the link on the front page of www.harvard.ma.us to read the warrant and access more information regarding Vicksburg square

Budgets are crumbling, Governor Patrick is shedding Billions from the state budget in the current fiscal year and as a result will be reducing distributions of our “cherry sheet revenues” that we depend on when we built our budget last year.  What will Harvard to do to manage the shortfall? 

Left with few choices, we need to act now while there are 5 months left in the fiscal year to close the gap on the short fall.  How big the shortfall will be this fiscal year, nobody can be quite sure.  Last week we were told by our Town Administrator to prepare for a $350,000 shortfall, this week its looking like $180,000.   Local receipts are down (money that we usually receive in fees and excise taxes on vehicles) and are trending lower as people tighten their belts.

If it were not enough to have the ice storm cleanup still looming, now we need to strip down services and reduce staffing across town departments.  On the town side, the selectmen have frozen all discretionary spending (we’ve already frozen hiring) instituted reduced Library hours, reduced staff at the highway department, lowered thermostats, curtailed professional development, suspended travel and out of house training for employees and are working to return to the General Fund, unexpended funds from old warrant articles still being held in the town treasury.  The most difficult choice to make was the choice to reduce the number of adminstrative staff at town hall which will happen over the next month.

What does this mean to you?  Roads take longer to get plowed since we have fewer drivers.  The Library will be open fewer hours and will begin to close on Fridays.  Staff at town hall will reduced and shuffled to manage the “retail operations” at town hall by combining jobs or redistributing the work load.

Do you feel the pinch yet?

There was no way you could have avoided the spectacle of Halloween in Harvard this year if you passed through the center.  But this year it was even more fantastic.  Pumpkins appeared from all over town as the call went out across the pumpkin patches. 

Upstart ART sensationalists ForArt’sSake led the orange invasion of the cemetary perimeter.  Hundreds of pumpkins illuminated Mass Ave in Harvard’s new “walk of flame”.  Pumpkins of all shapes and sizes carved by folks from all walks of life were represented.  Some political (easily a dozen or more Obama pumpkins appeared, including a detailed portrait of the Senator) some traditional and all of them “wicked” creative.

For Art’s Sake’s founders are definitely up for the Harvard Heroes award this week for transforming a barren strip of wall into the greatest parade of orange flesh this town has ever seen.  I can’t wait until next year when folks carve up Harvard’s finest crop of the season.

Find out what these renegade left brainers are up to next at www.forartssake-Harvard.org

SPECIAL TOWN MEETING RESULTS

Article 1 – Citizen’s Petition – “No Billing for Ambulance services” failed tonight to gain a majority vote with only 71 citizens voting for the petition and 164 against.

Newly minted moderator Bob Eubank exhibited great restraint and courtesy while the proponents of the petition went to great lengths to undo the policy instituted earlier this year by the Board of Selectmen to seek reimbursement from insurers for ambulance expenses incurred by the town. 

After more than an hour of discussion, citizen Bill Johnson was the last to speak.  He advised the town meeting to separate the emotional concerns about the long standing dispute between the ambulance squad and the selectmen from the substance of the issue.  He gave a perspective that seemed to give great clarity to the meeting that the town expects all of its departments and volunteers to do everything in their power to reduce their reliance of town funds to support their worthy endeavors by pursuing grants, seeking out gifts and accepting the donation of funds to offset their costs.  In essence it is the  responsibility of our town officials and volunteers to leave no stone unturned when it comes to finding funding sources to offset the costs for services delivered by the town on behalf of the taxpayers.

After his head clearing comments, the question was moved and the town meeting took its vote, but not without last minute questions over the validity of the vote which brought town counsel to the microphone to clarify that even if the petition had passed, it would simply be advisory to the selectmen and unenforceable as municipal laws proscribes the selectmen as the sole authority enabled to decide if we should seek reimbursement for ambulance services.

After the defeat of the citizen’s petition, Article 2 (Billing Insurance providers for ambulance services) was passed over upon the recommendation of the selectmen as it was deemed as unnecessary. 

House keeping articles 3 & 4 were approved with little fuss and fanfare.

I love New England style Town Meeting.   For  the people, by the people and thank god, full of people.

VOTER ALERT – SPECIAL TOWN MEETING

DATE: TUESDAY OCTOBER 28, 2008

TIME: 7PM

LOCATION:  BROMFIELD HIGH SCHOOL (CRONIN) AUDITORIUM

Make your opinion count! Please come to the Special Town Meeting being held on Tuesday, October 28th at 7:00 p.m., Cronin Auditorium. This meeting was called by a citizens’ petition, and features four warrant articles. The citizens petition and an article inserted by the Selectmen are intended to attain consensus on whether the Town will bill insurance companies for ambulance services; the following two articles are housekeeping-oriented.

 

 

Babysitting will be provided free of charge.

 

Click on the link below to see the Warrant Articles

 http://www.harvard.ma.us/October%2028,%202008-SPECIAL%20TOWN%20MEETING%20WARRANT.doc

 

Why should you bother going to a Special Town Meeting?  Because now, more than ever Harvard needs to get its fiscal house in order.  The State of Massachusetts is anticipating a massive budget shortfall of $12.6 Billion.  State aid to cities and towns has been spared up until now, but we can’t be sure that the Governor will be able to protect it much longer as the national financial crisis deepens.

 

We can’t afford to leave money on the table when it comes to ambulance billing.  Harvard is a dinosaur and appears to be the last community who DOES NOT collect ambulance fees from insurers in the Commonwealth.

 

If we truly want to protect this great volunteer resource that we know and love as the Harvard Ambulance Service, what better way could you imagine doing that than by providing a reliable source of funding that is not dependant upon taxpayers dollars and subject to propostion 2 1/2 override votes.

 

I’m recommending the public vote NO on the citizens petition (Article 1), and vote YES on Article 2 confirming that the Selectmen should institute the billing of insurers (not individuals) for ambulance services.

The first question everbody asks is what is Eye on Harvard? 

Since I’ve been involved in town government, I have heard many stories, anecdotes and great ideas.  I wanted to share these conversations with you and give you a chance to chime in on the important issues of the day.  By giving you my insight on the stories between the stories you read in the paper, hear about at the General Store or when eavesdropping on the sidelines,  I’ll let you know if what you heard was ”Fact or Fiction”.  I’ll give it to you straight, direct you to resources where you can learn more about the issues and most importantly remind you when you need to VOTE and why. 

Register with wordpress.com today and join the conversation.

Tim Clark