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A rendering of the Cape End Manor Care Campus in Provincetown, as proposed by New England Deaconess Association. |
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Manor deal heads 47 article warrant
Mary Ann Bragg
Banner Staff
A brief but intense Town Meeting warrant awaits Provincetown voters.
By last Friday, 47 articles had been placed on the warrant, the fewest in six years. Balancing each end of the meeting, though, are what town leaders consider blockbuster decisions.
The first four articles may lead to a financial turn-around of the town’s long-struggling Cape End Manor nursing home, with a multi-million dollar land and money deal for New England Deaconess Association.
The penultimate article, expected on the third day of Town Meeting, could significantly alter the power of the town Visitor Services Board, which oversees $450,000 annually in local room tax revenue.
“This may be the last Town Meeting where we have to vote on the future of the Manor,” town Board of Selectmen chair Cheryl Andrews said on Tuesday. (Andrews has recused herself from Manor-related Selectmen’s meetings because a family member resides in the nursing home.) “It may be the last Town Meeting where the Manor is managed by the town. It’s huge, huge. The town has been dealing with that since the early 90s, since 1993…That’s been a long road to hoe. We’ve had to revisit it, and revisit it, and revisit it. And, I have to tell you, I didn’t know if we would ever see this day. It’s looking really good this time.”
Andrews said she was also looking forward to the potential change that could be wrought with the VSB article, which she initiated. If the VSB article passes, a new town board, the Council On Tourism and Economic Development, would be created that would oversee the room tax revenues.
On Monday the town Board of Selectmen juggled the order of the warrant articles to create voter interest, and a quorum, throughout Town Meeting, which beings on Monday, April 4, and is expected to run three days.
Provincetown has 3,517 registered voters and 100 are needed to maintain a quorum.
Selectman Sarah Peake, an inn owner, wanted to ensure in the reshuffling that the VSB article, and those voters concerned about its outcome, were not left dangling on the last day of Town Meeting. She successfully convinced fellow board members to move other town committee articles to the end as well. The reshuffle was particularly apt, Town Manager Keith Bergman joked, where an article seeking money for fireworks (for Fourth of July) should now lead into the VSB “fireworks.”
As part of the Selectmen’s reordering, the non-binding resolutions that often come near the end of Town Meeting have been placed in the center of the warrant. Activist Barbara Rushmore will seek, in four resolutions, to address the war in Iraq, Social Security, ozone readings on local beaches and the sunset views on Cape Cod National Seashore beaches.
Of utmost interest to fans and foes alike are the Manor articles that would consummate the Deaconess “care campus” deal to create a nursing home, assisted living and independent living complex on Alden Street. To lift the Manor’s deficits off property taxpayers’ backs on a continuing basis, the town Board of Selectmen is proposing to give Deaconess a 2.2-acre lot and $1.9 million in town Community Preservation Act funds. The money, in particular, will pay for the subset of the assisted and independent living units that will be designated affordable. As part of the deal (which also involves a land swap with a local church), the town has agreed to move a church-owned garage for $150,000.
The cost of the garage demolition and reconstruction was reduced from $300,000 to $150,000, following a new agreement with the church to limit the scope of the project, Bergman said. The Selectmen were worried that public rumblings about the $300,000 could derail the Manor proposal. The fourth Manor article would establish a stabilization fund this fiscal year, to contain $750,000, to be drawn down over the next six year to avoid the need for a property tax override during the Manor transition.
In recent weeks former Community Preservation Committee member Barnett Adler has launched an email campaign to stop the $1.9 million CPA grant in particular. Adler, who was unavailable for comment on Tuesday, abstained from the CPC vote on the money on Jan. 27. Adler said in the email that he is not opposed to the Manor “care campus” but feels the CPA money should be used for affordable housing for working townspeople, as he believes was promised to Town Meeting voters last year. The “care campus” affordable housing units would be limited to senior citizens.
In 2004 Town Meeting voters established the CPC, and a ballot vote last May created the CPA property tax surcharge.
Adler urged all recipients of the email to register to vote and take part in Town Meeting. (On Tuesday, Provincetown Town Clerk Doug Johnstone said that he has registered two new voters at most in the last several weeks.)
The town’s fiscal year 2006 operating budget will show an increase of nearly four percent in spending. A slight increase in the town Wastewater Enterprise Fund spending will be sought, as will a 22-percent increase in the Water Enterprise Fund. In total the town budget for next year is set at $25 million, and the capital improvement requests will include a $750,000 borrowing article to pay for significant structural repairs to the historic Town Hall building on Commercial Street.
Three articles address town-owned land obtained through tax title proceedings. A quarter-acre lot in Beach Point would be transferred to the Provincetown Housing Authority for creation of low-cost rental units. Two other lots, both considered unbuildable, would be transferred to the town Conservation Commission.
The Selectmen would like to enforce tree and shrub height restrictions to protect public safety on street curbs and corners, in a general bylaw amendment proposed in the warrant. The town Local Comprehensive Plan Implementation Committee would be abolished, and its tasks given to the town Planning Board, in another article brought by the Selectmen.
A handful of affordable housing articles are on the warrant as well, including a petition by resident Jonathan Sinaiko to alter the town’s growth management zoning bylaw to make it easier, he believes, for additional rooms to be added onto existing houses.
Finally animal advocate Elizabeth Gabriel Brooke and others want to establish a volunteer, five-person town committee for animal welfare, to be appointed by the Selectmen. Ideally the committee would work with town committees such as the Board of Health, the town’s non-profit animal shelter and others to help influence public policy decisions. “We’re really sort of casting a very, very wide net,” Brooke said, emphasizing that the goals of the committee are still being formed.
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Mar 10th, 2005