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Photo Vincent Guadazno
Voters make their will known with a show of hands. |
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Photo Vincent Guadazno
Town Manager Sharon Lynn hit some bumps in the road at her first Town Meeting. |
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Spending leads to overrides
By Pru Sowers
Banner Staff
PROVINCETOWN — Putting curbs on municipal spending was the order of the day at Special Town Meeting Monday.
Voters rejected a $566,380 proposal to hire an engineering firm to study and develop a design for repaving Commercial Street (see story page 23). They also put town officials through their paces with question after question about other spending articles, which all eventually passed. And they resoundingly rejected a proposed amendment to the town noise bylaw that would have let police officers use decibel meters to measure street noise, including street performers.
“The natives are restless,” one resident quipped as he left Town Hall Monday night after the four-hour Special Town Meeting.
Speaker after speaker complained about municipal spending, requesting a full accounting of the seven spending articles on the warrant.
“I won’t vote for any article that requires a Proposition 2 1/2 override until we have an audit of the town’s finances,” said Astrid Berg, owner of Pepe’s Wharf.
“Are we going into debt as we make these decisions?” asked Laura Shabott about adding $340,700 to supplement the operating budget for fiscal year 2008, which will also require a Prop. 2 1/2 override.
After an hour of bewildered back-and-forth between residents, selectmen, the finance committee, the town municipal director and, finally, town counsel, the supplemental budget was passed. Voters also approved spending $165,000 to fund contractual raises for the police department but voted to indefinitely postpone spending $15,000 to repair the concrete stairway connecting the two schools with the Grace Hall parking lot.
“We have to think twice now, obviously, about putting things in the warrant,” said board of selectmen chair Mary-Jo Avellar. “People are terrified of the rising cost of living in this community. People are getting scared with the taxes they have to pay and sewer betterment.”
A total of $505,700 in Prop. 2 1/2 overrides was passed at Monday’s Town Meeting, which must now be approved in a special election scheduled for next Tuesday, Nov. 13. For a home assessed at $500,000, the owner would have an annual tax increase of $97.34, according to Alix Heilala, municipal finance director.
Other, non-financial items on the warrant also drew passionate debate on Town Meeting floor. A proposal to amend the town noise bylaw met with stiff resistance and was overwhelmingly voted down despite a warning from town counsel John Giorgio that “the town will be susceptible to a legal challenge” if the article did not pass.
However, complaints heard over the summer from business owners about street performers playing in front of their establishments did not materialize on Monday. Several residents said they enjoyed the street performers. Bryan Green, a Commercial Street business owner, said he knew the nature of Provincetown’s summer streets when he bought his property.
“I knew what I was getting into. And anyone who buys a house next to a bar that has been there for 200 years should know what they’re getting into, too,” he said.
The noise bylaw currently on the books, and which will remain unless another effort to amend it is brought to Town Meeting in the spring, says that street performers and commercial establishments should not produce noise that can be heard 50 feet away, a ruling police have said is difficult to enforce consistently.
Two citizen petitions received split support. The first, a non-binding resolution to ask the Cape Cod National Seashore to restore the view of the ocean from the Race Point parking lot, passed. However, a second article, to cap the visitor services board annual budget at $300,000, did not pass. Resident Barbara Rushmore, a familiar fixture at town meetings, sponsored both articles.
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FYI local information
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Nov 8th, 2007