Wednesday, May 07, 2008

 

Town Meeting, Night Two

Amazingly, Town Meeting accomplished all of its goals tonight, even if some of them were altered. Most of the night consisted of routine tasks that require votes every year and move quickly, but there were a few highlights for the night.

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Comments:
The town should also sell the C & L liquor store property it owns. It's crazy how this town can own property then rent it for a sweet deal to a liquor store who has been caught selling booze to underage children on several occasions. What is going to happen to the town when some underage kid kills someone after bying booze from C & L?
 
I agree that leasing the building to a liquor store, especially one that's been caught selling to minors, is a little strange - but I'm not sure I completely agree that the town should sell the land. Why? We may want it in the future. We also own the VFW Hall next door, meaning it's a fairly large lot. It's always a good idea to keep some space for utilitarian purposes down the road.

Lynnfield currently leases out a retired elementary school to a business, in case enrollment ever goes up again and it needs the space. They also just bought an entire golf course in the town's center, in case it ever needs a large swath of space for a new school, etc. Unfortunately, Swampscott will never be able to be that land-rich, but the principal remains intact. I agree we should eventually sell the Greenwood Ave middle school building, the Temple, and the old fire station - because it's space we don't need and will sell for a premium, given their location, but I think the town should keep the C/L + VFW lots, since they're next to each other and currently in use, as well as the old Machon and Sr. Center, because they're both in strategically important areas of the town and could be used for future purposes. Leasing them out until we know what we want to do with them makes sense.
 
You are mistaken about debt exclusions. They can be bonded - it isn't necessarily just a one time expense. All a debt exclusion means is that it is excluded from the normal limits of Prop. 2 1/2, and that it is paid outside of the operating budget. You could have a 20 year bond that is excluded debt.
 
Perhaps that's correct, but I'm not aware of a single example of a town using it in that kind of way - while I am aware of plenty examples in which towns have used them to pay for something during that year, while eliminating that cost from taxes the next.
 
You're not paying that close attention then. Lots of towns use it for lots of purposes. It doesn't make sense to permanently raise the tax base to build a new school. Once it is paid for, the debt comes off.
 
That could very well be the case - and I absolutely agree that once debt is paid for, it should come off. But special attention should be paid to package this the right way, or suddenly people really *will* think a debt exclusion is the same thing as an override... when all we need is a new Fire Station and don't want to pay $1.50 when we could pay a dollar, so to speak.
 
Correction: fire truck, not station.
 
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