Town Meeting Update

It was quite an eventful town meeting last night - even though we only covered 11 articles in 4 hours, three of which got the most attention. The longest discussion - about two hours - was about Article 5 of the Special Town Meeting Warrant (taken up first), a by-law change which would have authorized the Board of Selectmen to go forward with the proposed two 1.8MW wind turbine project at Commerce Park, without Planning Board approval. Citizens spoke passionately on both sides of the issue. In the end the vote was 725 for and 411 against, which fell 33 votes short of the 2/3 needed for the by-law revision.

I voted in favor of the project, but I can see why some people were uncomfortable with the scale of the turbines or the process used in this article. I would like to investigate more ideas for clean energy production on town land. Working with interested citizens, I would like to see if there are different configurations that might create similar benefits to the town with perhaps smaller turbines and possibly more of them.

The other topic of discussion last night was the budget override. The elementary school budget, including a $341,000 override, came up first and received the most discussion. After 45 minutes or so, the budget passed with few dissenting votes. Next came the town operating budget discussion, including a $215,000 override. After Mr. Levasseur explained his lone vote on the Board of Selectman against the budget, I spoke in favor. I wanted to acknowledge the sacrifice that we are being asked to make, and to argue that sacrifice is necessary this year to preserve the character of the town. This article similarly passed overwhelmingly. The last article of the night covered the third piece of the budget override - the Nauset Regional School budget, $244,000 subject to the override vote. After Dr. Hoffman's presentation, very few questions were asked before this too passed easily.

So the budget override has passed the town meeting hurdle, but history shows that the town election ballot is the more difficult obstacle. Our campaign is strongly in support of the override this year, and we will keep pushing on this issue. We appeal to all Brewster voters to vote on May 17, and to please vote Yes on Question 1 as well as hopefully voting for me for selectman. As I have said on the campaign trail, I would rather lose the race and have the override pass, than the other way around. Though I see no reason why we can't both win!