State of the Town, 2013

Fellow citizens, distinguished guests, colleagues, friends, welcome to 2013 annual town meeting. You came tonight—not to miss the Red Sox continue to slump, though that reason has its merits—but because you care enough about your town to take part in its government. Democracy guarantees us the right to participate in the running of our government, but it also burdens us with a responsibility to be informed, decide on what we think is best, and most importantly, show up. By being here tonight, you are serving your community and yourselves.

The sentence “May you live in interesting times” was once said to be a Chinese curse. The origins of those words are under dispute, but, like it or not, we are cursed to live in interesting times. The world, not just Granby, Massachusetts, or the United States, is in a depression, a prolonged economic downturn that is making life difficult for us. A poor economy means lower tax revenue and less money for our town. Our fiscal problems, however, are not merely economic. In the late 1990s, we decided to cut the taxes at the state level. Our income tax rate was reduced almost 1 percentage point. Capital gains taxes were slashed by more than70%, and the personal tax exemption was doubled. The result is an annual loss of $3.8 billion in revenue for the Commonwealth. As a result of these factors, aid to cities and towns, also known as Chapter 70 funds, has dropped by 46%. Granby has a revenue problem, but a major cause of that problem the Commonwealth’s revenue problem. There is no way Granby or scores of other communities across the Commonwealth can ever make up for the decrease in state aid. Cities and towns cannot raise enough revenue on their own. It doesn’t take a village; it takes a Commonwealth.

In spite of our financial situation, Granby has continued to make progress, most concretely in our town buildings. Ten years ago, we were cramming our highway department into a crumbling cinderblock building; five years ago, our police department was housed in a former dinosaur museum that was outdated, unhealthy, and didn’t even belong to us. Our general government may be housed in two locations, but our office workers no longer work in unhealthy, inaccessible conditions where the wind blows through the closed windows and record-seekers need hazmat suits to access records. Our seniors no longer play cards in a building held up with two-by-fours, house jacks, and wishful thinking. They no longer contend with a periodically polluted water supply and failing septic system.

Five months from now, our library, which, for almost 100 years, has been housed in a lovely, but completely unsuitable Greek revival building gifted to the town by the philanthropy of Andrew Carnegie and the hard work of our Granby forebearers. In ten years, Granby will have replaced all of its municipal buildings without relying on a property tax override or the money spent on department operations.

That’s progress–and it didn’t come easy. It was decades in the making. It took countless hours of work by appointed and elected members of our community. There were steps forward and steps backward, but in the end, we moved forward. Without the good decision-making of town meeting, we would not have accomplished this monumental feat. At the end of Fiscal Year 2013, the Town of Granby has much to be proud of.

In comparison to the last ten years, this year’s accomplishments have been relatively modest. We have completed the purchase of 150 acres of land by Forge Pond. With the help of grants and the generosity of Joseph Partyka, the cost was modest, and this open space will now remain open forever. In conjunction with The MacDuffie School, we are currently evaluating a proposal to bring in sewer from Belchertown. Costs may turn out to be prohibitive, but because there are issues with septic at the high school and East Meadow campus, we have yet to eliminate it as an option.

As part of the ongoing effort to improve the running of our town government, we have created and appointed a new committee to oversee all of our public parks, and athletic fields. In the future, we hope to bring forward a bylaw change that would replace the Recreation Commission with a Parks and Recreation Commission. We are also asking voters to change the treasurer position from elected to appointed and looking at financial services with the schools.

After Kellogg Hall was closed, we wanted to make sure the plaques commemorating our veterans were preserved. Our town administrator floated the idea of creating a Veterans Park on the Aldrich Hall property. As a result, we appointed a committee that is now working hard to develop a memorial. The plaques once situated in town hall, now in storage, will eventually be displayed there with more added to commemorate those who have served since the 1960s.

In the next year, we face some prominent financial challenges. Waste Management has told us that our dump will close in December. To the best of our knowledge, this date is real. Based on previous discussions with Waste Management, the possibility of continuing our current drop off seems unlikely, but we will explore that option along with town-wide and private pickup. This morning we received an invitation to join a consortium of communities to leverage our bargaining power. For the record: Granby neither owns the landfill or the land on which it is located. We receive tipping fees a host community. Once the landfill closes, those fees and our cheap place to dump will be gone.

At our last town meeting, we voted to file special legislation to remove 140 residences from South Hadley’s Fire District 2. It’s unlikely that town meeting would have taken this drastic measure, or that the affected Granby residents would have requested help, had it not been for the state of democracy in Fire District 2. Taxation without representation, as we know, is illegal, but taxation without good representation is a major problem in Fire District 2. The Prudential Committee of Fire District 2 has operated in a bubble, raising fire taxes by 78%. If the Granby select board had the authority to raise taxes beyond 2 ½ percent without the consent of the Granby voters, and if we raised taxes by 78%, the best that would happen is that we wouldn’t be re-elected. Fire Districts, however, can increase taxes by more 2½ percent. Taxes, however, are only the symptom of a system that has outlived its usefulness for Granby citizens. The disease is poor government. The Prudential Committee, and the coterie of South Hadley people who run the district, may refer to the “Granby issue,” but the problem is Prudential Committee. And the issue is good governance. Town government in Granby is not perfect, but it is accountable. You know where we meet. You know where to find our agenda. You can watch us on television after we meet. On taxation, you, not us, have the last word. Granby residents in Fire District 2 deserve effective, accountable governance, and responsible taxation, and unfortunately, that means trying to dissolve a 100 year-old relationship.

Let me warn you now, I’m going to use an f-word when I refer to Granby’s next project. You’ll be asked to vote on this f-word in October or November. I think we’d all rather chew glass than pay for another study of a building, but when it comes to large state grants, we don’t make the rules. The MSBA has invited us to the first stage of the school building process for West Street School. We’ve appointed a school building committee that will convene soon. That committee will do the preliminary work to renovate or replace West Street School. When this work is complete, town meeting will decide deciding whether or not to enter the feasibility study phase of the process. We will do our utmost to keep the Town in the loop, so when we come before you this autumn, you have everything you need to make an informed decision.

Well, that’s about it. If you have questions, please feel free to come up after the meeting.

Town Meeting: Monday, May 13, 7 PM

As has been tradition for several years now, town meeting is divided into two parts. The first part takes place this Monday. The next part takes place on June 17.

I’ve blogged on every article that will be addressed on Monday. If you have questions, please feel free to post them in the comments or on Masslive.

• Moving money in or out of stabilization funds requires a 2/3 majority.

• If you want to amend an article, the amendment needs to be written down and submitted to the moderator. 

A few etiquette reminders for town meeting:

• By tradition, the town clerk seconds the motions on articles.
• When speaking, state your name and address.
• Address the moderator as “Madam Moderator”.
• All questions are to be asked through the Moderator. Dialogue between two or more speakers is not permitted. If you have a question, pose it to the moderator, such as, “Madam Moderator, I’d like to the select board to tell us whether they approve of _________ .”
• Refrain from personal references and attacks upon individual persons. It is more courteous to refer to “a previous speaker” rather than calling a person by name.

There will be people who don’t follow these rules, but it makes for a smoother meeting if people follow town meeting tradition.

Article 13, Cost of Living Adjustment for Non-Union Employees

Article 13 replaces last year’s pay schedule (see APPENDIX D at the very back of the Personnel Bylaws) with a pay schedule that reflects a 1% cost of living increase.

Article 13. To see if the Town will vote to amend the Bylaws of the Town of Granby, Volume II, Chapter XIX Personnel Bylaw, APPENDIX D Compensation Plan Pay Schedules, and substituting a new APPENDIX D, showing the twelve pay grades and tens steps with a 3% increment between steps to be effective July, 2013, or take any other action in regard thereto.

I don’t have a copy of the proposed schedule. If you follow the link above, you can see what last year’s pay rates were and add 1%.

 

Annual Town Meeting: May 13

“A Town Meeting,” according to the Citizen’s Guide to Town Meeting, “is both an event and an entity. As an event, it is a gathering of a town’s eligible voters, and is referred to as ‘the Town Meeting.’ As an entity, it is the legislative body for towns in Massachusetts, and is referred to simply as ‘Town Meeting.’ So you may say, ‘I went to the Town Meeting. Town Meeting approved the budget.’”

 Annual town meeting is a business meeting, and many of the articles are uncontroversial because they  authorize different parts of our town government to carry out their duties. The Town, for example, can’t collect or spend money without town meeting authorizing it. State law requires town meeting to vote on these authorizations every fiscal year.

Many of these articles are the same every year. Articles 1 & 2, for example, are always the same. The first asks town meeting to agree to hold the meeting on the given dates and deal with specific articles at those times. The second article authorizes the Chair of the Finance Committee to give their financial report.

ARTICLE 1. To see if the Town will vote to conduct the business of the meeting as follows; on May 13, 2013 consider articles two through twelve and on June 17, 2013 consider Articles fourteen through thirty-four, or take any other action in regard thereto.

ARTICLE 2. To see if the Town will hear the reports of Town Officers and all standing and special committees and act thereon.

Because there have been so many articles at the annual town meeting, we have been holding the meeting on two different dates. The second date is typically reserved for the budget, which, due to lags at the state level, takes longer than it used too.

Article 3, Authorize the Select Board to Take in Money

Article 3 authorizes the select board to carry out regular activities for the next fiscal year, namely selling property taken for non-payment of taxes, applying for and accepting grants and other monies, sign a contract with the Massachusetts Highway Department for work on public highways.

ARTICLE 3.   To see if the Town will vote to authorize the Board of Selectmen to conduct the following activities for fiscal year 2014:

A. To sell, after first giving notice of time and place of sale by posting such notices of sale in some convenient and public place in the Town 14 days at least before the sale, property taken by the Town under tax title land of low value procedure, provided the Selectmen or whomever they authorize to hold such public auction, may reject any bid they deem inadequate.

B. To apply for and accept Federal or State grants or monies as may be made available and to allow the Selectmen to expend any funds received as set forth in the appropriate application.

 C. To enter into a contract with the Massachusetts Highway Department for the construction and maintenance of public highways for the ensuing year.

Articles 4 & 5: Compensation for Site Work

Article 4 authorizes four boards to be paid for the work they do. The planning board, board of assessors, and board of health receive a set fee per inspection. Cemetery commissioners get paid at least minimum wage.

ARTICLE 4.   To see if the Town will authorize the various departments to receive compensation for services rendered for fiscal year 2014 as follows:

A. The Cemetery Commissioners to dig graves and maintain the equipment and grounds in the cemeteries at a wage rate that is no less than the minimum wage.
B. The members of the Board of Assessors to be compensated $15 per parcel for necessary fieldwork and data collection for services rendered in connection with the revaluation and re-certification process involving one-sixth of the improved parcels in town.
C. The members of the Board of Health, or their consultants, to receive compensation at a wage rate of $35 per inspection or specific required activity.
D. The members of the Planning Board, or their appointees, to receive compensation at a wage rate of $65 per inspection.

Operating on the same principle as the other four boards, Article 5 authorizes the Conservation Commission to charge a fee for site inspections.

ARTICLE 5.   To see if the Town will vote to authorize the Conservation Commission to charge a fee of $65 for each site inspection deemed necessary by a quorum of the Commission.  Fees shall be payable to the Town of Granby Conservation Commission and deposited in the Conservation Hatch Fund, or take any other action in regard thereto.

Article 6, Cemetery Lots

Anyone wishing to be buried in the West Street Cemetery needs to have a grave site. Town meeting must approve all purchases of cemetery lots.

ARTICLE 6.   To see if the Town will vote to accept the following gifts in calendar year 2012 for perpetual care of cemetery lots:

Monique L. & James P. Curran                    $   165.

Carolyn & Wilfred Messier                           $   565.

Shirley R. Duval                                             $   565.

Yvonne Anderson                                          $1,155.

Alice W. Convery                                          $1,155.