By DAN TOMASELLO
Published October 16, 2019
LYNNFIELD — Are you ready for Round Two?
Three-and-a-half weeks after voters packed the Lynnfield Middle School auditorium and gymnasium for a Special Town Meeting, Town Moderator Joe Markey will drop the gavel for another time this year when Fall Town Meeting takes place on Monday, Oct. 21, beginning at 7 p.m. in the LMS auditorium.
Similar to previous Town Meetings, a 175-quorum requirement is needed in order to conduct the town’s business.
Community Schools will be offering free child care for Fall Town Meeting. Parents must pre-register for the free child care program by calling 781-334-5814 by Friday, Oct. 18 in order to get a child on the list. Drop off for the Town Meeting will be in the LMS Media Center at 6:45 p.m. and pick up is at 9 p.m.
“Children not pre-registered may not be dropped off,” said Community Schools Director Michaelann Herook. “We need at least five children registered in order to staff the babysitting program.”
The Board of Selectmen closed the short warrant on Oct. 8. Fall Town Meeting will feature 11 articles, which will be headlined by Articles 10 and 11.
Article 11 will request townspeople to allocate $655,000 for the purpose of renovating Jordan Park. Article 10 seeks to appropriate $100,000 from Free Cash in order to renovate Lynnfield High School’s fitness center.
The selectmen unanimously voted to recommend nine out of 11 articles. The selectmen will be taking a position on Articles 1 and 2 before Town Meeting.
In addition to finalizing the 11-article warrant, the selectmen nixed a proposed warrant article submitted by Whole Foods Market. The rejected warrant article sought to allow Whole Foods to add spirits to its current selection of craft beer and wine by requesting the state Legislature to give the town another package license. Afterwards, the grocery store would have applied for the fourth license.
All three selectmen said they opposed the proposed warrant article because the 2017 Fall Town Meeting rejected a similar warrant article.
“We have addressed this in the past,” said Selectmen Chairman Phil Crawford. “It has come before Town Meeting and it got soundly defeated at Town Meeting. At this point in time, we have three package store licenses in the town of Lynnfield, which is the quota for the town. They are small, family-run businesses. They made a compelling case not to add another package store license the last time this was presented at Town Meeting.”
Selectman Dick Dalton agreed.
“The town was overwhelmingly against the warrant article and nothing has changed,” said Dalton.
Whole Foods Market attorney David Libardoni attempted to advocate on behalf of the warrant article, but Crawford refused to let him speak because the attorney advocated on behalf of the article during a meeting in August.
Warrant rundown
Article 1 will ask Town Meeting to appropriate funds to pay overdue bills from a prior fiscal year.
“I have been informed by Town Accountant Julie McCarthy that there are at least a couple of those bills,” said Assistant Town Administrator Bob Curtin. “She will be reaching out to departments and vendors to make sure we capture everything.”
Article 2 seeks to transfer funds within the existing fiscal year 2020 budget.
“The town accountant is working to identify areas that might need additional funds,” said Curtin. “She is working very diligently with department heads to see if there are any funds that can be freed up to allow those transfers.”
Curtin said Article 3 will ask Town Meeting to appropriate $35,000 for the purpose of financing engineering costs as part of the Complete Streets program. The first project the town submitted entails making pedestrian crossing improvements at Lynnfield Middle School, Chestnut Street and both elementary schools, totaling $383,555.
“This would allow the town to fund the engineering costs, which the state won’t pay for,” said Curtin. “This would leverage very significant funding for the first phase of the Complete Streets program. The $35,000 is a great bargain for these pedestrian traffic improvements.”
Article 4 would allocate $35,000 for the purpose of conducting a feasibility study of the public safety building. In an interview with the Villager, Town Administrator Rob Dolan said an architectural firm will be tasked with studying whether the existing building should be renovated or if a new facility should be constructed.
“We will be able to understand all of the costs associated with the different proposals,” said Dolan.
Dolan recalled that the FY20 capital budget included $30,000 for conducting a feasibility study for the two elementary schools. He said the deadline for firms to submit request for proposals (RFP) for that study is Friday, Oct. 18.
Article 5 will ask Town Meeting to accept provisions in state law that will allow the selectmen “to permit on-premises alcoholic beverage licensees to sell alcoholic beverages between the hours of 10 a.m. and noon on Sundays, the last Monday in May and on Christmas Day or on the day following when said day occurs on Sunday, or to take any other action in relation thereto.”
“This will allow for the early openings on Sundays for our restaurants that have liquor licenses,” said Curtin. “This is the so-called Sunday Brunch Law. Under state law, you cannot serve alcohol on Sundays until noon. This will ask voters if they want to adopt a state statue that allows the Board of Selectmen to extend those hours to 10 a.m. on Sundays. Should the voters approve this, the licensees would have to come before the board and seek that change.”
The Planning Board submitted Articles 6, 7 and 8. Planning and Conservation Director Emilie Cademartori noted the town’s Zoning Bylaw was re-codified two years ago. She said two bylaws that were omitted from the re-codified Zoning Bylaw have been put back into the bylaw.
“After another year of using the bylaw, we continue to find things that were left out,” said Cademartori. “The Planning Board took it upon themselves with my help last spring to do a line-by-line comparison of the pre-codified and codified versions. Two of the articles will clean that up.”
Cademartori said Article 6 will amend the Zoning Bylaw’s use table.
“Zoning used to be by district in a narrative form,” Cademartori explained. “What the attorney did was turn it into a table and in the process of converting the text into a table, some things were inadvertently changed. What I have done is gone through the table and I have gone through the old text, and have done a comparison. I have made suggestions to correct the table to make it exactly as it was prior to codification. That is what voters voted on and were told what they were getting. This is an attempt to be true to our word. At the time, it was such a massive edit and I think these things slipped through the cracks.”
Cademartori said Article 7 seeks to rectify “some text changes” in the Zoning Bylaw.
“There were some definitions left out and there were a few titles that were changed for some reason, which didn’t make a lot of sense,” said Cademartori. “This is literally text that was omitted that is just being put back in.”
Cademartori said Article 8 would update the town’s Zoning Map.
“Massachusetts law requires every municipality to have a zoning map available to all residents at all times,” said Cademartori. “Our last map was adopted in 1953. It has been amended 45 times. We decided to start over and have a map as of 2019. It’s not just a prettier map, but it’s a more accurate map. We literally read every single warrant from 1953 on to look for every single zoning change that was done. We made sure that every single one of them is reflected on the map.”
Cademartori noted the Planning Board unanimously voted to recommended Articles 6, 7 and 8.
Article 9 will ask Town Meeting to accept the Parsons Avenue Extension as a public way.
