By MARK SARDELLA
WAKEFIELD — Voters will be facing just nine articles when Regular Town Meeting convenes at 8 a.m. tomorrow in the Wakefield Memorial High School field house at 60 Farm St.
In addition to socially distant indoor seating, voters can also take advantage of outdoor seating with audio and visual feed. Masks will be required for those sitting inside the field house.
The meeting will open with Town Administrator Stephen P. Maio’s much anticipated final report on Fiscal Year 2021 (July 1, 2020 – June 30, 2021) under Article 1.
Article 2 would to authorize the town to use $2.5 million in Free Cash to balance the current year’s (FY 2022) budget.
Article 3 is sponsored by the Permanent Building Committee. It will ask voters to approve an additional $2.5 million to supplement the original $10 million appropriated at the 2020 Annual Town Meeting for the expansion and renovation of the Public Safety Building. The need for added funds has been attributed to delays and to higher than expected estimates and cost quotes for materials and work.
Under Article 4, voters will be asked to approve the planned new Northeast Metro Tech regional vocational school on Hemlock Road. While Town Meeting will be asked to approve the entire $317,422,620 borrowing for the project, there is no financial appropriation associated with this article.
Article 5 will seek the necessary funds to implement collective bargaining agreements between the Town of Wakefield and the Lucius Beebe Memorial Library Staff Association for the period July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2024. The provisions of the contract are similar to other town employee agreements. A sum of $30,000 from Free Cash would be used to fund this article.
Under Article 6, Town Meeting will be asked to raise and appropriate from tax levy or transfer from available funds, enough money to provide Sunday library service through June 2022. Due to the pandemic, Sunday hours were not included in the Library budget approved last spring.
Article 7 swill ask Town Meeting to raise and appropriate from tax levy or transfer from available $400,000 from Free Cash for the the design, purchase and installation of quad-gates at the Broadway railroad crossing as well as sidewalk and drainage improvements. Town Administrator Maio told the Town Council at a recent meeting that the town has a federal earmark for the the quad gates. The article authorizes the Town Council to apply for, accept and expend without further appropriation such grants and gifts from any source, including the federal government and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, for the purposes of Article 7.
Article 8 will ask Town Meeting to amend Article III of Chapter 9 and § 9-3 of the General Bylaws to re-name the “Commission on Disability Issues,” as the “Commission on Disabilities.”
Article 9 is a citizen petition seeking to repeal Zoning Bylaw Section 190-31(H) related to building near open streams and waterways.
For the first time, Saturday’s Town Meeting will feature a professionally captioned Communication Access Real time Translation (CART) service. Individuals with hearing loss or who otherwise would benefit from visual live captions can take advantage of this new offering. Voters will view the captions from an Internet-connected device like a smartphone, tablet, or laptop in real time during the meeting. If you think you may want to utilize the CART service, you are encouraged to bring a device with you. A limited number of devices will be available to loan the day of Town Meeting.
