Three hundred and fifty years after the town’s incorporation in 1671, Edgartown voters are set to convene for a historic outdoor town meeting Saturday to match the occasion, with a $3 million project to renovate and raise the aging Memorial Wharf topping a full business agenda.

The 81-article warrant also includes a flurry of capital spending requests that were deferred from 2020, as well as a trio of articles asking voters about the VTA’s proposed electric bus charging station on Church Street, zoning changes that will allow for the Windemere nursing home development and a request from the town to switch the tax collector position from elected to appointed.

And after the death of attorney Sean Murphy earlier this spring, the town will also have to nominate a moderator from town meeting floor — before the first meeting gavel is struck.

“The moderator discussion will be the first thing that happens at the meeting,” town administrator James Hagerty said. “We’ll see where it goes from there.”

For the second year in a row, the town meeting will begin at 1 p.m. under a tent at the Edgartown School to accommodate concerns regarding the Covid-19 pandemic. The quorum is 197.

“We haven’t lowered any quorum levels, so we’re counting on people to come,” Mr. Hagerty said.

But unlike 2020, when the town pared down its quorum, warrant and budget in response to the pandemic, the 2021 warrant includes a slate of capital spending projects deferred from last year.

Voters will take up a $40.6 million budget, representing a 3.8 per cent increase over FY2021. The increases include deferred operating expenses and cost-of-living raises for town employees that were eliminated last year, as well as other staffing increases, including a new assistant human resources position.

“The biggest increase is personnel,” Mr. Hagerty said.

Topping the warrant is a $2.85 million request for a long-planned capital project to completely overhaul historic Memorial Wharf, raising it about a foot and a half and redoing structural engineering. The nearly $4 million project has already received a $1 million grant from the state Seaport Economic Council, with the other $3 million funded through a bond. Mr. Hagerty said both the grant — and the town wharf itself — have a ticking clock.

“We have a timeline to utilize that money, and if it isn’t utilized it goes back to the state,” he said. “But Memorial Wharf is still going to [need to] be rehabilitated. It is starting to turn toward a safety hazard and safety issue.”

The wharf article will require a two-thirds vote at town meeting as well as a majority vote at the ballot box because of the debt exclusion.

Other deferred spending requests include $200,000 to update elevators at the town hall, $26,000 for electric car chargers, $50,000 for bathhouses at South Beach and $100,000 for the town to work on a comprehensive master plan, which it has not done for nearly two decades. Money for police cruisers, more than $300,000 for a new ambulance, and $70,000 for buoys all are also on the warrant.

Voters will also decide on a variety of non-spending articles.

After a surprise article passed at the last town meeting forming a town committee to examine a $1.2 million project to install an electric VTA bus charging station at Church Street, selectmen this year have submitted an article asking voters whether the town should proceed with the project — which has seen pushback from a handful of vocal residents in the village.

Another article would add language to the town zoning bylaw to accommodate senior residential developments. The Martha’s Vineyard Hospital has signed a purchase and sale agreement for a large parcel off the Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road for a new Windemere nursing facility. Approval of the article would allow the project to proceed.

“In theory, that is basically is a vote for Windermere,” Mr. Hagerty said.

Voters will also be asked to approve two climate-change related articles. One would enact an energy stretch code that will allow the town to qualify for state Green Communities grant money. The other asks the town to adopt nonbinding aspirational goals in response to the climate crisis, including a commitment to reduce fossil fuels by 50 per cent through 2030 and 100 per cent by 2040.

The latter is part of an Island-wide initiative to pass climate-related goals that began with the Martha’s Vineyard Commission in early 2020.

Other requests include one asking the town to change the name of its board of selectmen to select board, along with school spending requests and an article to approve the creation of a capital projects stabilization fund for the town.

The annual town election will be held the following Tuesday, May 25, with polls open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Edgartown town hall. Although there are no contested races on the ballot, voters will face two ballot questions; one for the Memorial Wharf project and a second to change its tax collector from elected to appointed.

Mr. Hagerty said the change would put the town in line with other communities across the state that have appointed tax collectors.

“This ultimately would save the town a significant amount of money to synergize the town collector’s office with the town treasurer’s office,” he said.

On the town meeting warrant, there is also a $10,000 spending request for a town picnic — in honor of the town’s 350th anniversary, which takes place on July 8. Mr. Hagerty said the town would have liked to do more, but that the pandemic restricted the opportunities for celebration.

For now, a historic town meeting may have to suffice.

“The goal is to get it done in one day,” Mr. Hagerty said of the meeting. “We’ll be there until it gets dark if we have to be.”