Preliminary funding for a town hall renovation project and money to pay design fees for new public restrooms at the Circle are on the docket when Aquinnah convenes a special town meeting Saturday afternoon.
The meeting begins at 1 p.m. inside the town hall. There are 12 articles on the warrant, most of them housekeeping and year-end funding needs. All spending requests involve transfers from available funds.
The meeting was postponed this fall due to Covid concerns, but will be held Saturday with the quorum reduced to 10 voters, and an array of extra safety precautions.
Face coverings are required, and chairs will be spaced six feet apart. Moderator Micheal Hebert will preside.
“We’ve taken all the precautions we can take,” town administrator Jeffrey Madison said during a Zoom forum Tuesday evening to review the warrant. “The windows will be opened several hours before the meeting takes place. Fans will be placed in the windows to blow fresh air into the town hall . . . Hopefully we can get through this in a very timely fashion,” he said.
Funding for preliminary town hall renovation plans is the first article on the warrant. Voters will be asked to transfer $35,000 from available funds. Mr. Madison said the primary focus of the project is replacing windows and expanding office spaces.
In other articles voters will be asked to approve:
• $20,000 for a new parking surface at the town library and repairs to the town hall parking lot.
• $20,000 to design new auxiliary restrooms closer to the shops at the Gay Head Cliffs.
• $24,119 to cover the cost of having restrooms deep-cleaned and disinfected last summer.
• $12,000 to build a shed for the harbor master at West Basin.
• $4,873 to pay the town’s share of a roofing project at the West Tisbury School.
If voters agree, a package of Community Preservation Act spending requests will transfer money to pay for a new playground, food forest and affordable housing on town-owned land behind the town hall, more development work at the Circle and ongoing restoration work the Edwin Devries Vanderhoop Homestead.
Voters will also be asked to back a nonbinding Islandwide proposal from energy committees in each town to combat climate change by meeting a series of aspirational goals. The goals include halving the use of fossil fuels on the Island by 2030 and eliminating their use by 2040; increasing the amount of renewable electricity on the Island by 50 per cent by 2030 and 100 per cent by 2040; adopting regenerative agriculture and landscaping; and protecting and expand wetlands and preserve its woodland resources.
“We think it’s ambitious but feasible,” said William Lake, chairman of the Aquinnah energy and climate committee, during the Zoom forum.
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