Chilmark residents approved spending up to $2.5 million for the restructuring of the Martha’s Vineyard Refuse District at a quick special town meeting Monday evening.
The refuse district article will require the approval of all four member towns, including West Tisbury, Aquinnah and Edgartown, before the project can go forward.
In just over half an hour, 86 residents moved quickly through a 10-article agenda, approving articles related to road repairs and maintenance, improvements to the town hall and the continuation of the town’s year-round rental conversion program. Along with renovations to the town hall building, the rental program will be paid for with community preservation funds.
Five articles passed unanimously.
James Malkin, chairman of a town committee that is developing proposals for the restoration of Squibnocket beach, gave a progress report on the committee’s work since it began meeting in June. Voters applauded when Mr. Malkin praised the eight-member committee for its work.
The 13 meetings so far have been well attended, he said, despite taking place early on Tuesday mornings. Several proposals and suggestions have been submitted to the committee, along with presentations from other town boards.
In addition to beginning to evaluating the material collected so far, he said, “The committee has engaged or is about to engage coastal engineers, cost estimators and environmental experts. The committee has made two site visits to all homes within 2,000 feet of [Squibnocket Pond] and examined the impact on the viewshed.”
Mr. Malkin also spoke briefly about the town’s efforts to use a major state grant that was awarded in May. The town recently learned that the grant was tied to a proposal that voters had rejected at the annual town meeting in April, and that the deadline to spend the money was June 30, 2015.
The grant is “conditional upon town approval of the project,” Mr. Malkin said.
The town rushed to resubmit a grant proposal to the state Office of Coastal Zone Management by an Oct. 10 deadline, and are hoping that the grant can be rolled into fiscal year 2016.
Following the progress report, Mr. Malkin moved to have a non-binding vote to determine whether residents wanted the committee to develop a final recommendation in time for a special town meeting this winter, which might allow the town to spend at least some of the grant money by June.
When asked by one voter whether the committee itself wanted to agree to an expedited timeframe, Mr. Malkin said: “The committee doesn’t feel that it would be expedited.” He said the committee has gathered a large amount of material, and is “quite sure our best efforts would get to a recommendation by this winter.”
Six voters were against the new time frame.
Much of the discussion Monday evening focused on the proposed borrowing of $600,000 to repave and repair town roads, an article that will still require the passage of a debt-exclusion override at the state election Nov. 4.
Adriana Stadecker asked why the town needed borrow money to maintain its roads.
Selectman William Rossi said it would help spread out the cost and control the tax rate.
Robert Doyle echoed Ms. Stadecker’s concerns. “It’s like taking a mortgage out to pay your utility bill,” he said. “Why are we going long-term for what should be in the operating budget?”
Selectman Warren Doty said the article was an opportunity to refinance a bond the town took out several years ago. He added that in the past the town had tried to repave one mile of road each year, but that the cost of repaving is now much higher, and only half a mile or less is repaved each year. “So we feel that we are behind on our maintenance plan for maintaining town roads,” he said.
Sarah Kuh suggested widening the roads to make room for bicyclists, an idea that selectman Jonathan Mayhew thought was worth considering. He said the idea had been raised about 10 years ago, but that some people had been strongly against it. “That’s maybe something we can look at next year,” he said.
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