In preparation for Brattleboro’s Representative Town Meeting, here is the officially warned agenda for said meeting. The amounts in Article 23 has been changing, and the text of the currently expected motion is also included below.
Each year the schedule alternates, and this year the schools will have the first items up for discussion and vote.
You can watch on BCTV. As per the poll results, you can also tune in here for a live blog of the day’s events. The meeting starts at 8:30 a.m. We’ll get going here shortly thereafter, once the opening ceremonies and reminder of rules is out of the way.
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ANNUAL REPRESENTATIVE TOWN MEETING
March 21, 2015
The legal voters qualified to vote in Representative Town Meeting are hereby notified and warned to meet in the multipurpose room of the Brattleboro Area Middle School on Saturday, the twenty-first day of March, 2015, at 8:30am, to act on the following Articles:
ARTICLE 1: To see what salaries the Town School District will pay its school board members.
ARTICLE 2: To see if the Town School District will authorize its Town School Directors to borrow money in anticipation of taxes.
ARTICLE 3: To see if the Town School District will authorize the District to accept and expend categorical grants and aid received from the State of Vermont and the United States Government.
ARTICLE 4: To see how much money the Town School District will raise and appropriate to defray its expenses and liabilities.
ARTICLE 5: To act on the Auditors’ reports (Town and Town School District).
ARTICLE 6: To see if the Town and Town School District will authorize its Selectboard and School Directors to employ a certified public accountant or public accountants.
ARTICLE 7: To see if the Town will ratify, approve and confirm the Selectboard’s appointment of a Town and Town School District Clerk for a term of one year.
ARTICLE 8: To see if the Town will ratify, approve and confirm the Selectboard’s appointment of a Town and Town School District Treasurer for a term of one year.
ARTICLE 9: To see if the Town will ratify, approve and confirm the Selectboard’s appointment of a Town Attorney for a term of one year.
ARTICLE 10: To elect two representatives to the Capital Grant Review Board for a term of one year from March 22, 2015. (Two members will be nominated from the floor.)
ARTICLE 11: To see if the Town will elect or appoint members to the Town Finance Committee for a term of one year from March 22, 2015. Members to be nominated from the floor.
ARTICLE 12: To elect three Trustees for the Brooks Memorial Library to serve three years, and one Trustee to fill an unexpired term of two years. The names for consideration for three year terms (2015-2018) are: Adam Franklin-Lyons, Robert Stack, and one to be named. The name for consideration for the unexpired term (2015-2017) is: Debra Loevy-Reyes.
ARTICLE 13: To see what salaries the Town will pay its officers.
ARTICLE 14: To see if the Town will authorize its Selectboard to borrow money in anticipation of taxes, grants and other revenue.
ARTICLE 15: To see if the Town will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of $78,000 through special assessments on properties within the Downtown Improvement District (as approved by Town Meeting March 19, 2005 and as delineated in the Town Ordinance entitled “Municipal Act to Establish and Regulate the Downtown Improvement District”) to be used for capital and operating costs of projects of the Town’s duly designated downtown organization as reflected in its work plan and budget.
ARTICLE 16: To see if the Town will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of $223,276.48 through special assessments on property within the “Mountain Home Park Special Benefit Assessment Tax District” (as approved by Town Meeting, March 24, 2007 and as delineated in the Town Ordinance entitled, “Municipal Act to Establish and Regulate the Mountain Home Park Special Benefit Assessment Tax District”) for the purpose of paying debt service on the capital improvements to the water and sewer lines serving the Mountain Home and Deepwood Mobile Home Parks.
ARTICLE 17: To see if the Town will raise and appropriate a sum not to exceed $10,000 to assist in funding Brattleboro Climate Protection for Fiscal Year 2016 (July 1, 2015 – June 30, 2016).
ARTICLE 18: To see if the Town will raise and appropriate the sum of $120,000 to support human service programs and facilities for the residents of Brattleboro to be allocated among service providers in the following manner: AIDS Project of Southern Vermont – $2,000; American Red Cross – VT and NH Upper Valley Region – $4,000; Boys & Girls Club – $13,220; Brattleboro Area Adult Day (Gathering Place) – $2,000; Brattleboro Area Drop-In Center – $9,600; Brattleboro Area Hospice – $1,700; Brattleboro Senior Meals – $7,000; Family Garden – $2,000; Green Mountain RSVP – $700; Health Care & Rehabilitation Services (HCRS) – $2,000; KidsPLAYce – $3,500; Meeting Waters-YMCA – $5,000; Morningside House – $9,000; Phoenix House RISE – $3,000; Prevent Child Abuse Vermont – $1,000; Senior Solutions – $2,800; Southeastern Vermont Community Action, Inc. (SEVCA) – $9,000; Turning Point – $6,500; Vermont Adult Learning – $700; Vermont Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired – $680; Vermont Center for Independent Living – $1,600; Visiting Nurse & Hospice of VT & NH – $10,000; Windham Child Care Association – $5,500; Windham County Safe Place Child Advocacy Center and Southeastern Unit for Special Investigations – $1,500; Brattleboro Town School District (℅ Windham Southeast Supervisory Union) Summer Lunch Program – $6,000; Youth Services – Big Brothers/Big Sisters – $10,000.
ARTICLE 19: To see if the Town will appropriate a sum not to exceed $375,000 from the Unassigned General Fund Balance as of June 30, 2014 to fund in whole or in part the following capital projects: Green Street retaining wall, Elliot Street bridge, Municipal Center life safety improvements, and Union Street/Western Avenue intersection improvements.
ARTICLE 20: To see if the Town will appropriate $20,000 from the Unassigned General Fund Balance to assist with investigating feasibility and assist in development of a skatepark at Living Memorial
Park.
ARTICLE 21: To see if the Town will authorize the following acquisition of capital assets, to wit: (a) replacement of a 2008 Police cruiser and a 2011 Police cruiser (combined cost of approximately $84,000), (b) replacement of a 1995 726A grader (approximately $340,000), and (c) replacement of a 2003 dump truck (approximately $208,000), at an estimated total cost of $632,000, and to finance the same through debt instruments other than bonds for a term not to exceed five (5) years.
ARTICLE 22: To see if the Town will assess a one percent (1%) local option sales tax in accordance with 24 V.S.A. Section 138.
ARTICLE 23: To see how much money the Town will raise, appropriate and expend to defray its expenses and liabilities.
ARTICLE 24: To see if the Town shall pass a resolution to amend the Brattleboro Town Charter Addendum A, Acts of 1959, No. 302, Section 4a to change the deadline for incumbent Town Meeting members to submit their notice of intent to have their name placed on the ballot as presented.
ARTICLE 25: To see if the Town shall pass a resolution to amend the Brattleboro Town Charter Article II, Section 3 to allow mechanical tabulation of ballots from citizens that use early voting as presented.
ARTICLE 26: To see if the Town will vote to establish a committee of Representative Town Meeting to be known as the Committee of the Future.
ARTICLE 27: To transact any other business that may lawfully come before the meeting. Dated at Brattleboro, Vermont this 29th day of January, 2015.
BRATTLEBORO SELECTBOARD
s/David Gartenstein, Chair
s/Kate O’Connor, Vice Chair
s/David Schoales, Clerk
s/John Allen
s/Donna Macomber
Brattleboro, Vermont
January 30, 2015
Town Clerk’s Office, Brattleboro, Vermont, January 30, 2015, at 9:15am, received and recorded the foregoing Warning in Volume 20, of Town Records, at Page 357.
Attest: s/Annette L. Cappy, Town Clerk
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ARTICLE 23: To see how much money the Town will raise, appropriate and expend to defray its expenses and liabilities.
(REVISED to include revisions adopted at the 3/3 Selectboard meeting and subsequent revisions made prior to the 3/17 SB meeting):
I move that the Selectboard be authorized to raise, appropriate and expend the sum not to exceed $15,307,899 (fifteen million, three hundred seven thousand, eight hundred nine-nine dollars) in order to defray to that extent all general fund expenses for the period of July 1, 2015 through June 30, 2016, including all highway and Windham County taxes, and that the Selectboard be authorized to expend, in addition, any sum authorized for special purpose under any article contained in the warning for this meeting or any special Representative Town Meeting. This motion includes the following funding sources: $96,265 (ninety-six thousand, two hundred sixty-five dollars) to be appropriated from the Unassigned General Fund Balance, $13,473,675 (thirteen million, four hundred seventy-three thousand, six hundred seventy-five dollars) to be collected in property taxes, and the balance to be comprised of all other sources of revenue collected by the Town. This motion also provides that the Town taxes assessed on the Grand List as April 1, 2015, shall be due and payable in four (4) equal installments payable to the Town Treasurer until overdue, then to the Collector of Taxes; that such payment of the installments shall be made on or before 5:00pm on August 17, 2015, November 16, 2015, February 16, 2016, and May 16, 2016; and that interest at a rate of one percent (1%) per month be charged from the due date of payment on any overdue payment of the town tax, installment, or portion thereof; and that a penalty of eight percent (8%) be charged on any overdue payment that remains due and owing on May 17, 2016.
