001[Music] [Applause] I think so I can't you I can't you Saturday the photograph and hope for the best [Music] good evening a quorum of 100 voters being present this meeting will now come to order I am town moderator Mary Wolfe and I welcome you to sherburn's 240 second annual Town Meeting there are assistive listening devices available if you would like to use one of these devices please see Pat Cassell at the rear of the auditorium and I remind everyone who will address the assembly to speak directly into whatever microphone you are using Town Clerk Carol Marple has confirmed that the warrant has been properly posted by the constable and that the tellers for this meeting have been properly sworn in if you wish to leave the room for any reason you must do so through
002the doors in the rear of the auditorium and you must leave your ballot and electronic handset with one of the officials there if you plan to return to the meeting you must ask for a pass as you leave so that you can reclaim your ballot and handset please set your cell phones to curtesy mode and if you must take a call please leave the room as unobtrusively as possible please do not stand or sit in the aisles and please do not block access to any of the microphones to be used by speakers from the floor we always welcome non voters to our Town Meeting if you are a non voter you should have received a nametag to wear and you must sit in the non voter section located in the upper right of the balcony
003there finally and perhaps most importantly please keep in mind the importance of civility in all public discourse particularly in the small towns such as ours let us all assume in others the same good intentions we hold ourselves and therefore let us one another with the respect and goodwill with which each of us would like to be treated the motions this evening will be initiated by the advisory committee seated here on the stage to my right as follows beginning to my right Steve Leahy Jane monterosso Susan on Aronian Brendan Daley Peter Gallatin Oh Dhruv kachelle Steve psy and Jeff Waldron to my left are Town Council Darren Klein and town clerk Carol Marple to their left is the Board of Selectmen Chairman Chuck Yan Mike GMO Paul George Morel Paul de rensis and Eric Johnson down
004front directly beneath the stage our town administrator David Williams assistant town administrator Dianne Moore's town finance director Sharon McPherson and town treasurer Heidi Doyle the tellers are seated in the first rows to my far left and the head teller is Janet Walsh before continuing with this evenings business will hear a brief report from mr. Yan as chair of the board of selectmen and from mr. lahey as chair of the advisory committee thanks on behalf of the select board like to welcome you all to the annual Town Meeting I'd like to begin by thanking all those who have volunteered in Sherman this year whether serving on town committees and boards or in the many civic groups in Sherbourne volunteers have contributed their expertise time and energy to make sure than a special place to live we
005all benefit from the work of volunteers and the select board would like to recognize the extraordinary level of volunteerism in Sherbourne and we thank every volunteer for his or her contribution to our common good I'd also like to thank our town employees who perform their duties faithfully sponsible and carefully and conceits consistently meet the required professional standards I'd like to highlight several achievements of the past year as well as areas of continuing concern future development in Sherbourne is one of the most significant issues facing the town we all owe a special debt of gratitude to the planning board and the middie citizens who provided input and helped draft and finalize the 2019 master plan for the town I don't know how many of you have seen this the link is on the planning board website
006it is a remarkable document it's written beautifully it represents five years of work and for us data junkies there's an incredible amount of data and cross links it is a wonderful piece of work and John Higley and Marion Newton Nitra in particular have done extraordinary work over the last five years drafting and completing this comprehensive planning document the 2019 master plan provides a wealth of data and offers a balanced vision for the town's future I urge everyone to use the link on the planning board website to read and study this excellent plan the Committee on the structure of town government also known as the governance task force to completed its year-long study of the organization and best financial management and human resource practices for the town and they have proposed several changes for our consideration
007tonight the library construction project continues to have significant challenges and the library trustees library building committee select board cm and D director Shaun Killeen and building inspector Chris Chaney continue to devote significant in time and energy managing this process while there has been some progress recently the project is more than a year behind schedule it's way over budget and has serious contractor performance issues marry more Jim Kolbe Shawn Killeen Eric Johnson and Jeff Waldron are working extraordinarily hard to resolve these problems and bring this project to a successful conclusion on another library issue hi Doyle our town treasurer worked with the library trustees especially with Hank Roush and Jim Murphy to comply with state statutory requirements for custody of funds donated for the library as a result of a severe gypsy moth infestation and a
008two-year long drought the town has an extraordinary number of trees that are dead and dying and they create a safety hazard throughout Sherbourne the cost to trim and cut down these dead trees is extremely high and as we will discuss later tonight the town has worked hard to coordinate efforts with Verizon town employees and town contractors thanks again to Shawn Killeen for his leadership on this issue finally the Select board planning board Board of Health and conservation committee have held multiple meetings including joint informational meetings to discuss and review a large development proposal for 41 North Main Street at this time no Town Board has endorsed a proposal for consideration or a vote at a town meeting finally I'd like to end by recognizing and honoring a member of the Select board Mike G amo
009for his more than 26 years of service on 11 different committees including the Planning Board zba the Zoning Board of Appeals our prior incarnation Board of Selectmen and the current select board Paul de rensis and I have had the privilege and honor to serve with Mike on multiple terms on this board Mike exemplifies the ideal of public service with this thoughtful informed fair honest and intelligent analysis his civility and rational debate set a standard for all of us to meet please join me in thanking Mike for his invaluable contributions to our town over the last quarter century [Music] i-i-i noticed that Mike is not joining in that applause I think he's looking forward to his retirement but hopefully he's blush so thank you Mary mr. Lahey thank you madam moderator just a few words similar
010to what Chuck said I wanted to welcome everyone to 2019 annual Town Meeting here for sure born of the many aspects of this town that I really like and enjoy about this town our form of small town local government is one of the things I most enjoy not necessarily every Monday Wednesday night at 11:30 for the last three months but in general I enjoy I would also like to somebody talked to say thank you to a number of people out there to all the department heads and the budget makers who worked hard on the fiscal year 2020 budgets I appreciate your hard work and your engaging with us on the advisory committee to go through the many iterations to the town administration officers and staff thank you very much for always being there helping us
011out always being willing to stay with us late on Monday Wednesday evenings thank you very much to my fellow si si members of whom we've seen a heck of a lot of each other in the last three months thank you very much and finally to the staff here this evening handling the voting thank you very much for being here and ensuring that we assure BER nights get to use this form of town government that I find so appealing just a few comments on tonight's warrant and all the articles that you'll that we'll be voting on one the overall operating budget as we noted in our letter is only increasing by about point six six percent which is kudos to the tremendous work of the budget makers and department heads to keep their budgets as efficient
012as possible I'll note that that overall increase of just point six six percent was helped greatly by his large reduction in debt service I don't know that that level of super efficient spending can continue on ad infinitum I think that a town such as ours town any town is going to be growing and there are cost to running a healthy town that will continue to grow so I don't expect that this small increase in the proposed fiscal year 2020 budget will be repeated in future years when the primary focus is for serve and advisor committee is the budget and the taxes and tax rate in town as was written well the tax revenues that is proposed to be collected are increasing at just 0.66% the tax rate is actually a ratio your numerator is the
013taxes raised to fund the operating budget and capital budgets and the denominator is the assess the total assessed value of properties in town and as in any ratio when your denominator decreases your or even remains flat you're gonna have a tough time keeping your overall ratio number low and that is something that we an advisory are very wary of and are concerned about here in town I would note that even in today's news cycle I think it was Bloomberg comm I saw once again that housing sales in the US have slowed once again and specifically here in the Northeast we were affected by slowing home sales the next statistic I'd like to point out from the Assessors part of the server in town website if you compare the average home values noting that averages is
014a mean not necessary a median the average home value for our town in ten years has increased a mere eight percent yet the average taxes paid per home is up 28% that's a trend heading in the wrong direction and we've noted in past years and we know it again in our in our statement that the town can take as many tactical the town can make tactical changes budgets operating budget cap a request how we fund certain things but on a strategic and long-term basis the town needs to make some hard decisions and have a reckoning I appreciate the work of the Planning Board and the work that they have done and proposed ideas for how we should hope for town to look in years in the future and so the last thing I will say
015is that what someone wise told me recently is that the cost of running a healthy town is going to be increasing on a yearly basis costs just keep going up if we as a town do not find a way to increase the number of taxpaying entities in this town we will therefore all be paying more to subsidize the increasing needs of our town thank you very much thank you a few words on procedures although many of you are aware of the parliamentary procedures we will follow during the meeting I will review them for anyone new to town meeting and so that everyone understands the way we will together conduct tonight's business in a fair orderly and predictable manner that will allow all to be heard while ensuring that the meeting moves along expeditiously and without
016unnecessary delays a town meeting is a