Selectmen override Nahant vote

NAHANT – Nahant Selectmen voted 2-1 to honor a citizen’s petition and hold a special election to reconsider the $260,000 school override, citing discrepancy and confusion after the proposal passed Town Meeting but failed at the town election.There’s confusion because the town’s legislative body is Town Meeting, but the vote needed to be affirmed at the election, said Selectman Chair Lainey Titus in supporting the measure at the Board’s meeting on Thursday night.”There’s also a discrepancy between the overwhelming majority passing the measure at Town Meeting and the close election,” added Titus.”There are questions, there’s a gray area here,” said Selectman Richard Lombard, before voting in favor of the measure. “I think we need to give (voters) the chance” to clarify.School officials proposed the override to fill a shortfall due to a $113,000 reduction in state and federal funds coupled with a dramatic increase in special-education costs. The proposal would have added approximately $189 or $3.50 per week to the average tax bill, according to numbers from Town Accountant Deborah Waters and based on a median home valuation of $540,000. (Town Clerk Peggy Barile estimated the Special Election would cost $3,000, but Lombard said he didn’t think it would cost more than $800.)In order to be enacted, the override had to pass both the April 30 town election and Town Meeting (which met the same day). The School Committee, Finance Committee, Town Administrator Mark Cullinan and the Board of Selectmen all recommended the override and Town Meeting passed the measure 184 to 43. The ballot question (which asked permission for the money to be raised by override) was then defeated by 52 votes, 417 to 365.As a result, a group of parents began a petition to set a Special Election for June 25, with the override question as the only item on the ballot. About 50 parents, teachers and community members presented that petition with over 130 signatures to selectmen on Thursday night. Earlier that afternoon, 15 teachers at Johnson School received pink slips, said School Committee member Christine Kendall.”I think it will make it a lot easier to have one thing on the ballot and have it on its own day,” Kendall said. “I think it gives (the proposal) a second chance that it deserves; that the kids deserve.”But during discussion of the proposal, Selectman Michael Manning argued that voters have already had their opportunity to express their opinion and they made that opinion clear.”Why should we ask people to come out again, on another day, to ask the same question when this was on the ballot for several months, debates have been had, and votes have been cast and counted?” Manning argued, before voting against the proposal.After the meeting, parent Perry Manadee said that he and his wife Panamai will work to convince their friends and neighbors to vote in favor of the override.”I think those who had a chance to hear the stories (at Town Meeting) understood the issue, Town Meeting was very rousing,” Manadee said. “We have another shot now.”