Lynnfield Town Meeting fails to reach quorum

LYNNFIELD – After Lynnfield town officials expressed doubt last week that the annual fall town meeting would meet its designated quorum of 175 people, the meeting was adjourned just after its start time of 7:30 p.m. Monday night because only around 50 people had filed into the Lynnfield Middle School auditorium.?I?m very reluctant to keep you here in the unlikely occurrence more people will show up,” said Town Moderator David Miller from the stage.The decision to end the meeting was approved by a voice vote from town officials and residents.The meeting was adjourned permanently, with no rescheduling, and all seven articles on the warrant will be the subjects of a new warrant for the annual spring town meeting next April.?Please don?t give up on coming back to us in the spring,” Miller said before town residents left the auditorium.In an interview after the meeting, Board of Selectmen Chairman Arthur Bourque said the fall matters do not have to be dealt with immediately.?We?ll be doing things a little later than we had hoped to do them, but we can still do them,” he said. “So it?s not like it?s going to severely gum up the works of the town because things are so critical.”The meeting warrant had two money articles that would appropriate around $88,000, Bourque said, for overdue bills from the 2011 fiscal year and for 2012 fiscal year accounts. It also included four articles that would make four subdivision roads public ways, and one article that would make a clause in the Massachusetts General Laws about personal property taxation for businesses applicable to Lynnfield.Bourque called the road articles a “formality,” as the roads have already been approved by the proper town boards.The absence of a quorum in the annual fall town meeting has not been common, Bourque said, and he estimated the last time such an event occurred was 1987.?Generally there?s enough stuff on the agenda that people come but, in this case, there just isn?t anything there,” he said. “We?ve always threatened to throw something exciting on the articles, you know, re-zone the center for a Ford motor plant or something, but that just never seems to happen.”In regard to the meeting turnout, Bourque said he did not know whether apathy or satisfaction was to blame.?I?d like to think, as a member of the board, that people think the town is well-run and that?s why they don?t really care what we do,” he said. “On the other hand, the job of the Board of Selectmen is to act as the executive authority to implement the things that are voted by town meetings. So we need them to approve this stuff. In the absence of a town meeting, we can?t just go ahead and spend money.”Sarah Mupo can be reached at [email protected].