Saugus board schedules Special Town Meeting

SAUGUS – When selectmen weren’t arguing about who was over-stepping their authority at Tuesday night’s meeting, some town business was actually accomplished.The board called a Special Town Meeting on April 22 for a vote on three articles from Town Manager Scott Crabtree, one which seeks $200,000 to be transferred to the town stabilization fund, one seeking money to purchase or lease two new police cruisers and another to hire a part-time clerk in the Town Clerk’s office.”The two clerks are leaving and we need to get some people on board so they can be trained,” said Selectmen Chairman Michael Serino. “We needed some extra funding for that.”Selectmen also inserted an article that would make it a three-fifths vote from the board to extend the Town Manager’s contract, instead of the current four-fifths vote, and to make town elections staggered.In other business, selectmen voted 5-0 to transfer a class II auto dealer’s license from Route 1 Auto Group to Loan Express on 160 Broadway and voted to approve a license for a new restaurant called Iron Diner to be located at 325 Main St.Selectmen also tried resolving a six-month-old neighborhood dispute on Floyd Street, where one neighbor, Tom Angelo, accused another, Ted Raftelis, of purposely parking too close to the end of their shared driveway. Raftelis said that wasn’t true and accused Angelo of harassing him after an argument over a fence.After nearly an hour of bickering between the two, Raftelis agreed to move his truck and Angelo said he would stop making calls to the town on Raftelis. Selectmen continued the hearing for 30 days to see if the two can resolve the issue.”We continued it for a month to see if they can work things out between them,” said Serino. “I think it’s obvious that he’s leaving his truck hanging out at the end of his driveway on purpose ? his driveway is 40 feet long and there’s no reason he couldn’t pull that truck back in there. Those are usually the longest, most contentious meetings ? when you’re dealing with no parking ? it seems like the neighborhood comes out.”Matt Tempesta can be reached at [email protected].