Road reconstruction among articles up for vote in Saugus

SAUGUS – Saugus selectmen called a Special Town Meeting Thursday night to vote on several new articles, including an $875,000 road reconstruction article.Town Manager Scott Crabtree said the borrowing article would pay for the second half of the Lincoln Avenue reconstruction project. Town Meeting voted in November to approve a $1.2 million borrowing article to redo roads and sidewalks from Cliftondale Square to the Revere line.Crabtree said the town should seen an additional $308,000 more in so-called Chapter 90 highway money to bring the town’s total to $919,000.By borrowing for the reconstruction project, Crabtree said it will allow the town to work on other roads in Saugus with Chapter 90 money.Two other articles in the warrant are $10,000 for the tree farm and $10,000 from free cash for the Round Hill project next to the police station.”The seal for the town, that’s Round Hill ?” said Crabtree. “They’re looking to put a nice historic project there. This is starter money to help them get up and get going.”In other business, Crabtree said he will be using free cash to pay off the town’s snow and ice removal deficit, which, as of April was at $580,000 and noted this year’s budget does not have a structural deficit built in.”What that means is we don’t have underfunded liabilities ?. where we know we have a liability but say we’ll pay for it later,” said Crabtree. “We have a budget that’s based on what our means to pay are from our revenue and growth.”Crabtree also said recently settling six union contracts in the town, including at the Police and Fire departments and at the library, will provide stability for the budget.”A lot of these individuals are on Town Meeting and every time we have a borrowing article ? you would have people say, ‘I haven’t had a raise in nine years, why are we putting money towards that before we settle the contracts or deal with our employees,'” said Crabtree. “I think the town will have better support to move things forward and we’re not fighting over free cash or improperly using free cash for operations.”The Police Department also submitted an article, which calls for a new bylaw to require fingerprinting for ice cream permits, cab drivers, second-hand dealers and door-to-door salespeople.”This would allow us to take their fingerprints, check it against a federal and state database to determine who they are and whether they’re wanted, and what kind of character they are ?” said Assistant Police Chief Ronald Giorgetti.Matt Tempesta can be reached at [email protected].