SWAMPSCOTT ― The representative Town Meeting approved 11 out of 12 articles on the special meeting agenda on Monday night.
Meeting members decided to proceed with money transferred to offset increases of residential taxes, water and sewer fees; finance provision of a few town unions’ bargaining agreements and authorize the Select Board to release an easement and enter a 99-year lease agreement with National Grid for a future stretch of the rail trail.
More than 250 people attended the virtual special Town Meeting, with more than 230 attendees being Town Meeting members able to vote on the article.
The Town Meeting voted to approve Article 1, which provided for amending various line items in the fiscal year 2022 operating budget. Tim Dorsey, chair of the Finance Committee, said that these changes would have a zero net impact on the budget as a whole. The amendments were related to capital spendings on Windsor Avenue and police equipment.
The vote on Article 2 was postponed indefinitely. Dorsey said the committee did not receive any specific projects for pedestrian safety improvements to review, which is why the article was declared not ready to vote on.
“We’ve made it a priority to think more carefully about pedestrian safety over the last several years,” Fitzgerald said.
Several years ago, the town spent $100,000 of grant money on a pedestrian safety study and has also recently received $150,000 to look into the safety of the MBTA neighborhood.
“Not many of our roads had really pedestrian design,” said Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald said the town administration will bring the article back with specific projects in time for the regular Town Meeting in May. These projects will focus on creating safe, walkable streets, slip lanes, improved sidewalks and crosswalks with new flashing equipment.
The Town Meeting voted next to approve Article 3 ― to transfer money from free cash to fund provisions of collective-bargaining agreements for the first year of their contracts between the Town of Swampscott and three unions. With this vote, $11,866.38 will be transferred towards the bargaining agreement reached with the librarian union, and $55,700.50 will be set aside for the bargaining agreements that are pending with the DPW union and the administrative assistants union.
The current bargaining agreement with the librarian union will expire on June 30, while the bargaining agreement with the DPW union expired two years ago.
Fitzgerald said that the bargaining agreements with the police and fire departments expire on July 1, 2022, and will be renegotiated at the beginning of the new year.
The town administration shared that there is currently $3,630,048 of certified funds in free cash; water retained earnings at $1,277,034; sewer retained earnings at $1, 091,048; and public, educational, and government (PEG) cable access at $253,962.
Voting on Article 4, the Town Meeting approved to use $1.25 million of surplus from free cash to offset the tax levy for FY2022. As a result, the average single-family taxes will increase by 1.44 percent to $9,128, while the median tax rate will increase by 1.26 percent to $7,567.
Article 5 asked the Town Meeting members to appropriate $3,946.20 from the Transportation Infrastructure Enhancement Fund, which was funded by a portion of fees collected from Uber and Lyft ride-share services, to use towards expenses associated with the impact of transportation network services on municipal roads, bridges, and other transportation infrastructure. Most of the Town Meeting members present voted to approve the motion.
Although the Select Board has not voted yet on 2022 rates for water and sewer services, the Town Meeting voted to approve transfers of the Water Enterprise Fund retained earnings and of Sewer Enterprise Fund retained earnings (Articles 6 and 7) to the account of Current Revenue in the amount of $90,000 and $190,000 respectively to off-set the water and sewer fees.
Peter Spellios, Select Board member, said that without the transfers, the sewer rate increase would have been in double digits, because of deferred maintenance of the town’s sewer system. He said that the town’s water systems were in a better condition.
“This is something that we are just getting a handle on thanks to our financial team,” said Spellios.
Polly Titcomb, chair of the Select Board, presented Article 8 seeking to create a Solid Waste Enterprise Fund, which the Town Meeting approved. This subsidized fund will be formed by July 1, 2022. It will be funded next fiscal year with receipts from solid-waste user fees and will pay for expenditures for solid-waste services.
The goal of the separate fund is to identify the true total cost of solid-waste management, Titcomb said.
“It is a financial tool to keep a closer eye on expenses,” said Titcomb. Having this fund will also allow having a reserve for rising costs.
Currently, revenue from solid-waste fees (form overflow bags and stickers) goes to the general operating budget and is estimated at $108,000 for FY2021 and $120,000 for FY2022.
All of the Town Meeting members voted to officially change the name of Select Board in general and zoning bylaws.
Finally, the Town Meeting voted in favor of Article 12 that authorized the Swampscott Select Board to release certain temporary and permanent easements acquired by the town in exchange for a 99-year ground lease with Massachusetts Electric (National Grid) for the purpose of constructing and using a so-called “rail trail” on portions of the former railroad corridor between the present Swampscott train station and the Marblehead border at Seaview Avenue in Marblehead.
Marzie Galazka, member of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council and North Shore Task Force, presented an update on the rail trail being built by the town. She said that Article 12 related to the portion of the trail from Humphrey Street to Stetson Avenue (to the middle school), which was the third phase of the project that was set in motion in 2017. Two other portions of the project completed so far include a stretch from the Marblehead line to Beach Bluff Avenue and from there to Bradley Avenue.
Galazka said that this article was brought up for vote because the town was able to secure funding for the construction of this portion of the trail. To date, Swampscott has spent $297,405 on this project and raised $490,000 in grants and $176,000 in donations.
The Swampscott Rail Trail will be a part of the East Coast Greenway off-road route that will stretch for 300,000 miles from Maine to Florida, passing through 150 cities and towns in 15 states.
Alena Kuzub can be reached at [email protected].
