SAUGUS — The Board of Selectmen on Thursday voted unanimously to set a Special Town Meeting for Nov. 28 at the urging of Town Manager Scott Crabtree, who submitted roughly half a dozen articles to be included on the warrant as part of an annual process of adjusting the town’s budget ahead of setting the tax rate later this month.
“Every year … we pass an estimate budget and then we make some adjustments before we set the tax rate,” Crabtree told the board. “What I’m looking to do is call a special town meeting on Monday, November 28. And then … you have already scheduled … the tax classification hearing on the 29th, which is Tuesday. We’d have the town meeting first, and then have the tax classification hearing as part of your Tuesday night [meeting].”
The first article submitted by Crabtree asks Town Meeting members to vote to rescind a previous vote to “appropriate an amount for expenditures not to exceed $1.5 million from the American Rescue Plan Act as a funding source for town charges for the ensuing Fiscal Year 2023” and instead “appropriate from the tax levy, local aid, and local recipients an amount not to exceed $1.5 million as a funding source for town charges for Fiscal Year 2023.”
Crabtree said the article is essentially asking members to reverse a vote that allocated ARPA funds for budget expenditures, with the town’s financial position growing stronger following the pandemic.
“We’d be asking town meeting to reverse their appropriation of ARPA monies towards our revenue replacement with our operating budget,” he said. “This is a good thing. It’s really positive.”
The second article asks members to “make supplementary appropriations to be used in conjunction with funds appropriated under Article 2 of the 2022 Annual Town Meeting.” Crabtree suggested that the funds would be a transfer from engineering department salaries due to a vacancy, with money instead going to expenses, as the town has been paying outside firms to support the work of the Department of Public Works and the Planning Board.
The third article on the warrant asks members to vote to “raise and appropriate or transfer” funds to pay unpaid bills from the prior fiscal year.
Crabtree said the fourth article on the warrant would allow him to “negotiate and work with a company to look at [a] … program that would allow residents and businesses to opt into maybe a more favorable electricity rate.”
At the board’s Oct. 20 meeting, they heard a presentation from Lynnette Alameddine, who advocated for the board to consider changing the town’s electricity supplier to NextEra Energy Services, moving away from National Grid. Crabtree said the town had been looking into the idea before Alameddine’s presentation and explained that he sees “pros and cons” to changing the way in which the town goes about getting electricity.
“It sounds like the strategy or the advantage of this consultant company is that they’re able to buy electricity and power at different times of the year, whereas National Grid, our supplier here only can buy it at one time of the year and it’s at a higher [price] … their strategy is that they’re able to buy a different time when it’s lower,” Crabtree explained. “Part of the program … everybody goes into it once we vote it or put it in place, then you have to opt-out of it.”
Crabtree explained that if the electricity were to go out it would still be up to National Grid to restore power, and residents would still pay the company, with the change coming in who is supplying the electricity to the town, not who is delivering it.
The final two articles on the warrant concern the purchase of the land and buildings at 42 Jackson St., which Crabtree said the town currently has under agreement for $825,000. The fifth article asks members to authorize the Board of Selectmen to acquire the title to the land and buildings at the property, while the sixth and final asks members to appropriate a sum of money for the purchase.
Crabtree explained that the purchase of the building is tied to the town’s broader effort to revitalize Cliftondale Square, and the Jackson Street property is connected to another property owned by the town in the area, the site of the former North Shore Loan Center.
The Jackson Street building is a two-family home, Crabtree said, and the purchase is a “unique opportunity” considering the connection to the other property already owned by the town.
“It would help support whatever the ideas are or thoughts are or anybody that comes to town and wants to develop,” he said. “I just think that this is a good opportunity. Hopefully, the selectmen will support it. It’s a lot of money … but I think this could be something that leaves an opportunity. … . But I think that those properties connected, being able to enter it through Jackson Street, and come all the way through and come to Cliftondale or through Cliftondale to Jackson is pretty unique and could support different things.”
Charlie McKenna can be reached at [email protected].
