The Marion Board of Selectmen voted unanimously to approve the 2012 Town Meeting warrant during a special meeting on Tuesday, April 10. Town Administrator Paul Dawson said that there were virtually no changes to the warrant, which has 44 articles, since the last time it was revised a couple weeks ago. Here is a look at some of the largest articles:
Items 1-24 on the warrant are all financial articles. The first four articles give an overview of compensation for town officials, a breakdown of the town budget, and the costs for the water and sewer systems for the fiscal year 2013, respectively.
Several articles dealing with finances propose either repairing or replacing equipment and vehicles for public safety enterprises. Article 10 proposes $20,900 of free cash be used to purchase a new police cruiser for the Marion Police Department.
Articles 12 and 13 ask for a combined total of $51,800 to replace various elements in the Marion Fire Department. $35,000 of this figure would help the department with its air pack replacement program, while the remaining $16,800 would replace eight automatic external defibrillators for the rescue vehicles in the department.
Article 14 proposes $20,000 for a new Jaws of Life system for the rescue team, and Article 16 asks for an additional $12,500 to replace some of the department’s fire hoses.
Article 15 calls for $48,500 to upgrade the fire alarm system from top to bottom, replacing the DOS-based computers with Windows and purchasing a digital radio and telephone recording system for dispatch.
Article 11 also proposes a new telephone system. $50,000 of free cash is requested to replace the telephone system in the Marion Town House. Dawson said that the current system is failing, especially the voicemail program, and that the new system would be transferrable to a new building if the town offices ever relocated.
Article 31 proposes to amend the zoning bylaws for the Flood Hazard District that were issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Articles 32-34 also seek approval for zoning bylaws for other smaller areas around town.
Article 38 talks about the potential for alternative energy sources in Marion schools in order to save money in the long run for utilities.
In addition to approving the Town Meeting warrant unanimously, the Board of Selectmen also voted to allow Dawson to sign a contract with an engineering service called Tata & Howard. The organization will survey the east and west wells in town for 30 days in order to determine the source of perchlorate detected in wells last year. The business would sample each well at least four times as well as the other surrounding test wells. The price of the sampling project was listed as $12,500 in the contract.
The Marion Town Meeting will be held on Monday, May 21 at 7:00 pm at the Sippican School.
By Katy Fitzpatrick