ESSEX — Voters will now have three fewer articles to worry about when they attend special Town Meeting set for Nov. 9.
The warrant for Town Meeting, to be held at 7:30 p.m. at Essex Elementary School, was finalized when selectmen met Monday night and features 10 of the 13 proposed articles. Selectmen voted to support all of the articles, including proposals to become a member of an expanded North Shore Agricultural and Technical School District and others to fund further consulting work on the northern and southern Conomo Point subdivisions and the purchase of a new police cruiser.
Items dropped from warrant consideration were a request for a new generator for the Senior Center, additional dollars for the town's "Other Post Employment Benefits Liability Trust," and an idea brought up at the last meeting to fund and build tennis courts at Memorial Park, according to Town Administer Brendhan Zubricki.
"It was premature," Zubricki said about the proposed tennis courts. "It was just an idea that the selectmen tossed around."
The first two warrant articles involve the controversial Conomo Point subdivision project.
Article 1 asks the town to spend an additional $3,000 to allow the town's consultant to complete the implementation of a subdivision planning process at Conomo Point, south of Robbins Island Road. Article 2 goes further and asks for $25,000 to hire a consultant to conduct a recreational and residential planning study regarding future land use for the portion of Conomo Point north of Robbins Island Road.
If the town votes to become a member of the North Shore Agricultural and Technical School District under Article 6, the town would have to pay its share of a $32.1 million bill divided with 16 other communities for a proposed new regional vo-tech school with an estimated $130 million price tag. The state has already set aside roughly $100 million toward the project.
This new school building would merge North Shore Technical High School in Middleton with Essex Agricultural and Technical School while incorporating Peabody's vo-tech program. It is slated to be located at the Essex Aggie campus in the Hathorne section of Danvers. For the merger to happen, however, it must be approved by communities representing 75 percent of North Shore Technical High School's enrollment including Salem, Beverly, Gloucester, Essex and Manchester. The proposed merger was approved by Rockport's Fall Town Meeting last month.
The requested purchase of a new police cruiser under Article 3 will cost an estimated $35,000; if approved, the article also authorizes selectman to sell or trade the old cruiser.
Article 4 — Spend $12,000 to help replace an existing Council on Aging van, with additional funding coming from private grants.
Article 5 —Spend $25,000 for aerial photography, global positioning work, and survey research to update town assessors' maps.
Article 7 — Asks for additional dollars for the town's Stabilization Fund, but the amount has not yet been decided.
Article 8 — Spend $10,000 to increase Fire Department fire training salaries for fiscal year 2010.
Article 9 — Add $20,000 to the town clerk's salary for the remainder of the fiscal year to allow a newly appointed clerk to work alongside Town Clerk Sally Soucy until she retires in May.
Article 10 — Spend $255 to make up for unpaid bills from the past fiscal year.
The special Town Meeting warrant is posted in detail at www.essexma.org on the Board of Selectmen's page.
All the dollar amounts associated with the warrant are subject to change before the meeting on Nov. 9.
Jonathan Phelps can be reached at gt_reporter@gloucestertimes.com
