GRANBY — On Monday, Oct. 21 the town of Granby will host a special Town Meeting at East Meadow School at 7 p.m. where six articles will be voted on by Town Meeting members.
Article 1 on the Special Town Meeting warrant will see if the town will transfer $20,000 from its cemetery paving account in order to cover the remainder of paving at the library.
During the Selectboard’s Oct. 7 meeting, Town Administrator Chirs Martin explained at the annual Town Meeting earlier this year the town put aside $70,000 for the projected costs of paving the new library parking lot.
“However, when the bid price came in we were short, so we’re looking to transfer $20,000 from the article that was approved for cemetery paving,” said Martin.
He explained there was money available in that account because the town originally had planned on having an outside firm pave the cemetery and had a projected cost of $162,750. After finding a better price than they planned for, the account has $108,000 remaining in it.
“So instead of trying to raise and appropriate I’m just relocating the excess funds to this project,” Martin said. “And we will be looking at doing the paving in the springtime.”
Selectboard member Crystal Dufresne asked where the leftover funding in the account goes and Martin explained it will be closed out and the remaining funding would be rolled over to the town’s free cash account. He added the funding could also be reallocated for an article at the next annual town meeting, but if unused it will go to free cash.
Article 2 will be a vote to accept the provisions of Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 59, Section 5K, as amended, to allow persons over the age of 60 to volunteer to provide services to reduce their real property tax bill, with the further provision to allow an approved representative, for persons physically unable, to provide such services or take any other action in regard thereto.
“That relates to the senior work off program and in order for us to be able to allow seniors to participate in that type of a program, we have to accept this section of the law,” Martin said.
Article 3 is also accepting a section of MGL in order to allow veterans to also be allowed in the same type property tax bill reduction programming as seniors in the article prior. The articles would allow for seniors and veterans to use these types of programs to reduce their property taxes by a maximum of $1,500.
The fourth article on the Special Town Meeting warrant will be a vote to see if the town transfers $6,120.99 for the purpose of paying prior year bills for the Fire and Ambulance Department.
Article 5 will see if the town will transfer from available funds, the stabilization fund and free cash $216,640 for the purpose of funding the fiscal year 2025 budgets for the Fire Department with $104,640, and for the Ambulance Department with $112,000. Granby Fire Chief Michael O’Neill is planned to speak at Town Meeting to explain the reasoning for the article further to members.
The final article on the warrant is for the town to adopt a new animal control bylaw. Martin added the town website will have further information on each article provided to help give town meeting members more time to learn about the articles.
“What we’re planning on doing is having all these documents supporting the article up on the website, along with the warrant and things of that nature so people can go online to the town website and be able to see all this instead of trying to absorb it all 15 minutes before the meeting starts,” Martin said.
