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Date: 6/10/2020
SOUTHWICK – Residents from the town of Southwick will meet on June 16 outside in the parking lot at the Southwick Regional School to vote on 20 different warrant articles at this year’s Annual Town Meeting in a similar manner to the Special Town Meeting held back on March 21.
The meeting itself will be split into two portions, the first of which being a Special Town Meeting at 6 p.m. to approve the transfer of $58,548 from the General Salary Reserve, Water and Sewer Salary Reserve to pay for a litany of salary costs across the town’s departments.
The regular Annual Town Meeting then begins immediately thereafter at 6:15 p.m., during which residents will vote on the remaining 19 warrant articles.
The meeting’s first five warrant articles are typical house cleaning items at any Town Meeting to approve the town election and Town Meeting, to accept the annual town reports, to allow the select board to appoint minor officers, sell or trade obsolete equipment, and to apply for and accept any grants from the state or federal government.
Both Articles 6 and 7 are requests to borrow funds to work on repair projects throughout the town. The first request is for $1 million for road reconstruction costs and the second is for $1.1 million for the project to replace the roof and make masonry repairs at the Southwick Fire Station.
Articles 8, 9, and 10 are all related to setting up the budget for the 2021 fiscal year. Article 8’s motion is to establish a Local Wetland Application Revolving Fund. Article 9 establishes the official budget and Article 10 would set a limit on spending for 11 revolving funds including the Inspector’s Revolving Fund, the Police Chief Lake Revolving Fund, and the proposed Local Wetland Application Revolving Fund.
Articles 11 through 16 all come directly from Community Preservation. Articles 11 and 12 deal with directly approving the CPC’s annual budget and yearly administrative and operating expenses. Articles 13 and 15 are both related to restoring the Old Cemetery and are requests for $64,500 from the Community Preservation Historical fund to remove trees, install a retaining wall, repair the vault, and to archive records online and a $40,000 request to restore stonework respectively. Article 14 is a request for $2,500 to be transferred to the Southwick Agricultural commission to purchase six “Right to Farm Signs” to be posted on major roadways throughout the town.
Article 16 is a follow-up to the motion passed at the Special Town Meeting in March to authorize the town to appropriate $70,000 from the Community Preservation General Unreserved Fund for the first interest and principal payment on the $600,000 bond issued for the alum treatment of Congamond Lake.
Articles 17 and 18 are to approve the Southwick-Tolland-Granville Regional School District’s $11.7 million budget and to authorize the district to incur a debt of up to $135,000 for the purchase of network infrastructure equipment, to replace the water heaters in the Powder Mill School gym area, and to replace the concrete in the main entryway at Woodland School.
The warrant’s final article is a request for the town to adopt a quarterly budget system instead of its current semi-annual system.