Danvers $200 Fee Challenge Gets Trashed At Finance Committee Meeting

DANVERS, MA — A Danvers citizen's petition push to put the recently imposed $200 trash and recycling fee in front of town meeting members for approval got a stern rebuke from the Finance Committee Monday night after a letter from town counsel said its passage would likely violate the town manager's act under state law.

A petition with 365 signatures was presented for inclusion on the warrant for the town meeting on Feb. 5 in hopes of rescinding the fee that was discussed for months, and ultimately majority supported within the Select Board Budget Conference Committee and Select Board before it was imposed as part of residents' quarterly water bills effective in July.

Town Manager Steve Bartha, who sought Select Board approval even though it was under his authority to impose the fee, said the $200 fee would offset the $1.13 million increase in trash and recycling collection costs to the town under the new contract that began this summer.

The Select Board voted 3-2 in November to support Bartha's decision with David Mills, Daniel Bennett and Gardner Trask endorsing the fee, while Maureen Bernard and Matthew
Duggan voted in opposition.

The citizen's proposal similarly split the Board earlier this month with Bernard and Duggan voting to forward it to the Finance Committee with a positive recommendation (to rescind the fee), Mills and Trask voting to forward it with a negative recommendation (to keep the fee), and Bennett electing to abstain after Bartha said town counsel said the language of the proposal may, indeed, be at odds with state law and the town manager act.

The proposal, which is one of 10 articles set for the upcoming town meeting came on behalf of residents who argue the fee "looks and feels like a tax" and that "this feels like another attempt to get around the proposition 2 1/2 override."

Danvers residents have never passed a general proposition 2 1/2 override in a townwide vote.

The town counsel letter read at Monday's Finance Committee meeting said that the wording of the petition "conflicts with Massachusetts General Law ... it improperly interferes with the Select Board's exclusive executive power (to enact the fee).

"Danvers town meeting cannot interfere with the executive branch on a matter which is under the exclusive statutory authority of their executive officer."

In essence, the article can now move forward to town meeting but it appears unlikely that the town manager can be compelled to rescind the fee even if town meeting members vote in favor of the article.

At issue for supporters of the petition is whether the will of town meeting should be honored even if it is not required to be.

At issue for those who supported the fee in the first place, is that rescinding the fee — which would create a $1.13 million hole in the budget — would require reducing town services or staff by that amount — estimated at the Finance Committee to be 14 full-time employees — to make up the difference absent a successful Proposition 2 1/2 override.

"This is going to cut people," Trask said. "People ask us to cut, cut, cut the budget. If 95 percent of it is already locked. And that four, five percent is discretionary — we tried to cut the budget, we tried saving money, we tried going to recycling every other week and the uproar was enormous. ... If we tried cutting our budget by stopping cutting grass people would go crazy.

"If this were to go before town meeting. If this were to pass. If our attorney were absolutely wrong and the (state Attorney General accepts it) it doesn't do away with the $1.13 million. It just puts it in the budget, which means you are going to lose people. You are going to lose services and you are going to lose people."

Other articles on the special town meeting warrant include three zoning changes — one of which would increase density minimums for new development downtown to keep in line with new state regulations encouraging multi-family housing — and a change that would help uniform town fees.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)