Town Meeting: Looking Ahead to Tonight and Back on Meetings to Date

Lots on tap tonight for annual Town Meeting, which reconvenes for its fourth session at 7:30 p.m. at Cary Hall.

According to Town Moderator Deb Brown, the night will begin with a recess for the Diversity Award presentation, before moving on to Article 3 on the Cary Lecture Series. Then comes the operating budget, and school capital budget and “then we’ll just keep going with the articles as time permits,” Brown said before wrapping up the third session last Wednesday.

Town Meeting So Far

Annual that approved a $10.95 million bid--accepted a day later by the Scottish Rite--to purchase property off Marrett Road. The second session, on Wednesday, March 20, tackled articles dealing with municipal solar and electronic voting. Town Meeting met only once last week, skipping Monday in recognition of Passover.

Last Wednesday, March 27, Town Meeting wished Dan Fenn a happy 90th birthday; heard reports on Minuteman High and from Lexington Superintendent of Schools Paul Ash; approved an amendment to the demolition delay bylaw and adjusted eligibility limits for property tax deferrals.

More on the March 27 Meeting

A fair amount of time was spent on Article 31, the amendment to the demolition delay bylaw.

It was eventually approved, codifying the Lexington Historical Committee’s practice of providing advanced notice to property owners whose property would be considered for inclusion in the cultural resource inventory. But approval did not come without many questions, and some opposition, regarding the process and need to formalize the prior practice of notifying property owners.

Part of the concern was that the article made the warrant without notice to the Historical Commission, which recommended indefinite postponement so as to allow more time for deliberation and discussion by the public and town government. Another question was why formalize this regular practice—and recently adopted policy—of the Historical Commission when similar policies of other boards have been removed from town bylaws.

On Article 26, the tax deferrals, there was some discussion of amending to raise the limit of tax deferment income to $75,000, but the amendment failed. The original article passed unanimously, with the proposed change to raise income limit to $65,000 from the previous level of $60,000.

A home rule petition in 2008 allowed the town to raise the limit in Lexington from the state’s established limit, which was $40,000. It was raised to $50,000 in 2009, $51,000 in 2010 and $60,000 in 2011, but still very few seniors apply for the program, according to Pat Costello, co-chair of the Tax Deferral and Exemption Study Committee.

“Helping seniors stay in town is beneficial to seniors, and beneficial to the town,” Costello said, encouraging Town Meeting members to approve the increased limit.