The amount of additional money that will now be in reserve CPA funds following the defeat of Part K of Article 18; proposed repairs to the slate roof of the North Congregational Church. Most of the arguments against this item seemed to stem either from the lack of separation of church and state this might represent as well as a general discomfort with using public CPA funds for maintenance on what is a privately-held building.
This was the only part of Article 18 (total appropriation $344,800) to be defeated. Other hotly-debated parts were E, J, and L. Part E (West Cemetery Landscape Improvement for $20,000) passed by a standing vote of 128 to 51. Part J (Civil War Tablets--Phase I: Conservation, Engineering & Design, Installation and Interpretation) passed on a tally vote of 91 to 84. Part L (Historic Signs (Writers' Walk--Dickinson, Frost, Francis, etc) passed on a tally vote of 95 to 70. (Note the decrease in numbers of Town Meeting members voting/present as the night wore on...and on...and on.)
I am new to Town Meeting but it was clear to me that Historic Preservation was taking a fair bit of heat for using a lot of CPA money this year. Even though both the Community Preservation Act Committee and the Historical Commission produced very thorough information on all projects (I thought). There were, however, a number of minority reports (Barbaret and Streeter as well as Morales and O'Connor) which clearly opened the discussion. In comparison, Articles 19 and 20, both dealing with Open Space passed with no problem (total appropriation for both articles was $225,000 and also authorizes the raising of an additional $380,000 to fund the purchase of land/conservation restriction on the Olendzki property on Station Road).
A good discussion about this article got going on one of the TM lists and I wondered if the only other alternative to spending the money on these projects was to bank it instead, and indeed that did seem to be the case. There were, for example, no additional proposals that would have gone unfunded this year due to the funding of any of the parts of Article 18. There was a lot of discussion about the relatively little CPA money being spent this year on affordable housing, but according to the CPAC, there were no proposals brought forth this year that were not funded. In addition, there is already an available budget for affordable housing of $350,077.
In the end, I voted in support of all parts of Article 18 because I was not presented with convincing arguments about what the money would better be used for (no one offered a concrete reason why more should be put in reserve rather than less except maybe to cover "proposals that come up later" but I thought they could be brought forward the following year). I also saw no real barriers to the much-needed economic development in any of these proposals, which is another reason I would have voted against something. In fact, Article 20 worried me more on that aspect but no one seemed at all concerned about that Article. A member next to me, while ripping out her tally vote, said, "I don't know why we are paying for this while our schools are in such bad shape." I responded, "I do agree with you that I wish our schools had more money but this money cannot go toward the schools so I can't think of it that way." It was a long night of hard-fought victories for the CPAC.
5 comments:
I think CPAC takes a queue from Town Meeting in terms of priorities for our town.
An example is spending $15,000 for an inventory of barns as opposed to investing an additional $15,000 in Habitat for Humanity housing.
I would much rather have banked $15,000 and lobbied CPAC to give that $15k to Habitat (who can leverage it wonderfully) for another affordable-home built in Amherst that might house a teacher or police officer who works here.
I found it interesting that many of the usually fiscal-minded folks were saying things like, "it's only funny money", "you can't spend it on anything else".
I believe in Historic Preservation and am glad it is part of CPAC. But that doesn't mean you don't have to prioritize your funding decisions.
And personally, I don't think it's good to fund $15,000 for a barn inventory when we could bank that dough for future affordable housing projects, which we can guarantee will be coming - and with less support from the state (their support dropped from 100% match to 29% match).
While Bear is dismayed by the $15k for barns, I was outraged by the $30k for fancy signs. At least the barns are perishable things but there is no apparent immediacy for the need for literary signs. It is also not clear to me that folks that actually live in those properties accept the idea of some sort of sign (yet to be determined) plopped down in front of their house. The idea that visitors won't be able to find these homes seems just plan stupid- they would still need a map to find the sign (in front of the house).
I was going to question the motion but some darn impatient person called the question.
I understand that the planning people have been working on these plans for a while- I guess (but many seemed to be in the early stages of planning). Given the current deep recession it seems especially callous to have *jam packed* CPA spending on non-essentials and given the minimum to toward affordable housing. Frankly, I'm disgusted and hope the CPA gets their act together next year to reflect what I hope is a TOP priority for our town!
I was really surprised to see all the motions (except the church roof) sail through! Gotta wonder...I'm a save money sort of person, not a spendthrift.
Actually, I was also more bothered by the barn inventory than the signs too...just goes to show that we all have different priorities. I also agree with Abbie's point that this article did stick out like a sore thumb somewhat in the midst of all the other spending cuts we will be facing come the June review of the budget.
I am also new to TM, felt the same way Alison did and also voted yes for everything in 18. I felt that although TM has the right to do so, it seemed like a big micromanagement-fest to divide up the bill into all the pieces and spend the whole night debating them all.
I am impressed by the committee (Jessop, Wald, etc) and didn’t think we really should be micromanaging their decisions.
There are things that probably could be better, but this is true with anything any committee comes up with. I felt like it was a waste of a night – but I guess that is much of what TM is all about. ;-)
Actually Baer, it is funny money. And what is not funny is it was originally sold as a $1 match in state money for a $1 of homeowner money. Now the state match is down to under 33 cents on the dollar.
And unlike money for the golf course you cannot spend it on anything else.
The reason why I voted against the formation of CPA in the first place (and again the second time when it was raised by one-half percent).
Town Meeting just wanted a Kodak moment so they nixed the lousy $7,000 for the North Congregational Church--the most dominant structure in North Amherst.
And last I looked also a voting precinct for the town. Yeah, so much for separation of Church and State.
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