Deering had its town meeting, to set this year's budget, today. The Selectmen and Budget Advisory Committee did a fantastic job of holding down requests for money. Of course, after last year's drunken sailor spree, there wasn't much more to ask for. Be that as it may, even with the trim budget offering for the year, the meeting was almost 5.5 hours long and we had long discussions about a couple of items.
To begin the meeting, it was noted that John Greene had won the coin toss and that Dan Donovan was requesting a recount. The recount will be held on Wednesday, so Dan holds the chair at least until then.
The first Article to be tackled was for big money, to replace the West Deering Bridge. We have spent plentiy of money since it was condemned (and a temporary fix put into place) to get to the point that we can actually get it replaced. The fact that the Historic Society decided it was a "Historic construction" (or at least one of historic interest) - despite the fact it was built in the 50's - has made it a time consuming and money intensive project. We actually have to preserve the bridge for 5 years, in the current condition, and put it up for sale. There is a whole lot of other stuff, but that is one of the most assinine requirements before the Army Corps of Engineers would even discuss the project with the town. Anyway, after 45 minutes, and 1 hour of the ballot box being open, the town unanimously (only 2 votes against) decided to raise the money to start construction this year.
The next item also took about 45 minutes to resolve, even though it involved no money. It was about reclassifying a Class IV road to a Class A trail. After a voice vote, that was too close to call so a show of cards was used to determine that the Article had passed.
Next was an article that was put in by petition, which was pure politics: to have the town contact State Leaders and tell them not to take The Pledge against broad-based taxes. The person that represented this article kept telling us about how all the towns around us, and 60+ other towns in NH had voted for this measure (as if this is enough reason to do it). I was the first to speak on this Article by telling the assembly , "I am against this because it is not the place of the town to inform our representatives how I, or anyone else, feels on this issue. It is entirely up to each individual to contact their representatives on this issue." After several people stood and talked to basically the same point that I made, the town voted this Article down.
The rest of the articles were on the Operating Budget, which passes easily (as I mentioned earlier, the costs had been kept down) and we voted to keep funding some of the expendiblie trust funds that we have set up for road work, town building maintenance, turnout gear for firefighters etc.
Depending upon the bonding for the bridge, our property taxes could actually go down - except that the State may be shifting more costs directly to towns. So we are still up in the air as to what our property taxes will look like this year.
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