AMHERST — When Town Meeting convenes Monday, the final annual sessions will take up fiscal year 2019 budgets and other spending and consider a handful of bylaw changes as the town begins a transition to a new form of government.
But even before the 39-article warrant is taken up, members will have to get through a special Town Meeting that includes a petition to the state Legislature to allow an election for the Town Council, which will replace Town Meeting as Amherst’s legislature. That election would be held Nov. 6, with a Sept. 4 primary.
Because the transition is underway, town attorneys KP Law have advised town officials that much of what Town Meeting accomplishes this spring should be about keeping town government functioning, and not impeding the Town Council.
This means much of the action will be adopting budgets for the fiscal year beginning July 1, approving spending recommended by the Joint Capital Planning and Community Preservation Act committees, and a few articles that are time sensitive, including amending the marijuana bylaws, promoting affordable housing and making sure renovations at Groff Park can move forward.
The $80.56 million budget being brought forward is affected significantly by rising health care costs, meaning most departments will only be able to provide level services next year.
Town Manager Paul Bockelman’s $23.84 million town budget proposal is $806,335, or 3.5 percent higher than the current year’s $23.04 million budget. But it only keeps current services and employee levels, not adding needed positions, such as firefighter/ paramedics.
The $23.22 million elementary school budget is $704,143, or 3 percent, higher than the current year $22.52 million budget. That budget, though, trims $100,000 by eliminating four intervention paraeducator positions.
For the Amherst-Pelham Regional Schools, the $16.05 million assessment, which is $542,594 more than the current year’s $15.5 million budget, will support a $31.82 million budget going up 3.5 percent. The budget, though, eliminates about 10 positions, brings the Summit Academy from its own South Amherst campus to the high school, saving $110,000, and discontinues the long-running preschool housed in the high school and the culinary arts program.
Select Board member Alisa Brewer said that there are people heartbroken about the loss of those programs.
The budget will depend on passage of revised assessment formula for each of the four towns, with Leverett, Shutesbury and Pelham also having to agree at their Town Meetings.
Sean Mangano, finance director for the schools, said the formula is a five-year transition plan, calculated as 20 percent of the statutory method, with the remainder allocated mostly on a five-year rolling average of enrollment, with a small portion based on property values in each town.
The Jones Library will receive $1.99 million in tax support, which will go toward a $2.68 million budget that is $107,054, or 4.2 percent higher than this year’s $2.58 million budget. To maintain services, the library is using more of the endowment, increasing the so-called draw rate from 4 to 5 percent, which is going up from $300,111 to $371,862.
Library Director Sharon Sharry said the library is also relying on exponential increase of gifts and fundraisers, noting the town contribution has not kept up with minimum wage increases and health costs.
Town Meeting will be asked to spend $955,645 from the Community Preservation account for a series of projects, including $266,200 for the Amherst Community Land Trust’s first-time homebuyers program, $130,000 for the North Amherst Farm farmhouse rehabilitation project and $50,000 for renovating the basketball courts at Mill River Recreation Area.
An additional $113,000 is needed to purchase the property previously owned by Seymour and Alice Epstein, near the Mount Holyoke Range, with $195,000 additional from a state grant.
Capital spending includes $1.14 million in equipment purchases, including $260,000 for an ambulance, $120,000 for three cruisers and $95,000 for a school bus, and $2 million for buildings and facilities, such as $968,364 for road repairs, $175,000 for energy management upgrades to school buildings and $90,000 for a downtown wayfinding system.
Town Meeting will be asked to borrow $450,000 to complete designs and work on the Main Street parking lot in front of Town Hall, to borrow $2 million from the water fund to replace a water main and old water lines on Northampton Road in conjunction with a state project to rebuild that section of Route 9, and to borrow $1 million from the sewer fund for a gravity belt thickener, which removes water from sludge.
Another $410,000 in borrowing will help Amherst Media purchase new audiovisual equipment. Bockelman said this will allow equipment to be bought upfront, rather than waiting for Comcast to provide the money over a period of years.
Three articles seek to bring clarity to the town’s medical marijuana bylaws, including adding a new definition from the state Cannabis Control Commission for cultivating and manufacturing.
The bylaws will also allow for-profit marijuana sales operations, in addition to medical marijuana nonprofits already allowed, and ensure a cap of eight retail establishments, said Economic Development Director Geoff Kravitz said.
A zero energy bylaw mandating municipal buildings produce as much energy as they consume, passed at fall Town Meeting last year, will be brought back for tweaks that will make it more favorable for town officials.
Lynn Griesemer, chairwoman of the Department of Public Works/Fire Station Study Committee, said the main issue with amending the bylaw is to ensure cost containment. The changes would adjust the threshold for when zero energy principles have to be used from $1 million to $2 million projects, and gives Bockelman authority to enter into contracts even if the finished product only has a goal of being zero energy.
An inclusionary bylaw change that would mandate affordable homes be included in projects when a special permit is used for dimensional modifications, allowing for larger buildings, will give developers two options to comply. Besides adding the apartments or homes in the development, the developers could provide a cash payment three times the $67,000 family area median income, that would go to the Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust, or construct offsite units nearby, said Zoning Subcommittee Chairman Rib Crowner.
Another affordable housing project could happen at the East Street School, with plans to transfer the property to the Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust.
Town Meeting will be asked to dedicate use of Groff Park for recreation purposes so the town can receive a $300,000 federal grant for improvements.
The Select Board has determined three articles on the warrant can’t be acted on, including changes to the supplemental dwelling units bylaw, limiting developing in residential areas not served by public water and public sewer and restricting gunfire at the Norwotuck Fish & Game Club.
Other articles include acquiring easements and rights of way for several sidewalk, crosswalk and bus pull off projects on East Hadley Road, West Bay Road and East Pleasant Street at Village Park, acquiring an easement for the Cole property off West Street so the town can access the old trolley line trails at gthe Mount Holyoke Range.
Resolutions call for the United States to take leadership to prevent nuclear war and, from middle school students, to encourages Amherst to maintain the terms of the Paris Climate Agreement.