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Community Corner

Oak Bluffs Passes Lean Budget, Overrides To Be Decided in Election

Dizzied by years of budget cuts and financial brinkmanship, voters generally followed the finance committee's lead at the Annual Town Meeting.

Oak Bluffs voters showed up early and picked carefully through the Annual Town Meeting (ATM) warrant last night, rejecting several articles but ultimately passing a $484,000 override and a $24,674,000 budget for Fiscal Year 2012, which begins on July 1.

The beginning count of 188 voters at the Performing Arts Center also handled a seven article Special Town Meeting warrant after moderator David F. Richardson gaveled his final ATM to order at 7 p.m.

Richardson is stepping down after more than a decade. His probable successor, Jesse (Jack) B. Law III, made a cameo appearance, moderating one article in which Richardson had a conflict of interest. Law is the sole candidate for town moderator on the election ballot.

Elections will be held Thursday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.. in the Oak Bluffs Library meeting room.

Nearly half of the override funds are earmarked for highway repairs as voters heeded a warning from highway superintendent Richard Combra. “We've put off repairs for several years and we're way behind. Our roads are in rough shape,” said Combra, noting that the cost of asphalt paving material had nearly doubled in the interim.

The other 14 override items approved ranged from $75,000 for accountancy services to $1,000 for finance committee expenses. Voters will get another crack at the override vote at the town election tomorrow. State law requires override approval by both town meeting and at the general election for amounts exceeding 2.5 percent of the prior year budget.

With the override, the indicated 2012 budget is just over 3 percent of the 2010 budget.

Most town budgets hovered at current year levels, but health insurance and pension costs, at nearly $3.4 million, up more than $450,000 from 2011, account for more than 13 percent of the 2012 total budget.

Voters, perhaps dizzied by succeeding rounds of budget cuts and financial brinkmanship in recent years, generally followed the lead of finance and advisory committee recommendations during the nearly four-hour session.

For example, they followed the committee recommendation and approved a new plan to spend  $55,000 to clean up Sunset Lake and a proposal to spend $160,000 to reduce the lake effect after heavy rain at the intersections of Tuckernuck, Wamsutta and Upper Circuit Avenues. Voters vetoed a plan to change the size of setbacks for homes in the Residential-1 district and took no action at the Special Town Meeting on a plan to spend $50,000 in air conditioning repairs at the library.

Oak Bluffs' ATM is always marked by zesty discussion, generally led by a cadre of energetic voters. Some are well-informed, like former selectman Kerry Scott. Others appeared less informed, but equally focused on drilling down to the details.

At several points Richardson cut off debate to the discontent of audience members, but Oak Bluffs residents are comfortable with the give and take culture of town meeting debate and treat dissidence with aplomb. One voter fulminated against the wisdom of “putting trust” in the town's affordable housing trust, given past problems. It was gently pointed out that the agency in question predated the current trust organization and no had no role in the past problem.

While town meeting may be the purest form of democracy, its decisions are affected by state and national events. Selectman Ron DiOrio brought the national budget debate into local context with his comment that the national budget agreement worked out this week could impact the availability of future funds for initiatives such as affordable housing, conservation and preservation, which are heavily dependent on federal and state funding.

State funding provided more than 38 percent of some town conservation and preservation project funding this year.  

On the way out the door, voters narrowly defeated the final article, an anti–Middle East war resolution that proponents argued cost town residents nearly $15 million each year in federal taxes.

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