Tisbury To Hold Double-Header Town Meeting

The Tisbury annual town meeting (ATM) will likely require two nights to complete next week after a special town meeting (STM) last night fell five voters short of the 100 voter quorum.
 
Voters were expected to tackle a 16-article STM warrant that read like a honey-do spring cleaning list. Instead, the 7 p.m. meeting became a countdown to quorum until selectmen decided at 8 p.m. to combine the STM warrant with a 37-article ATM warrant next Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Tisbury School.

Town moderator Deborah Medders began exhorting 55 voters in attendance shortly before 7 p.m. to get busy on their cell phones. "Call your neighbors, your partner, your friends” to attend the meeting, she said. Their efforts fell just short. Next Tuesday night the ATM will be called to order, recessed and the STM warrant voted on before annual town meeting is reconvened..

The STM clean-up list included proposed bylaw articles relating to sidewalk snow removal, a vote to join the Martha's Vineyard Refuse Disposal and Resource Recovery District, another to regulate owner upkeep of vacant buildings and an article allowing the Steamship Authority to offload its passenger ferry waste into the town wastewater collection system.

Two other STM articles to be considered next week would tidy up the town's funding policy for post-employment benefits for current and future town employees. Several energy-related articles would: amend the building code with energy-efficiency standards for new and rehab construction and develop bylaws overseeing installation of large-scale photo-voltaic solar panels proposed for the town landfill.

The ATM warrant includes consideration of a nearly $20.5 million fiscal 2012 budget, up 1.3 percent from the prior year, and whether to spend one million of its $1.150 million free cash fund.