Select Board passes on Zoning Board appointment

The Select Board voted 2 for to 3 against on the reappointment of Mr. Ray Souza to the Zoning Board of Appeals(ZBA). Mr. McDonald and I were for reappointment. Mr. Souza had served on the ZBA for the past 46 years. Members voting against the reappointment cited the desire to have new people involved and several cases where the courts have ruled the ZBA board decisions were badly in error and/or were against the recommendation of the Town Counsel.
The Zoning Board of Appeals has a difficult and very technical job. There are in and outs of the law and court decisions which affect their rulings and it takes a while to get familiar with legal constraints. That is the reason I supported Mr. Souza's reappointment. He has the experience.
In an unexpaectecd turn of events, Ms. Figuereido, who had expressed interest in being appointed to the ZBA as a full member, withdrew herself from consideration at last night's meeting. She is currently an alternate member and attends most hearings but cannot vote unless there is an absence of a full member. When Mr. Souza was then nominated for reappointment, the vote went against him. An alternate member will have to fill that spot on the ZBA until the Select Board finds a new member.
Curt Brown's Standard Times article about the reappointment can be found at this link.
I feel there was quite a lot of rather uncivil behavior ...

... at the meeting and I hope that I did not contribute to it. I tried to keep the discussion on the topic at hand but it frequently strayed from the issue of the appointment.
Finally I want to thank Mr. Souza for his many years of service to the town. He has spent many hours as a volunteer on the ZBA and has my gratitude for that.
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Lakevile votes for increased regionalization

The Standard Times reports at this link that the Lakeville Town Meeting voted to fully regionalize their district with Freetown I think it is a good move. As I wrote here, a regional school with Westport would be a good idea for our town. Click here to read on!

Lakeville tries again

The Standard Times reports here that Lakeville voters will take up full regionalization of their schools again. Their high school is already regional with Freetown. Combining the two districts will reduce transportation and administration costs. I think it shokld be done.
I also believe that Dartmouth should form a regional district with Westport. The resulting school district would have about 6000 students, 7-8 elementary schools, ...

... two middle schools, and two high schools. The new district would save millions in transportation and administration costs. Hard to see a down side from my point of view.
Why do that now you ask? Well, while our finances are not in dire shape at the moment, the long term outlook is that the required school spending is outstripping revenue. This is not a criticism of the school department but a fact of life due to the school funding formulas in place. Regional schools get state help with transportation costs. This is one way of getting the state to kick in more funding of their unfunded mandate to the town..
What do you feel about a regional district and why do you think it would be good or bad? Click here to read on!

Tax classification time

The Select Board will have a public hearing tomorrow and set the tax rate for 2011.Several years ago, I posted an explanation of how the tax levy and the tax rate are related and that explanation can be found at this link. Currently Dartmouth employs a split tax rate where commercial, industrial and personal (CIP) property is taxed at a higher rate than residential properties. For the past few years that "split tax" rate has been 40% higher on CIP property. In addition a small commercial exemption has been adopted which reduces the tax on small businesses by 10%, resulting in a split tax on those establishments of 130%.
Back in March 2008, I posted an explanation form Mr. Gracie on why the ability to split tax rates exists and why it is applicable to Dartmouth. That post can be found at this link.
Thanks to the banksters and Wall Street's riverboat gamblers, residential real estate values have declined for the past few years. The result is that the percentage of the total tax levy paid by the CIP properties has increased somewhat over the past few years. I believe that this compensates for a decade or more shifting the burden to the residential portion of the levy. In any case, ...

... the shift is not large, CIP real property taxes would grow to 22.2% of the levy from a low of 13.8% in 2006. My initial thought is to leave the tax shift unchanged for the next year. That position is not staunchly held and I will be interested to hear what the arguments are to change it, if any, at the hearing tomorrow. What are your thoughts on this? Click here to read on!

Wind turbine opponents soldier on

Curt Brown has this blog post at the Standard Times website about the possible consequences of the Attorney General's approval of the wind turbine bylaw. He quotes Attorney Beauregard as saying the opponents will continue to sue the town over the project. The Select Baord has not discussed future steps yet ...
... but will on Monday. See my earlier post as to what that may be. Click here to read on!

Any thoughts on our state representative race?

Democrat Chris Markey and Republican Joe Michaud will vie for voter approval in the Ninth Bristol District in November. So far, beyond yard signs, the race is pretty quiet. Who do you favor, and more importantly, WHY do you favor one over the other? Let us know in comments.
I have great respect of Joe Michaud and he has served the town and community well on many fronts. But I don't see any point in sending a Republican up to Beacon Hill given ...
... the enormous numerical advantage that the Democrats have. They can pretty much ignore the Republicans and still pass whatever they want. Or should I say whatever the Speaker and Senate President want. Actually, they pretty much ignore the governor as well.
While I am not averse to voting to send a message, I also would like to have a rep that at least can sit at the table when the pie is divided. Click here to read on!

Candidates debate at UMass soon

The gubernatorial candidates will be at UMass Dartmouth to debate Thursday September 30th at 2 PM. See this post. A debate was held last night and I watched it on WGBH. Anyone else tune in? What did you think?
Tell us in comments! Click here to read on!

Our Commonwealth leads the nation in health care coverage

Mass Budget has this report on the health care coverage in our state. We lead the nation in covering our citizens. This recent paper from Mass Budget shows that the Bay State is recovering from the recession more rapidly than most of the country.
Despite a terrible economic situation, our state has remained true to its values as a commonwealth and provided care ...
... for our citizens while promoting an atmosphere where business can prosper.
I think that nation could learn a lesson from our state. What do you think?
Click here to read on!

Wind turbine bylaw approved by Attorney General

The town has been informed by the Commonwealth's Attorney General that the municipal wind turbine bylaw passed at the June 2010 Town Meeting has been approved. The town had been waiting for this approval before proceeding and spending funds on the project. The Select Board will discuss next steps at our September 27th meeting.
Those steps may include contracting with a design firm to design the installation.
The discussion may take place in executive sessions until the terms of the contract are worked out or may take place in open session. That has not been resolved at this date.
Something that must be considered as the wind turbine project goes forward is how the entire project will be structured. I favor establishing an enterprise that would provide services to town departments (i.e. electrical energy). This enterprise would be responsible for the notes on the project and would have retained earnings to be used for routine maintenance and any unscheduled maintenance that might occur. Just to put some numbers to the idea, the following may be more or less but are in the ball park. For instance, let us say that the wind turbines are erected and the notes require a $900K payment on the borrowing used to pay for the installation. The routine maintenance yearly cost might be $150K. The turbines output could be worth $1.7 million. The Select Board has indicated that $500,000 be set aside from the net proceeds for the wind turbines to pay ...

... for any unscheduled maintenance and their eventual removal. At least 10% of the yearly net proceeds must be set aside for this purpose. In this example, that would be about $65,000 for the year. That leaves around $585K. That amount would be distributed among the town departments to reduce their electric bills.
That is how I would like to see the project financed and run. What do you think?
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Crime Reports

The Dartmouth Police department has begun using computerized tracking of crime to enable them to better allocate resources. The public can view a part of the data on a website called Crime Reports. That site can be accessed by clicking on the preceding link or go to the Dartmouth Police website, click on Forms & Reports on the menu at the top and click on Crime Reports in the pull down list.
The department has also partnered with the Plymouth County Sheriff and some 40 other cities and towns to implement an emergency notification system called The Communicator. The system allows the police and fire districts to call every phone in an area with emergency information. Cell phone users can sign up for the service as well. Land phones are automatically included. Cell users must sign up.

What do you think about that? Click here to read on!