Three Annual Town Meetings Open Tuesday:
West Tisbury

By IAN FEIN

West Tisbury voters will decide next week whether they want to spend $655,000 to purchase a private home in North Tisbury for use as a temporary town hall and, possibly, the future police station.

The home, on the corner of State and Old Stage roads, is expected to be the center of debate at the annual town meeting Tuesday night. Town moderator F. Patrick Gregory will open the 37-article warrant at 7 p.m. in the West Tisbury School.

Also up for discussion is a $12.1 million fiscal year 2006 town budget, up $1.2 million or 11 per cent from this year. The budget will likely be amended on the floor of town meeting down to $11.9 million to reflect a $180,000 decrease in the Up-Island Regional School District assessment.

Voters have consistently supported the town's growing budget, and selectmen are hoping they will be in a similar spending mood next week. However, selectmen know they might have a tough sell with the North Tisbury home.

The proposal, which selectmen developed during a series of closed sessions this winter, has been met with a great deal of skepticism around town. At their regular weekly meeting on Wednesday, selectmen struggled to determine which of them would argue in favor of the proposal on town meeting floor.

"Who gets the short stick on that one?" asked executive secretary Jennifer Rand.

"If you're going to go down, you might as well go down," said selectman Jeffrey (Skipper) Manter. Mr. Manter is also a police sergeant who spearheaded the police station search this winter.

In response to criticism about the plan from voters and the town finance committee, selectmen amended the request to include a $25,000 feasibility study that will look at other possible police station sites across town. If the North Tisbury home is purchased and turns out not to be the best site, selectmen will consider reselling it once the town hall renovation is complete and the various town departments have moved out of the home.

If the North Tisbury site is the recommended location, a study will determine how much money is needed to renovate the home for municipal uses. Any further renovation costs will have to go before a future town meeting. Selectmen do not yet have an estimate for such costs, although they said they will have a number ready for next week.

The purchase will require two-thirds approval on town meeting floor, plus a simple majority as a Proposition 2 1/2 exemption question on next week's town ballot.

Regardless of the possible future police station, town voters will be asked in a separate article to spend another $10,000 to fix air quality and mold issues with the current police station.

The police department is also looking for a $25,000 new Crown Victoria cruiser - one of a fleet of four new town vehicles voters will be asked to approve at town meeting. Separate warrant articles request $270,000 for a fire department brush breaker truck, $41,000 for a highway department plowing truck, and $24,000 for an animal control officer truck.

Another article asks for a $25,000 transfer to cover increased legal spending in this year's budget. The board of assessors is currently defending a costly property tax appeal, which forced the town to transfer $10,000 from the reserve fund this winter because the town had already overspent its original $25,000 budget. If voters approve the latest transfer next week, it will put the town's legal budget for the year at $60,000.

Two seemingly small appropriations that may inspire debate are for the county veteran's agent. The county used to include the agent in its overall assessment to the towns, but broke out the cost as a separate charge this year. Towns across the Island have been trying to figure out how - or whether - to pay the two $5,000 bills for this year and next, and West Tisbury selectmen decided to put the question to the voters. The finance committee gave a negative recommendation to both related articles.

The finance committee also weighed in on the town's request to raise town employee salaries by a cost of living adjustment of 3.8 per cent. The committee recommended a 3.4 per cent increase instead, removing the so-called "Vineyard factor" that had been added to the standard cost of living adjustment. Committee members argued that the Vineyard factor works both ways, with higher wages as well as higher costs.

West Tisbury voters will also be asked to take action on three regional initiatives that appear on town meeting warrants in all six Island towns: two nonbinding resolutions and an increased transportation assessment to fund a two-year pilot program for the Martha's Vineyard Regional Transit Authority (VTA). One resolution asks voters to work toward a renewable energy Island and the other to create a Martha's Vineyard Housing Bank.

The housing bank, if approved by the state legislature, would serve as an affordable housing funding agency modeled after the Martha's Vineyard Land Bank. The housing bank would raise affordable housing funds through a one per cent fee assessed to the seller in real estate transactions over $750,000.

For the VTA, West Tisbury residents are being asked for an additional $57,000 to fund the program that would provide year-round van service for residents traveling to the Seniors' Day Program in Edgartown, and also extend some of the summer routes into the off season.

Also on the warrant is a request from the planning board to make three small changes to zoning bylaws, two of which are simply fixing language to make the bylaws more readable. The other amendment would remove a requirement that owners post a zoning notice on the inside of unit doors.