Articles 1 – 14 of 52 pass on first night of Milton’s Town Meeting

Town Meeting commenced last night with recognition of former board of selectmen member Tom Hurley, a welcome to newly elected BOS member Richard Wells, massive applause to the Milton girls track team for their state and national achievements, and a moment of silence for town meeting members who have passed away.

Milton Reflecting announced their new multimedia play linking five Milton towns in the United States, which will take place May 17-21 at the Milton Public Library.

Cindy Christiansen gave a presentation on airplane traffic and pollution, noting the massive increase in complaints from Miltonians suffering under narrow sky highways of constant planes. 52,000 planes flew over Milton in 2016, marking an increase of 12% over the prior year. She mentioned the importance of all residents filing complaints to Massport to express their dissatisfaction in the increase in noise and air pollution as a result of the targeted NextGen paths.

Brian Beaupre presented the contingent and non-contingent budgets and remarks on behalf of the warrant committee. The warrant committee estimates average per-household increase in taxes as being approximately $377 per year if the override passes.

Articles 1-12 passed with little or no comments from town meeting members. Joe Sloane, a town meeting member from precinct 10, spoke strongly in favor of the code enforcement officer allocated for in Article 13. His reasons requiring code enforcement include multiple unregistered vehicles, abandoned boats, illegally paved front and side yards for parking, multiple commercial vehicles on residential properties. All of these are a major problem in precinct 10, according to Sloane, who fears “with the lack of code enforcement, as time goes on, people are seeing this [code violation] as acceptable.”

“With the lack of code enforcement, as time goes on, people are seeing this [code violation] as acceptable.” – Joe Sloane, TMM, Pct. 10

Article 13 passed, and at 9:35 p.m., Town Meeting began its discussion of Article 14: To see if the town will vote to establish a Fire Station Building Committee and to fund this Committee so that a study of the existing operations and conditions of the three existing Milton Fire Department stations can be created.

Town meeting would Article 15 until 10:55 p.m.

Article 15 discussion opened with commentary from TMM John Cronin, who asked why rehabilitation of the existing fire station was omitted as an option in the article’s language. Town Meeting Members Cheryl Tougias (P9) and Frank Giuliano (P3) both supported John Cronin’s suggestion that the friendly amendment include language about renovating the existing structure. Current Fire Space Needs Committee chair Steve Morash stated that the committee has already repeatedly looked into fire station rehabilitation but later said he would support the amendment, noting that he expected the new committee to come up with the same conclusion.

A friendly amendment was also proposed by the Board of Selectmen, allowing the article to authorize the moderator to appoint the members of the Fire Station Building Committee.

TMM Scott Johnson (P9) also proposed a friendly amendment that requires review, analysis & comparison to be done by a separate firm from the planning & design firm, in order to avoid inflation of costs and conflict of interest. Town Counsel didn’t believe the amendment would be legal; the amendment did not get a second motion to be put forth to Town Meeting for a vote.

Laura Kessler, Joan Clifford (P8), Kristan Bagley-Jones (P8), Franc Graham (P9) and Maureen Peterson (P10) all spoke in support of MAC & asked that committee examine all options for a new fire station location, not just locations already owned by the Town. Kevin Dambruch (P8) proposed a friendly amendment in favor of exploring all spaces while excluding the the Milton Art Center Space as an option. Ellen DeNooyer (P2), confused by the friendly amendment, stated “we are all struggling to understand what this amendment means and we should not support it.” She was met with applause.

The final friendly amendment, which would exclude the Milton Art Center from the choices for the new Fire Station location, ultimately did not pass.

Article 14 did pass, and night one of Town Meeting came to a blessed close.

14 down, 38 to go.