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Special Town Meeting gave the Avery School and Dedham High School athletic complex projects key votes of support, upped Dedham’s meals and hotel taxes and voted to move the town’s adult zoning to Legacy Place this week.
With Article 4, Town Meeting Monday voted to fund the design and construction of a new $23.37 million Avery School by Pottery Lane. The town has lined up an $11.09 million state grant for the project, and will seek funding for the remainder through a Proposition 2½ debt-exclusion property tax override.
The average Dedham homeowner would need to pay $1,509 toward the school over 25 years, or about $60 per year. But Dedham’s exempt debt will remain constant over the next four to five years – as the town borrows its Avery funding in six increments, while debt from old projects rolls off the books – according to Andy Lawlor, the chairman of the School Building Rehabilitation Committee. That means there will be no net increase in taxes from the Avery project in the short term.
“This is a huge milestone, getting Town Meeting’s approval,” Lawlor said Tuesday.
Next, an advocacy group, the Friends of New Avery, will promote the project before the special election, which could be held Jan. 19, in conjunction with the Senate election.
Lawlor said every parent-teacher organization and groups including the Rotary Club, Knights of Columbus and Dedham Square Circle have already heard pitches for the new school.
“Wherever we can get a group of concerned Dedhamites, we’ll go and present them a presentation on the project,” he said. “And so far we’ve had a good deal of success persuading people…that this project makes a good deal of sense for the town.”
“The current school has served us well for almost 90 years, but it’s now outdated, obsolete, crowded, and too small,” Lawlor told special Town Meeting Monday. Among its problems, the High Street school has classrooms that are about 608 square feet, significantly smaller than the 950 feet required by current educational standards; it has no kitchen or cafeteria; no grass playing fields; some chronically peeling walls; and hard-to-access bathrooms.
On the table is a new, three-story, 61,000-square-foot Avery that would be built on 5½ acres by Pottery Lane in East Dedham. It would accommodate at least 310 students, and would include a first-rate special education facility.
John Gillis from Precinct 5 was against Article 4 because, he said, Dedham has been on a spending spree, and does not have the money to pay for a new school.
Special Town Meeting gave the Avery School and Dedham High School athletic complex projects key votes of support, upped Dedham’s meals and hotel taxes and voted to move the town’s adult zoning to Legacy Place this week.
With Article 4, Town Meeting Monday voted to fund the design and construction of a new $23.37 million Avery School by Pottery Lane. The town has lined up an $11.09 million state grant for the project, and will seek funding for the remainder through a Proposition 2½ debt-exclusion property tax override.
The average Dedham homeowner would need to pay $1,509 toward the school over 25 years, or about $60 per year. But Dedham’s exempt debt will remain constant over the next four to five years – as the town borrows its Avery funding in six increments, while debt from old projects rolls off the books – according to Andy Lawlor, the chairman of the School Building Rehabilitation Committee. That means there will be no net increase in taxes from the Avery project in the short term.
“This is a huge milestone, getting Town Meeting’s approval,” Lawlor said Tuesday.
Next, an advocacy group, the Friends of New Avery, will promote the project before the special election, which could be held Jan. 19, in conjunction with the Senate election.
Lawlor said every parent-teacher organization and groups including the Rotary Club, Knights of Columbus and Dedham Square Circle have already heard pitches for the new school.
“Wherever we can get a group of concerned Dedhamites, we’ll go and present them a presentation on the project,” he said. “And so far we’ve had a good deal of success persuading people…that this project makes a good deal of sense for the town.”
“The current school has served us well for almost 90 years, but it’s now outdated, obsolete, crowded, and too small,” Lawlor told special Town Meeting Monday. Among its problems, the High Street school has classrooms that are about 608 square feet, significantly smaller than the 950 feet required by current educational standards; it has no kitchen or cafeteria; no grass playing fields; some chronically peeling walls; and hard-to-access bathrooms.
On the table is a new, three-story, 61,000-square-foot Avery that would be built on 5½ acres by Pottery Lane in East Dedham. It would accommodate at least 310 students, and would include a first-rate special education facility.
John Gillis from Precinct 5 was against Article 4 because, he said, Dedham has been on a spending spree, and does not have the money to pay for a new school.
“We’re way in the hole on the money that we owe. And I am not against education, I am not against the school system,” Gillis said, “but I think we need to reconsider and go through our finances and see where we stand for the next 6 years.”
John Delaney from Precinct 1, referring to how Town Meeting last year supported a senior center, which was later turned down by voters, said “the real test isn’t tonight, the real test is when the voters show up in a cold day in January.”
“I hope that this is voted by a substantial majority tonight, and I hope the voters in January, when they pick their way through the snow to the ballot, find enough reasons to vote yes so this thing will take flight,” he said.
The Avery article passed overwhelmingly on a voice vote.
Lawlor said the project has received unanimous votes from the school and finance committees, selectmen, “a resounding approval from Town Meeting, and we’re off to the final step.”
Meantime, with Article 5, Town Meeting backed a $3.1 million project to rebuild another deteriorating piece of school infrastructure, the high school’s track and field facility. Town Meeting voted to fund the design and construction of a new 400-meter, six-lane track with an 8-lane straightaway; a synthetic turf field for football, field hockey, lacrosse and soccer; home bleachers that would seat 1,000 spectators; and a new press box, PA system, and multiuse scoreboard.
That project, too, now goes before voters in the special election.
New taxes
After some debate, meeting members voted 148 to 48 to approve a substitute motion from the Board of Selectmen for Article 6, raising Dedham’s meals tax from 6.25 percent to 7 percent. The Finance Committee had recommended, 6-3, that the measure be indefinitely postponed. And with Article 7, Town Meeting increased the hotel tax from 4 percent to 6 percent. Both new taxes will begin to be collected Jan. 1.
Through Article 3, Town Meeting also created a major capital facilities stabilization fund. Selectmen want to devote the new tax revenue to that fund to pay for new town buildings or major improvements to existing facilities. Future Town Meetings would decide whether to move money into or out of the fund.
In a separate vote for another proposal that was initially listed together with the capital facilities fund under Article 3, Town Meeting decided to deposit $750,000 from Legacy Place into the mitigation stabilization fund.
Top-of-meeting financial articles
Through Article 1, Town Meeting voted to implement new collective bargaining agreements with five unions, and authorized spending $119,500 for associated pay raises this fiscal year.
Through Article 2, Town Meeting approved making $861,162 in line-item transfers for this fiscal year, including budget cuts of $772,562 to account for reductions in state aid.
Adult zoning
With Article 9, Town Meeting voted to move Dedham’s adult zoning from Allied Drive, Carematrix Drive and Blue Hill Drive to four parcels at the Legacy Place development and three properties just farther north on Stergis Way.
E.F. Martin of Precinct 1 proposed that Town Meeting approve the new district minus the two most visible parcels at Legacy Place, and that the adult zoning study committee could examine properties in town anew and return next spring with more additions to the district.
“What concerns me is that that is a very large, very prominent area in town; it’s very important to the town. We don’t know for sure that W/S Development and National (Amusements) will always control that area,” Martin said.
Selectman Sarah MacDonald, who headed the adult zoning study committee, said it was presenting the least harmful adult district. She said Legacy Place and the SIP Trust on Stergis Way would be less likely to rent to adult businesses because they each own multiple parcels in the district, and cautioned against removing the two parcels, which she said would put the town in a legally vulnerable position until Town Meeting could act again.
Town Meeting went with the study committee’s recommendation – seemingly concluding more than a year of adult zoning planning, debates, and changes.
Treasurer-collector
Of the 12 articles, only Article 11 did not pass. The measure, concerning the treasurer-collector position, was rendered moot after the governor signed a bill amending the town’s charter to formally create the combined position. In reality, Robin Reyes has been covering the duties of both since March 2008.
Dedham Transcript staff writer Edward B. Colby can be reached at 781-433-8336 or ecolby@cnc.com.
