FinCom Unanimously Approved Water Tank Articles For Special Town Meeting March 12
Thursday evening Feb 27 Tom Palmer, Select Board Chair, presented the financial plan for the water tank project to the Finance Committee. He reviewed the spreadsheet used by the Water Tank Working Group to describe the cost estimates and funding sources for the project, including the borrowing strategy and likely water rate increases.
Tom also reviewed the Select Board’s strategy for dividing the financial motions during the Special Town Meeting into two sections. First, a motion would be offered to fund the remaining engineering design work and to hire an Owners Project Manager (OPM) to help manage the project and assure the design consultants’ work is top notch. This motion will request approximately $3M from the existing town free cash, so the vote will require only a majority vote to pass. The second motion that will be offered will be to authorize up to approximately $38.5M, with up to $37M to be borrowed to fund the construction work. The spreadsheet Tom Palmer showed to the FinCom is at:
The Finance Committee voted unanimously to support the project and all 4 motions that will be offered during the Special Town Meeting. Those motions will be: 1) to authorize the town to confirm the sites for the project and perform a land swap to use some conservation land for the tanks and add new conservation land elsewhere in town to replace the land used by the new tanks, 2) allow the tanks to be built up to a height higher than current zoning allow on those specific 3 sites and with only municipal communication antennas for fire, police and water tank monitoring (no cell towers), 3) for the final design work and the OPM as described above, and 4) for the construction funding and borrowing authorization as described above.