LOCATION/TYPE

NEWS HOME

[ exact phrase in "" • results by date ]

[ Google-powered • results by relevance ]


Archive
RSS

Add NWW headlines to your site (click here)

Get weekly updates

WHAT TO DO
when your community is targeted

RSS

RSS feeds and more

Keep Wind Watch online and independent!

Donate via Paypal

Donate via Stripe

Selected Documents

All Documents

Research Links

Alerts

Press Releases

FAQs

Campaign Material

Photos & Graphics

Videos

Allied Groups

Wind Watch is a registered educational charity, founded in 2005.

News Watch Home

Wareham Selectmen's zero pay to stay 

Credit:  By Frank Mulligan, GateHouse News Service, www.wickedlocal.com 2 June 2011 ~~

WAREHAM – A bid to boost selectmen’s yearly salaries from zero to $2,000 was defeated Tuesday night in the Spring Town Meeting’s wrap-up session.

Former Selectman Brenda Eckstrom recommended an amendment to give the board members a raise.

She said she learned in her six years on the board how much time, effort and travel were involved in the post, and that zero pay was not fair.

Though the issue has been divisive in the past, she said it made sense to bump up the selectmen’s paycheck, adding she was not going to benefit from the change.

Finance Committee Chairman Donna Bronk said the move had merit, but the timing was wrong. She recommended more study, adding, “We can’t afford to pay them now.”

The question whether the board would be entitled to town medical insurance if members became salaried was also raised.

Town Counsel Richard Bowen said the selectmen themselves would have to vote to decide the question, which raised chuckles among the voters in attendance and the selectmen.

Eckstrom said an “uprising” would likely follow if selectmen made that vote.

The argument that more time was needed to study the matter has been heard before, she added, but no progress is ever made.

A two-thirds vote was needed to approve the amendment, but it failed to achieve even a simple majority, in a 76-67 vote to deny.

A subsequent Eckstrom motion to give selectmen $1,000 yearly salaries was not recognized by Town Moderator Claire L. Smith. She said a majority of the voters had made their position “clear.”

Town meeting voters did approve two separate articles to keep the wheels rolling in the town’s police department.

The first was to apply $99,224 to pay for the second year on a three-year, lease-to-own for eight police cruisers and one police SUV, and the second made $50,000 available to enter the first year on a three-year, lease-to-own deal on an additional three cruisers.

Chief Richard Stanley said the disparity in cost for the two deals came because grant funding had not been available to supplement the second purchase.

He said the vehicles were a necessity in improving services, and that the cruisers going on their second year had already racked up 40,000 miles. That’s due to the deteriorating state of older department cruisers, which he likened to “a junkpile.”

In a separate matter, Town Counsel Bowen said Town Meeting’s vote last week to repeal Article 5 in the town’s bylaws permitting wind energy facilities may have also swept away the Beaufort Windpower plan to develop two 398-foot turbines in town. He had initially believed that the project would be grandfathered and allowed to proceed to a Zoning Board of Appeals vote.

That opinion, he said, was based on the belief that the applicant had taken all the required steps to make the application sound prior to the vote.

He subsequently learned that the plan had not been recorded at the Registry of Deeds, which could affect its grandfathered status.

Town meeting voters could amend their vote to clarify Beaufort Windpower’s grandfathered status, he said. But a motion to that effect was voted down.

In other matters, voters approved $2,375,173 as the town’s share of funding the Upper Cape Cod Regional Vocational-Technical High School, $1.6 million for emergency services’ funding, and $40,000 to defray the Harbor Master’s costs to hire six seasonal deputies.

Source:  By Frank Mulligan, GateHouse News Service, www.wickedlocal.com 2 June 2011

This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.

The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.

Wind Watch relies entirely
on User Funding
   Donate via Paypal
(via Paypal)
Donate via Stripe
(via Stripe)

Share:

e-mail X FB LI TG TG Share


News Watch Home

Get the Facts
CONTACT DONATE PRIVACY ABOUT SEARCH
© National Wind Watch, Inc.
Use of copyrighted material adheres to Fair Use.
"Wind Watch" is a registered trademark.

 Follow:

Wind Watch on X Wind Watch on Facebook

Wind Watch on Linked In Wind Watch on Mastodon