The fifth night of Natick Spring Annual Town Meeting started on an optimistic note, with Moderator Frank Foss pledging his faith in Town Meeting members to finish up with the handful of remaining articles that evening. Indeed, just under four hours later, the meeting was dissolved with a “Thank you very much… Good work to get it done in five nights” from the moderator.

About half of this meeting was devoted to the South Natick Dam, with Articles 33, 34 and 35 related to it, plus a sprinkling of dam-related comments (Why doesn’t the liability-focused town stick some safety buoys above the spillway? Why spend tens of thousands on dam park design so far in advance of spillway removal?) shared during questions and debate on spending articles earlier in the night. So let’s get right to the dam-related articles.

Dam, Dam & Dam articles

The Natick Select Board voted in November against repairing the South Natick Dam and spillway (aka, waterfall) and in favor of removing the town’s most iconic site. It proved difficult for the Select Board to swim upstream against a strong environmental current to remove the dam in an effort to return it to some semblance of its more natural state. Plus, the Board was convinced that this approach could save Natick money. Those in favor of repairing the site argued for its historical and aesthetic importance, and point to appropriations voted on at recent Town Meetings to fund a fix.

Article 33, a citizen petition, involved Natick’s legislative body discussing the final committee report of the now-dissolved Charles River Dam Advisory Committee, which recommended spillway removal after its review of the issue over 18 months. The report was presented by the committee to the Select Board prior to its decision on the dam (no current or scheduled Select Board agendas have the topic of the dam on them).

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Moderator Foss initially tried to get Town Meeting to focus on whether or not to discuss the final report, as requested in the main motion, and this proved a bit difficult. Those in favor of discussion (including Save Natick Dam supporters) feel passionately [Read more…]

Natick started its second week of Spring Annual Town Meeting on May 2 with lots of work remaining, but first a public service announcement from Moderator Frank Foss about the previous Thursday’s unusual doings.

Foss apologized for allowing the meeting to become disorderly as efforts were made to sync up motions in print and online versions of the Finance Committee materials given to Town Meeting members on key issues related to the omnibus budget.

“As confusing as it was for you, the evening was frustrating for me,” said Foss, who acknowledged “the only person that is responsible in order for this proceeding is me, the town moderator, even though events leading up to the proceeding Thursday were arguably questionable and need improvement. I and only I am responsible for the order of the evening. So Thursday night was not orderly. To that end, that was my failure and I apologize.”

Now back to the regularly scheduled program…

(We’ve embedded the May 2 and 4 Natick Spring Annual Town Meeting recordings from Pegasus below.)

Dr. Nolin recognized

School Committee member Cathi Collins read a resolution (embedded below) honoring outgoing Natick Public Schools Supt. Dr. Anna Nolin, who heads to Newton following the end of this school year to lead that larger school district.

The resolution recognized Nolin for her “exemplary service to the Natick Public Schools and the Town of Natick.” Nolin, who spoke briefly in thanks, was joined by her family at the meeting and received a round of applause.

Nolin has spent 20 years working for NPS.

Zoning in and out

Town Meeting got a good workout during night #3 with a solid two hours of zoning bylaw presentations and motions.

All of the motions presented for Articles 24 through 29 passed easily, with some discussion sprinkled in.

Director of Community & Economic Development Amanda Loomis took the lead, with Town Administrator Jamie Errickson in a supporting role on most of the articles.

Among these were the introduction of the Center Gateway Zoning District, intended to smooth the transition between Natick Center and the stretch of Rte. 135 (East Central Street) that intersects with Grant and Union Streets, including the properties housing the former Neighborhood Wrench and Santander Bank businesses. Such zoning could provide an entrance to Natick Center from the east, and better connectivity between downtown and existing facilities such as the senior center.

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This area is “primed for redevelopment. However the underlying zoning or the existing zoning actually does not lend [itself to] future redevelopment,” Loomis said.

This new zoning would allow for a mix of housing (including affordable housing that could support new state zoning rules near MBTA stations) and retail development.

Some raised concerns about increasing traffic at an already dicey intersection.

Town Meeting member Don Friswell spoke in favor of the plan, saying he’s been in his 1896 house on E. Central Street within this district since 1980 and doesn’t plan to move. Looking at the largely vacant parcel that once housed a service station, Friswell said he knew things would be changing. ” I think we have to look forward to come up with something that can be used not only here but in other parts of the town…”

Town Meeting supported this article, as it did those on replacing the existing cluster development bylaw and rescinding a moratorium on such developments, which provide an alternative to traditional subdivisions. The revised bylaw increases the minimum parcel size for cluster developments, supports more variety in unit size, and promotes open space preservation. The existing bylaw created confusion among the Planning Board, Conservation Commission, developers, and the public when it came to cluster development, Loomis said. [Read more…]

Natick Spring Annual Town Meeting started normally enough on Tuesday, April 25 with swearing in of new members and laying out of ground rules. But by the end of Thursday night, everybody’s heads were spinning.

Before Town Meeting considered individual articles, it confirmed which items from the warrant would be part of the consent agenda, a technique used to speed things along by not introducing articles that likely won’t inspire many questions or comments. The moderator, Frank Foss, also fielded requests for shuffling the order of some articles to accommodate scheduling conflicts (What, some people have a life outside Town Meeting?). Fuller descriptions of the Town Meeting articles can be found in the Finance Committee’s recommendation book.

Omnibus budget

Article 7, the Omnibus budget, is the big one. As in, it took up about an hour on night #1, then the entire two hours of night #2 on April 27, and continues into night #3 on May 2. In its defense, the article does include eight motions focused on areas such as schools and libraries, public safety, and public works.

For Article 7, Town Administrator Jamie Errickson tag-teamed with finance and school colleagues to explain the proposed FY24 balanced budget, with Errickson leading off. He started by discussing the need for the town to really get a handle on macroeconomic trends coming out of the pandemic to project the budget in FY24 and beyond. “We were taking into account such things as the tight labor market, supply chain issues, interest rate hikes, inflation—all of these things impacted our budget for fiscal ’24,” Errickson said, noting that inflation really affected utility costs, health insurance rates, and vehicle tires. On the plus side, local receipts (such as from hotel/motel, vehicle excise, and meals taxes) are expected to grow some 27% from FY23, and the town has ample free cash to use for stabilization and service funding. The town also continues to benefit from American Rescue Plan Act funds that can be used for various purposes to account for shortfalls and pay for needs.

John Townsend, deputy town administrator & director of finance, dove into more details on the town’s roughly $193M in revenue and similar expenses. Revenue, up more than 7% over FY23 numbers, consists largely of real estate and personal property tax receipts, plus state aid, and local receipts.

Outgoing Natick Public Schools Supt. Dr. Anna Nolin shared an update on the school system’s request for about $85M (up 5.42% over FY23), and as public school officials always emphasize, most of that amount is legally mandated or fixed by contract. What’s more, NPS and other local school systems are challenged more than ever to serve students, both as a result of coming out of a pandemic that put many kids behind in their academic and social/emotional learning and because the study body is changing to one in which some 46% of incoming students do not have English as their first language. Inflation has had a big impact on schools too, from supply to fuel costs. The cost increase that Nolin and her peers have been reeling from is the “absolutely appalling” 14% increase in tuition costs for out-of-district placements dumped on school systems by the state, after an average of 2.5% increases in recent years.

Other highlights of the budget included laptop replacements (goodbye Apple, hello Chromebooks), funding for feminine products, and an increase in advertising (advertising you say?) for diverse job candidates. About $1M goes to fund new positions, including elementary school librarians and instructional technology coaches.

Keefe Regional Technical School Supt. Jonathan Evans explained the partner school’s budget request, following an earlier presentation regarding a stabilization fund designed to help Keefe with future building renovations. In response to a Town Meeting member request we learned that the per-pupil cost at Keefe is higher than at NPS: $23,119 vs. $17,397, though both superintendents warned that per-pupil costs is a complicated subject.

The libraries used to have their own motion, but they were combined with schools this time around under and Education & Learning umbrella. Library funding went up just over 2% for both the Morse Institute Library and Bacon Free Library, with an infusion for programming at both facilities.

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Motion 7A passed easily, 104-3-1, with very few questions from Town Meeting members. One Town Meeting member praised the town for pushing back its budget submission process by a month, and he said that made for “one of the most drama-free, smooth, transparent and cohesive budget processes I have seen” during his time in Natick.

Article 7 discussion picked up on Thursday, April 27 for night #2 of Town Meeting.

Budgets for public safety, public works, and other components of Town Meeting were main topics.

Article 7 Motion B covered police and fire departments and their $19.4M budget request. Among items of note, Natick continues to boost its firefighter corps, and is investing in a new position for FY24. The fire department also sought funding for new [Read more…]