{"id":46684,"date":"2023-10-05T14:13:24","date_gmt":"2023-10-05T14:13:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelandmark.com\/?p=46684"},"modified":"2023-10-05T14:13:24","modified_gmt":"2023-10-05T14:13:24","slug":"sterling-oct-16-special-town-meeting-to-address-citizen-petitions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/2023\/10\/05\/sterling-oct-16-special-town-meeting-to-address-citizen-petitions\/","title":{"rendered":"Sterling Oct. 16 special town meeting to address citizen petitions"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Jan Gottesman<\/em>
\nThe Item<\/em><\/div>\n

STERLING \u2014 A fall special town meeting has been scheduled for Monday, Oct. 16.<\/p>\n

The meeting was prompted by a citizens\u2019 petition about the Board of Health; once a petition is filed, the town is required to schedule a meeting.<\/p>\n

After the meeting was scheduled, a few more articles were received, bringing the total to nine articles.<\/p>\n

In addition to the first citizens\u2019 petition, a second was received, also dealing with the Board of Health. Along with the business articles, voters will be asked to fund two special elections to fill a state senate vacancy and the special town meeting itself.<\/p>\n

Town Administrator Bill Caldwell told the Select Board that the two special elections \u2014 the primary on Oct. 10 and the regular election on Nov. 7 \u2014 to fill Anne Gobi\u2019s senate seat, will cost $8,000 total to run.<\/p>\n

It will cost the town $7,000 to run the special town meeting.<\/p>\n

The meeting will start with town business, then cover the citizens\u2019 petitions.<\/p>\n

One article authorizes the Select Board \u2014 by gift, purchase, eminent domain or otherwise \u2014 to acquire 67 Holden Road (1.05 acres), for a fire pond. Another is to acquire 6 Michael Lane (.9 acres) from the developer for drainage.<\/p>\n

Another article corrects a May vote on voter registration. It allows town offices to move voter registration from Saturdays to Fridays, for local voting.<\/p>\n

Voters will be asked to set up a fund to hold opioid funds from a lawsuit settlement onto which the town signed. Caldwell said the amount, right now, is about $8,700, but more money could be coming. The money can only be spent for specific purposes.<\/p>\n

Voters will be asked to transfer $30,000 from the Capital Stabilization Fund to equip a cell tower with public safety equipment on Kendall Hill. Caldwell explained the request is coming now, with the scheduled special town meeting, rather than waiting for the spring town meeting, because it is cheaper to do the work while the tower is being built.<\/p>\n

The regional school district has also put an article on the warrant to amend the regional school agreement to reflect the latest population figures. The calculations include weighted voting.<\/p>\n

The first citizens\u2019 petition is to \u201curge the Board of Health to rescind their Dec. 8, 2022, revisions to Sterling Subsurface Disposal System Regulations\u201d by deleting mandates for deep observation hole inspection requirements.<\/p>\n

As part of the summary, advocates wrote: \u201cIn no less than three separate Mass. DEP statutory documentation sources, a deep hole soil evaluation is a last resort and is not required as it goes against the Mass. DEP\u2019s overriding theme that the Title 5 should be accomplished with minimal disruption to the involved resident\u2019s property.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second citizens\u2019 petition calls for $10,000 to audit the Sterling Board of Health \u201cto examine the systems, programs and financial data\u201d to provide \u201cindependent assurance that our community\u2019s financial interests are paramount and that statements are reliable, accurate and complete.\u201d<\/p>\n

The motion for the article calls for the money to come from \u201cavailable reserve funds.\u201d<\/p>\n

The meeting will be held Monday, Oct. 16, starting at 6:30 p.m. in the Chocksett Middle School Gym, 40 Boutelle Road.<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jan Gottesman The Item STERLING \u2014 A fall special town meeting has been scheduled for Monday, Oct. 16. The meeting was prompted by a citizens\u2019 petition about the Board of Health; once a petition is filed, the town is required to schedule a meeting. After the meeting was scheduled, a few more articles were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":96545,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}