By Keith Regan, Contributing Writer
Northborough—A little more than a year after it began as an idea among a group of residents, the push to create a Town Common took a huge leap forward at the April 25 Annual Town Meeting (ATM) with voters approving nearly $500,000 in Community Preservation Act (CPA) funds to purchase and improve parcels that will be linked with existing town land to create the downtown green space.
Proponents said the project would enable the town to take control of the appearance of a downtown, where development has caused consternation among some over the years.
“We don’t need another gas station, another pharmacy, another bank,” said Rebecca Ingersoll. “We need a common place for all these community events to happen.”
The project picked up steam last year when the town convened a committee to look at how best to dispose of property at 39 West Main St., which the town had taken through tax title action. That parcel will now be linked and connected with others, including the town-owned land where a war memorial sits.
Most of those who spoke against the article cited financial reasons for doing so. Although Community Preservation Committee Chair John Campbell emphasized that the work will be funded with tax surcharges and state matching funds already being collected, resident Robert Horry said he was “100 percent against” the proposal because it would remove land from the tax roles and create ongoing maintenance and security costs.
“You might as well put beds in there for all the homeless people you are going to have out on the street,” he said.
But Kevin Carroll seemed to speak for many when he noted that a central town common is one “of the few things we lack as a town. Everyone around us has a town common and it is the heart and soul of any community in New England.”
In addition to approving the common project and a $2.4 million article to buy and preserve the White Cliffs mansion, the 200-plus voters who nearly filled the auditorium at Algonquin Regional High School also approved $3.5 million in capital items, including two new police cruisers, a roof replacement for the police station, a dump truck and sidewalk plow for the Department of Public Works; and $300,000 in roadway improvements that help keep the town on schedule with its long-term pavement improvement plan.
Voters also approved $60.6 million in operating budgets, including $21.4 million in municipal government operations, $22.7 million for the town’s K-8 school system and $10.7 million for Algonquin Regional High School. The budget will increase the taxes on the average single family home in town—worth $389,000—by about $272 a year,
The municipal budget represents essentially level funding though both a police officer and fire fighter will both be added halfway through the fiscal year as the town moves to complete the recommendations laid out in a recently completed public safety staffing study.
The school budget also level funds most departments, with exceptions including increases in out-of-district special education costs and transportation and the final 1.8 percent increase in teacher salaries under a contract negotiated three years ago, said Superintendent of Schools