Residents voted on the town’s 12-article warrant at the Fall Town Meeting on Monday evening at the Lynnfield Middle School auditorium. The headline acts of the town meeting were the rejection of the new library project’s $9 million provisional grant and the tenure extension of Fire Chief Glenn Davis.
Article six pertained to the town voting for special legislation to extend the tenure of Davis beyond the mandatory retirement age of 65. The town passed the article with 421 votes. Town Administrator Rob Dolan said that Davis’ tenure extension is “critical to the town since he is involved in important projects.”
The town did not pass Article 12 which would authorize the Select Board to purchase 1005 Summer St. to expand Willow Cemetery. The article would also determine whether the purchase would be funded by borrowing or transferring from available funds. The Select Board recommended passing the article but it did not meet the required majority of town residents voting in favor of the article.
The fifth article passed with 416 affirmative votes that would allow permanent members of the Fire Department who were previously reserve, permanent-intermittent, or call firefighters to receive credit for their service before they became permanent members, for retirement purposes.
The eighth article asked to appropriate money and potentially raise funds for the design, construction, furnishing, and equipping of a clubhouse at the King Rail Reserve Golf Course and site work at that location.
Pat Campbell, a town resident, pointed out that the town had already allocated funds for the King Rail Reserve Golf Course last year. “The previous year you asked for $900,000 and this year you are requesting $300,000,” she said.
However, the golf course administration assured the town that this would be the last time the town would be asked for money. The article passed with 320 affirmative votes.
The ninth article was about the authorization of the purchase of a historic preservation restriction for the Kimble property at 618 Main St. After a brief question-answer session, the town passed the article with 355 votes.
The remaining articles passed without much debate or discussion.
Articles one and two passed with a majority. It dealt with raising and appropriating funds for overdue bills from the previous fiscal year and supplementing accounts in the current fiscal year for various purposes.
Article three, which will appropriate funds from Free Cash to strengthen resources for substance-use disorder prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery through the Massachusetts State-Subdivision Agreement for statewide opioid settlements, passed unanimously too.
The town voted to pass article four which will remove all references to the Board of Health as an enforcement agent, replacing them with “Health Agent.” Article seven, which focused on altering specific words in the zoning bylaws, was passed by the town.
Article 10 pertained to the acceptance of the provisional grant received by the Lynnfield Public Library from the Massachusetts Library Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners. The town rejected the grant.
