Sr. Ctr. Measure Gets Own Town Meeting

Seekonk voters will get two town meetings for the price of one in June. The Board of Selectmen voted 4-0 (Bill Rice was absent) on Wednesday for the  to be considered during a one-item town meeting that will take place immediately prior to the regular session.

The decision was a compromise with Senior Center Building Committee members, who had asked for their item to be considered on a different day than the regular town meeting so interested seniors would not have to sit through a long night of other items, including the town's 2012-13 fiscal year budget.

The senior center proposal calls for a temporary override of Proposition 2 1/2 (known as a debt exclusion) to allow a property tax hike to fund a $2.5 million center that would be built on a vacant property next to Town Hall on Peck Street. The tax would cost approximately $8 per $100,000 of a property's value and decrease each subsequent year. Voters approved the measure on Election Day earlier this month by a simple majority. Two-thirds of Town Meeting voters must support the proposal for it to pass.

By making the measure part of a separate town meeting, the item cannot be brought up later in the night for reconsideration. The fear is that seniors could see the item approved, go home before it gets dark, and then wake up the next morning to learn the issue has been brought up for reconsideration and defeated on the second try. To prevent this from happening, seniors would have to stay throughout the entire town meeting, possibly late into the night.

"The seniors who may want to be out voting on such an important milestone … probably don't want to spend three to four hours at town meeting waiting for a vote for their item," senior center committee chair Dave Bowden told the board.

Bowden had requested the measure be presented separate from all other town meeting items on a Saturday. This year's meeting is tentatively scheduled for Monday, June 25 (the school committee is expected to request next week that the date be changed to Monday, June 18).

The board did not accept Bowden's request, with Selectman Dave Parker saying past Saturday town meetings have been "huge flops" in terms of attendance. Selectman Gary Sagar said he could not support having a second town meeting on a separate day for one item.

Parker, who supports the senior center measure, said he was bothered by the request for a separate town meeting because it implied the seniors were not interested in any other item on the agenda.

"I'm somewhat dismayed in the fact that the seniors have asked for our support, which we have apparently given them at the polls wholeheartedly to have a senior center, and yet they can't stay an extra couple of hours to let us get through the budget," Parker said.

This comment led to groans from senior center committee members sitting in the audience, and one member saying, "Oh, stop."