Meetings are held remotely. Go to truro-ma.gov, click on the meeting you want to watch, and open its agenda for instructions on how to watch or take part online.
Thursday, April 29
- Climate Action Committee, 10:30 a.m.
- Select Board, 4 p.m.
- School Committee, 5:15 p.m.
Friday, April 30
- Commission on Disabilities, 3:30 p.m.
Monday, May 3
- Conservation Commission, 5 p.m.
Tuesday, May 4
- Board of Health, 4:30 p.m.
Wednesday, May 5
- Planning Board, 5 p.m.
Thursday, May 6
- Climate Action Committee, 10:30 a.m.
Conversation Starters
Preschool Expansion Could Happen
On Thursday, April 29 at 5:15 p.m., the Truro School Committee will hear a presentation from the principal and superintendent on a way to answer the call for expanded free preschool for three-year-olds.
Currently, Truro offers preschool to three- and four-year-olds at no charge to children of residents and town employees. But due to limited space and staff, the three-year-olds rarely get full weekly slots. This has made it necessary for many working parents to put their children in costly child-care programs if they can even find them. Child care is in short supply on the Outer Cape.
Truro residents with young children have been asking Truro Central School to offer more preschool. On Thursday, the school administration will present a way to make it happen.
If the school committee adopts the plan, it would cost $110,000 to $125,000 to pay for one full-time teacher and one classroom assistant. And it would require use of a third classroom for activities, according to the staff report that will be presented to the committee on Thursday.
Space constraints due to Covid, however, may require the school to also acquire and install a portable classroom, which would cost $90,000, the staff report stated.
In a related matter, voters at town meeting on June 26 will be asked to adopt a voucher program to grant $7,500 each to children of town residents and staff to be spent at licensed child-care facilities should the Truro preschool be full. That will cost $150,000. The article is petitioned by Raphael Richter, who is a father of young children.
Sharing the County Bounty
Truro looks pretty small from the perspective of the U.S. Census and that is why President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act allotted the town only $198,100 in direct funding. That’s not enough, given that the number of registered voters in the last election exceeded the 2010 Truro census population count of 2,003, said Town Manager Darrin Tangeman.
Clearly, Tangeman said, Covid-19 has brought second-home owners to town year-round. Voter registration is up 10 percent, and the transfer station is taking in a lot more household trash, he said.
So, Tangeman and a member of the select board will be working to write a proposal to tap into some of the $41 million expected to come from the rescue plan to Barnstable County.
These funds should in some way reflect the needs of the area based on the economic fallout of the pandemic, though the uses are not as well defined as with the previous Cares Act funds, he said.
Tangeman said one obvious use of the windfall is to expand broadband to the outermost reaches of the Outer Cape towns. This is Covid-19 related, he added, because the need to work and access education from home has clearly grown during the pandemic. —K.C. Myers
