WELLFLEET — The special town meeting set for Oct. 21 may be far from special. Town Administrator Tom Guerino told the select board on Sept. 17 that what voters will find on the warrant will be “fairly perfunctory.”
The 19-article warrant is mostly about keeping the house tidy. Charter and bylaw amendments proffered by Town Moderator Dan Silverman seek to change the look of future town meetings. Also on the warrant are financial articles related to errors made during fiscal 2025 budgeting; a transfer from the Marina Enterprise Fund for repairs at the marina; and expenses related to converting the newly acquired Gestalt International Study Center into town offices.
Silverman will be on hand at a Wellfleet Community Forum on Tuesday, Oct. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Adult Community Center for a warrant discussion. The special town meeting itself will start at 6 p.m. in the elementary school gym.
Marina and Gestalt Center
Article 2 would authorize transfers of $57,300 from available funds, including $12,300 “to correct errors or omissions in the original FY2025 budget,” according to the warrant. “Something was missed, going from hand to hand to hand over the budget period,” Guerino told the select board.
Article 3, on marina operations, would transfer $143,000 from retained marina earnings to cover staffing and overtime expenses after a slew of resignations earlier this summer in the harbormaster’s office. The funds would also go to fixing “serious and some dangerous conditions at the Pier and Marina,” according to the warrant: $53,250 would go to staffing and $50,000 for repairs.
Last month, Fire Chief Joe Capello banned fuel trucks from the L-pier after he discovered it in disrepair. Interim Harbormaster Stuart Smith told the select board on Sept. 17 that there are other safety hazards on the pier including “fairly significant” electrical deficiencies. According to Smith, lighting along the pier has gone out, and the power pedestals along the marina where vessels tie up don’t work. “Some are frozen, some don’t work, some are missing,” he said.
The pump-out boat, which handles boaters’ sewage, is “well beyond its useful life,” Smith said, adding that it “doesn’t lend itself to staying afloat.” The town is seeking a grant from the Div. of Marine Fisheries to help pay for the boat in addition to $40,000 from the marina enterprise fund.
After voters approved the $1.7-million purchase of the Gestalt Center for office space at a June special town meeting, they will be asked in Article 4 for another $36,500 to provide “a basic operational budget” for the facility for the rest of fiscal 2025.
In Article 5, Guerino is looking for funds to pay an administrative assistant for the health and planning departments; $40,000 would cover the rest of fiscal 2025 if the town can fill the job now. Guerino told the select board about the need for additional support staff at its Sept. 17 meeting: “You have ramped up an awful lot of projects and an awful lot of expectations,” he said. “It’s starting to show. We are going to lose people.”
Town Meeting Changes
Among the town meeting changes Silverman hopes to make is a charter amendment that would establish a regular fall town meeting in addition to the traditional spring session. The spring meeting would focus on finances, while the fall meeting would focus on zoning and bylaw changes, he proposed.
Silverman said that nothing in the charter change would rule out discussion of either topic at either meeting. His aim is to keep town meetings shorter in the hope that more people would attend, he said.
Articles 6 and 7 would amend the town charter and bylaws to cut down on the number of town meeting warrants printed. The bylaw amendment would set the number at 30 percent of registered voters in town or roughly 950 copies. The reasons are both environmental and economic, Silverman said: “It’s expensive to mail.”
Under the proposed charter change, the town administrator would mail a postcard in lieu of the full warrant to all registered voters with a notice of where to pick up a physical copy, which would include the library, post offices, town hall, and Adult Community Center.
Silverman’s third proposal would change quorum rules so that the minimum 6 percent of registered voters in attendance is required only at the beginning of the meeting and not throughout it. In some years, when the quorum has been lost as people straggle out over the course of long meetings, Silverman has had to call a recess and ask townspeople to return to complete the meeting the next night.
Another dual charter-bylaw amendment proposal would move election day to the third Tuesday in May, which “allows Town Meeting to be moved to early May, giving more time for the Town to receive the budget of the regional school district,” the article states. Previously, the annual town election has taken place on the Monday following the April town meeting.
The warrant notes that the charter amendments require a two-thirds majority vote at town meeting and a majority vote at the annual town election, which won’t happen until spring.
Other articles seek approval for road-widening easements related to the Herring River Restoration Project and the raising of low-lying roads near Bound Brook Island, as well as two articles related to go-aheads on leasing town land at the Adult Community Center for the Wellfleet Food Pantry.