NORTHFIELD — Within the next month, Northfield residents can expect to see three new town vehicles hit the streets, having approved their purchase during a special town meeting Monday.
The vehicles — which include a Highway Department dump truck and two pickups with plows for the maintenance and sewer departments — were “desperately needed,” replacing vehicles that are “in very poor shape,” according to Town Administrator Brian Noble.
Noble noted there was some discussion concerning Article 7, which proposed transferring $18,085 of unused funds from previous town meeting articles to a town building maintenance account.
“There was a resident that proposed amending it to pay for the brickwork and electrical contract,” he said. “His motion failed.”
Although a revised zoning bylaw was supposed to come to a vote at Monday’s town meeting, residents who attended public forums concerning the bylaw asked the Zoning Bylaw Revision Committee and its consultants for more time to review the changes. Thus, the articles concerning the zoning bylaw were postponed until the spring annual town meeting, with the exception of Article 4, which involved appropriating $7,500 to pay the consultants for further services. Article 4 passed unanimously.
Remaining articles that passed involved: re-establishing the Town Governance Study Committee; enabling the town to deny, revoke or suspend any local licenses and permits for failure to pay municipal taxes; granting town employees a 1 percent raise; giving the Board of Selectmen power to establish a speed limit of 25 miles per hour on any roadway inside a thickly settled or business district that is not a state highway; and exempting personal property taxes on property less than $2,500.
In all, 19 articles were put before 91 voters at the meeting, which was held Monday at 7 p.m. at Pioneer Valley Regional School. All the articles passed, with many passing unanimously.
Some articles involved appropriating: $3,090 to pay a Board of Health invoice for service to the trash compactors submitted after the fiscal year closed; $28,000 to add a gate to the entrance of the new salt shed and to install a security gate at the main entrance of the town garage; $8,000 to waterproof Town Hall’s brickwork; $10,000 to improve the playground equipment at Northfield Elementary School; and $1,000 to maintain the town’s historical markers.