NORTHFIELD — Against the Finance Committee’s recommendation and despite declining school enrollment, the town’s voters have authorized a slight increase in school spending for next year.
Another major town meeting agenda item — revamping the town’s zoning regulations by adding three new zones — passed unanimously at the annual town meeting Monday night at Pioneer Valley Regional School.
The town’s annual operating budget also passed, with $5,100,232 for education.
There was little discussion when it came to the zoning article that Selectboard Chairman Jack Spanbauer and the Zoning Bylaw Revision Committee had worked on for months. The vote in its favor was greeted with a round of applause from the auditorium of Northfield residents.
Primarily, the zoning bylaw rewrite proposes three new zoning districts: a village center district to promote a mix of uses in limited areas on Main Street; a recreational tourism district to support an increase in such activity in Northfield, which would include Northfield Mountain and Northfield Golf Club; and a planned development district, which would include the former Northfield Mount Hermon School campus and allow for an expanded variety of uses.
Voters also unanimously approved spending up to $100,000 to remove trash and debris from 314 Caldwell Road.
“I have to say the $100,000 is a wild guess,” Spanbauer said. “It’s such a mess that we don’t even know what’s there.”
The town will now be able to remove what they described as an area with “hundreds if not thousands of tires” and with significant amounts of trash.
After seizing Allen Smith’s property at 314 Caldwell Road for back taxes, Northfield became responsible for cleaning the lot, which is identified as an illegal solid waste disposal site by the state Department of Environmental Protection.
With continued declining enrollment in the district’s schools, residents voted to approve the town’s budget after agreeing to add additional money to the school budget.
The final town budget for next year came to $7,984,746, about a 1 percent increase from this year’s spending plan for Northfield.
When the town’s budget was first introduced, School Committee Chairwoman Patricia Shearer suggested an amendment to increase the school budget from the Finance Committee’s proposed amount by about $164,000, or to raise the town’s overall budget by about 1 percent — despite steadily declining school enrollment, particularly at Pioneer Valley Regional School.
“We felt given the declining enrollment, the School Committee has to make an effort to manage the budget,” Selectboard Chairman Jack Spanbauer said.
Some members of the community asked why the budget continued to go up, and at the expense of the elderly in the community.
Momentum shifted and discussion ended after Northfield resident Ruth Potee spoke of the value of education.
“A town dies without a vibrant school system,” Potee said.
She went on to cite the numerous teachers who are set to be cut at the high school, which Superintendent Ruth Miller called “uncomfortable.”
“This is more than a little uncomfortable,” Potee said. “This is devastating.”
Potee added that she does not want to have to send her children to another school system through School Choice — which has become a trend in recent years. The school’s budget was approved at $5,100,232, nearly 63 percent of the overall town budget.