CONWAY — What has been referred to as the “vampire garage” is back on a Town Meeting warrant.
Residents at a special Town Meeting in September 2018 rejected an article that would have moved $200,000 of taxpayer money to the Highway Garage Fund to pay for the project’s design phase and to hire a project manager, with several people saying they felt the Selectboard didn’t have enough answers for them.
Shortly after that meeting, the town’s Highway Garage Committee held regular meetings in hopes of having a recommendation at this year’s annual Town Meeting, set for Monday, 7:30 p.m. at Conway Grammar School. The meeting’s warrant contains two articles regarding funding for a new garage, which Selectboard member Philip Kantor last year said received its unflattering nickname from some residents because “you can’t kill it, no matter what.”
Voters twice in 2014 rejected a garage proposal.
One of Monday’s articles asks if voters agree to raise and appropriate $650,000 to design and build “a cold-storage Highway building” and to develop bid documents, prepare the site and construct the building.
Town Administrator Tom Hutcheson has previously said the current facility on Route 116 has “been unsatisfactory for quite some time.” He said the idea is to build a new one behind the salt shed near Conway Grammar School, allowing the volunteer fire department to have all of the current garage. A new garage would allow the town to keep all of its heavy equipment under cover, which it cannot do now. Hutcheson said this week the article should not read “cold-storage,” but rather “unheated,” because the facility will not be refrigerated in any way.
The other article asks residents to raise and appropriate $60,000 “to design a Highway maintenance facility and partially prepare the site,” including obtaining a formal estimated construction cost and developing bid documents. Both articles are unanimously recommended by the Selectboard and the Finance Committee and require a two-thirds majority to pass.
Adoption of a separate article, which is also unanimously recommended by the Selectboard and the Finance Committee and requires a two-thirds majority to pass, would raise and appropriate $100,000 for the Highway Garage Stabilization Account.
The proposed town budget is $6,037,472, an increase of $185,962, or 3.08 percent, from this year’s figures, which are up $264,744, or 4.52 percent, from last year’s. Hutcheson said this week he thinks this is a reasonable increase.
“It’s down from the last couple of years, in terms of percentage increase,” he said. “We are in such good financial shape we expect our taxes to go down in fiscal year ’20.”
Hutcheson said the property tax rate could go down as much 50 cents per thousand dollars of assessed value.
“And that is a substantial decrease,” he said.
There is also an article pertaining to a resolution calling for the United States to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
A pre-Town Meeting dessert pot luck and discussion was held May 6, 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the Conway Grammar School.
Links to a copy of the town warrant, a cover letter by Hutcheson, and a financial spreadsheet can be found at bit.ly/2Vce5ej.
Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 262.