ROWE — With approval from Special Town Meeting voters, Rowe will begin an initial study to see whether it should pursue joining the sustainability and consolidation efforts that are underway at the Mohawk Trail and Hawlemont Regional school districts.
On Monday, 43 Rowe residents gathered at Town Hall to weigh in on seven articles and approved all but one in an approximately 40-minute meeting. Voters agreed to pass over Article 3, raising and appropriating $32,300 to reconcile accounting discrepancies from the 2024 and 2025 fiscal years, as a Town Meeting vote was unnecessary and would have the same impact on the tax rate as putting the expense on the tax recap sheet.
Articles that passed included spending $9,950 to hire education consultant BERK12 to conduct the initial analysis of Rowe Elementary School’s previous and current conditions, and model future conditions to potentially join the Mohawk Trail and Hawlemont Regional school districts’ sustainability study. BERK12 will also do public outreach and presentations, allowing the town to conduct a straw poll on whether it wants to proceed with joining the Mohawk Trail and Hawlemont districts in discussions on creating a new regional agreement and consolidating the schools. Last spring, the Two Districts, Eight Towns (2D8T) Steering Committee voted to pursue an aspirational goal of bringing all the districts’ students together on a single campus.
Voters passed the article to hire BERK12 by a vote of 42 in favor and one against.
Voters also passed Article 6, appropriating $15,000 to a new Police Detail Agency Fund with only one “no” vote. With the passage of Article 6, the town will be able to pay police officers for details they work while waiting for utility and construction companies to pay their invoices for the details requested.
After much discussion, voters also unanimously approved Article 7 with an amendment. The language of the original article called for the creation of a Historical Commission; however, the town has had a Historical Commission since 2013, so voters agreed to amend the article to note that they are altering the town’s existing Historical Commission bylaw to expand it from three to five members.
All other articles were passed unanimously, including spending $26,000 to purchase turnout gear for three new firefighters, $10,000 to treat a beetle infestation at the Browning Bench Tool Factory, and $30,000 to hire an auditor to review and balance the books for FY24 and FY25.
