Selectmen Finalize Bonding; Set Date for Town Meeting
On March 21, both the boards of Selectmen and Finance moved to send as written five bond resolutions, three for the town and two for the schools, to a town meeting.
Residents can come discuss the proposed town and education budgets and capital bonding requests at an information budget town meeting on Tuesday, April 5 from 4 to 5 p.m. at which First Selectman Joseph Mazza and Susan Renner from the Board of Education will present overviews of the budgets and will be available to answer questions.
The budget referendum is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, April 12.
The Board of Selectmen originally wanted one bond resolution for the capital plan that was adopted more than a month ago. Finance Director Sheila Villano recommended against combining everything into one bond package.
"You don't want to present items to the voters in one package where there are popular projects and not-so-popular projects," Villano said.
She said that by "log-rolling" (combining bonds together), the opportunity for voters to say "No" to an unpopular project is literally taken away because they will be saying "Yes" to the more popular projects to which it's tied.
"It could open the town up to taxpayer complaints," she said.
The possibility that more highly desired projects could be dragged down was also raised.
"My concern is that if people feel that some of the road improvements aren't necessary, then we run the risk of losing the public works trucks, which I think is a needed entity," Selectman Cynthia Cartier said.
The bonded projects were then split into three categories: Town property improvements and equipment acquisitions at $1.38 million; $4.39 million for emergency services equipment, upgrades, and acquisitions; and $2.34 million for public works, infrastructure improvements, and equipment acquisitions. Included in the emergency services bond resolution is the mandated communications upgrade for $3 million, which involves the installation of more communication towers to eliminate dead zones.
The bond resolutions are a combination of bond authorizations and appropriations; voters can see an outline of the projects in the capital plan and their dollar amounts at the town clerk's office.
Initially, school officials wanted to present their separate bond authorizations in a series of three resolutions, but, because the number of questions that are available for voting is limited, they kept it at two.
The Board of Education will ask residents to approve $2.3 million for energy and health improvements and $600,000 for classroom and space improvements.
Residents can find Board of Selectmen budget notes and information on the proposed budget and capital projects for bond authorizations on the main page of the town website www.ci.guilford.ct.us. Dates and times of the public meetings are also posted.