ROXBURY — Residents at Monday night’s annual town meeting voted 30-12 to raise and appropriate $50,000 to build a salt and sand shed.
Selectman Tim Derouche told the board the town’s shed would likely need to be replaced in the near future. He said the article asked for $200,000, which would pay for the entire project, but the board was recommending $50,000.
Derouche said, “Fifty thousand dollars would let us to put some money aside for the future, and would allow us to maintain a mill rate in the seven range.”
Many residents voiced their disapproval of the $50,000, with one woman making a motion to pass over the article.
Moderator Dave Duguay said passing over the article would effectively lower the amount being requested to zero dollars.
Chairman John Sutton said, “The reason we’re requesting $50,000 is in anticipation of when our first bond is retired in 2017 for the road project we funded. We would put the $50,000 aside, and continue putting money aside for the construction of a shed in the future.”
Derouche said the town approved $16,400 for engineering a salt and sand shed at last year’s annual town meeting, but hadn’t spent any of that money.
“We had plans to meet with an engineer to discuss plans at the end of March, but we didn’t want to continue with the project if the people didn’t wish to pursue it,” Derouche said.
After more than 30 minutes of discussion, residents voted against passing over the article. A motion was made to approve the $50,000 recommendation.
One resident asked Derouche what harm there would be in postponing the vote to raise $50,000.
“It won’t hurt to delay, except that we’ll need to raise that much more money in the future,” Derouche said.
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