ANDOVER — Andover residents are set to vote Tuesday on whether to change the town’s COMSAT Trust Fund use guidelines.
The ordinance is the same one that failed at the Town Meeting in August, by a vote of 27-23.
Last November, another ordinance on the trust fund was also rejected because the original 1984 article calls for a voting population of 2/3 of the towns registered voters, and that requirement was not met.
Selectman Brian Mills said Friday the ordinance is needed for many reasons, including the original article in 1984 was “only good for one year, so when they voted on it originally in 1984, it was only good for 1984.”
“The main reason we’re looking to put it in an ordinance is to protect it so that it’s good, so that we don’t have to vote on it every year it’s good until the town wants to change something of the ordinance,” Mills said.
Other reasons for having the ordinance for the trust fund are so the town will be able to utilize the fund for infrastructure work to be done in the town, Mills said.
“Instead of having to pay to have a bond done and pay somebody interest, we can pay ourselves,” he said.
“The last three bonds that we’ve taken out we’ve given somebody almost $400,000 interest when we could have been paying our COMSAT Trust fund that same money. And the Comsat Trust fund, up until about three years ago was losing about $30,000 a year, so it was not benefiting the town at all. We put it into a safe account but the return on that money is very, very minimal.”
The ordinance maintains the original wording of the 1984 article, stating: “The COMSAT monies are to be totally reinvested this year and the interest is to be as follows: 25% to be put back into principle and 75% to be used to reduce the mil rate.”
One change from the original’s wording is the language asserting that two-thirds of the town’s voters are required to vote in order to make a change in the article is not included in the ordinance to be decided Tuesday.
mhutchinson@sunmediagroup.net
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