DARTMOUTH — Judiciously looking ahead to the not-so-far-away fall town meeting, Budget & Finance Director Gregory Barnes gave the Select Board a heads up on likely warrant articles for the annual autumn session of town business.
In the financial arena, the second half of the fiscal year’s capital improvements plan will be the major funding request on the warrant. The numbers are being tweaked, but more than $1 million in town funding will be sought for road work for the first time in town history.
The town has made “significant progress in the past decade on rehabbing main roads and bringing them up to par,” he noted. Now, the problem is rebuilding the miles of aging side roads, Barnes confirmed, echoing points made by the Department of Public Works in a recent Chronicle story.
“A lot of the subdivisions are aging at the same time,” and will need some expensive attention in the near future, said Barnes, who has also been serving as co-interim town administrator since the departure earlier this year of David Cressman.
A hefty transfer of available funds to the stabilization fund will also be sought at town meeting, keeping with the longstanding fiscal policy of maintaining at least 7.5 percent of the annual General Fund budget in reserve.
Administrators will seek an appropriation for the continuing conversion of town-owned streetlights to energy-saving LED fixtures, as part of the annual replacement plan, Barnes also reported.
Likely to provoke some debate is the expected presentation of a recreational “adult-use” marijuana facility licensing bylaw, and accompanying zoning regulations for facilities including retail sales outlets, cultivation and processing operations, or testing labs and edible product manufacturing.
The town has already approval medical marijuana businesses in industrial zones; Dartmouth’s current moratorium on recreational marijuana business licensing expires in December, Barnes noted.
Of course, the question of potential revenue for the town treasury if town meeting members approve zoning and bylaw changes for any or all of the potential recreational facilities mentioned was quickly asked.
Under state law, the town is permitted to assess up to 3 percent local sales tax on any medical marijuana retail transactions, the budget director said. He would recommend the same maximum taxes on recreational pot businesses if the measures pass town meeting.
Most communities issuing licenses are also charging set per-pound fees for wholesale sales by cultivators for both medical and recreational marijuana who don’t have local retail outlets. Some cities and towns are approving just cultivation and research facilities, testing labs and edible product manufacturing, but not retail outlets or cannabis cafes where on-site use is allowed.
The Planning Board will finalize its recommendations on zoning and licensing after a public hearing on the final draft. The decisions on the amended rules for various options will be decided by town meeting members.
While Barnes said the marijuana sales tax money is “a welcome new revenue source for the town,” he doubts it will be a great windfall for the town treasury. Certainly not as much as the solar farm power revenues the town has been growing in recent years, Barnes suggested.
“It wouldn’t be as much (revenue) as many people think it would be” with a small number of recreational business licenses, he added, declining to mention any projected numbers.
“Whatever it is, we’ll take it,” quipped Selectman Frank Gracie, a former Finance Committee chair always looking for possible sources of revenues.
There was some debate among board members as to the request to grant Eversource Energy a permanent easement over town property for the installation of utility lines to the new police station on Tucker Road. Town counsel and some selectmen are wary of giving a permanent easement, suggesting some kind of use license might be a better alternative.
Another expected warrant article will ask to formally transfer town-owned property on Cross Road from selectmen’s custody to the Library Building Committee, finalizing plans for the construction of a new branch library next to Potter Elementary School.
Set for the agenda of the July 23 Select Board meeting is discussion of whether to include an article on the possible demolition or sale of the old police station on Russells Mills Road. Re-zoning the property is another option up for debate.
One or two recommended appropriations of Community Preservation Act funds may also be coming from the Community Preservation Committee, Barnes said.
Selectman Gracie recommended a new look at the recent Municipal Facilities Study, which assessed condition and re-use options for a number of sites, including the closed police station.