BCAT News

Burlington’s 126-member Town Meeting will convene for its final session of 2024 on September 23, with a full docket of items to consider. 

Some are, as usual, fairly routine, like accepting about $77,000 from the Will of Marshall Simonds for improvements to Simonds Park and setting the date of next year’s local election (April 5, 2025, if all goes according to plan). Other items will have long-lasting ramifications for every resident in town. 

The full warrant is available here, but let’s take a look at some key items. 

Article #4: Changing the Town Clerk Position from Elected To Appointed

This will be the second time Town Meeting has considered a plan to change the Town Clerk job from an elected to an appointed role – or at least, to put an item on the local ballot asking voters if they’d like to make that chance. 

The suggestion came from Town Clerk Amy Warfield herself, who is hoping to retire soon and says she’s struggled to find qualified and interested candidates in her own office or in town. If the position was appointed like other department heads in town, the town could pick the most qualified person, rather than hoping someone qualified who lives in Burlington would choose to run for the office. But Town Meeting in May said they wanted to see more specifics about the job description and how the role would be supervised before they decided whether to put the issue to voters. 

Since then, the town created a committee to look into the matter. That committee supplied materials on who would sit on a screening committee, options for who would supervise the appointed clerk, and key functions for the role. The committee stopped short of recommending the town switch to an appointed role, instead recommending the town put the issue to voters in April. The Select Board voted 5-0 to support the committee’s recommendations. 

Article #8: Funding The Fox Hill School Building

It’s been years since the Town of Burlington first sought support from the Massachusetts School Building Authority to fund a new Fox Hill Elementary School. The project totals about $100 million, with the MSBA contributing about $31 million, expected rebates covering about $5 million, and Burlington taxpayers shouldering the remaining $64 million. That’s expected to come out to a $217 increase in annual property taxes for the average home, which is about $725,000 in Burlington. 

You can watch a video on the latest plans for the building here. 

After a tense conversation on whether it was appropriate for the Select Board to weigh in on a School Committee warrant article, the Select Board voted 4-1 to support the new Fox Hill school, with Vice Chair Mike Espejo the sole vote in opposition. 

Articles #9 and #10: Increasing Accessibility Of Town Meeting

A proposed warrant articles would make it easier for Town Meeting Members to attend remotely – up to one third of the total number of members, or 42 people, with an in-person quorum still required to proceed. A second article would authorize the Select Board to file a Home Rule Petition with the Massachusetts General Court to allow the change. 

Burlington held hybrid Town Meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic, largely successfully despite the predictable frustrations and technological challenges of hundred-member Zoom meetings. The idea of making the gathering hybrid in perpetuity has come up before, and each time it’s been voted down. Town Meeting Moderator Bill Beyer, who moderated the hybrid gatherings during the pandemic, recused himself from running the meeting last September to speak out against the matter, saying it was impractical from a management perspective. 

 “Town Meeting works best when all of you are sitting here in person in front of your peers, pleading your case and standing up, or in our case raising your hand, to vote,” he said at the time. 

But proponents of the measure say it makes it easier for younger and lower-income community members to participate – including those who are already elected. According to the backup, “Over the last 3 years Town Meeting attendance has been consistently below 80%. However, the highest attendance total during this time frame was the May 2022 Town Meeting at over 93%. This was a hybrid meeting!”

Article #11: Creating A System To Recall Elected Officials

An article from the General Bylaw Review Committee would create a new mechanism for residents to recall local elected officials, something that is not currently possible in Burlington.

Under the article, concerned residents would need to send written notice of their petition to the Town Clerk and would need to gather signatures from at least 1 percent of registered voters, or about 194 signatures according to the latest available count of registered voters. 

Officials could be recalled for ethical violations like conflicts of interest or misuse of public funds; ethical misconduct like harassment or discrimination; criminal activity; failure to fulfill duties; or broken promises made on the campaign trail. 

In backup materials for the article, the General Bylaw Review Committee shared examples of towns with recall petitions gathering signatures to remove after officials shared unprofessional or offensive statements on social media or displayed abusive and disruptive behavior in office. Few of those recall efforts were successful. 

“As you may have noticed, it is rare that a recall effort is successful, but it does happen. The steps that are involved are there to ensure that any recall has a reasonable amount of support from town residents. Had the above listed towns not had recall bylaws on the books, they would not have had any power or ability to hold their elected officials accountable, and that’s what this bylaw is about – accountability,” the committee wrote. 

Town Meeting Member Michelle Huntoon spearheaded the effort to draft the bylaw. “There’s a feeling in town that there’s a good old boys club, and a lot of people have been sticking around a long time,” Huntoon said. “For people who are paying attention, who are newer to town or younger generations who are seeing things they’re unhappy with, it makes sense to have a procedure to address that without waiting for an election. Hypothetically, an elected official could rob a bank and go to jail and still officially have that position. So this is just cleaning things up and giving us that procedure.” 

Two potentially controversial articles to remove a prohibition on recreational marijuana establishments have been postponed.