The following vote results have just been distributed to local media outlets.
Monkton Central School Budget- Passed, 314Y, 194N
Mt Abe UHS budget- Passed, 1372Y, 827N
Article 7- Bond vote for Monkton’s new town hall- Rejected, 225Y, 287N
Article 8- Bond vote for addition to the Fire Station- Rejected, 248Y, 260N
Here is a very brief summary of town meeting for anyone who wasn’t able to attend and hasn’t already heard details from some other source.
There were 11 articles warned for town meeting, please see pages 118 and 119 for the fine details. Article 1 (election of town officials), 7 (new town hall bond) and 8 (fire station bond) were voted by Australian ballot. Here are the results of floor votes on the Remaining articles.
- Housekeeping articles 2-4, acting on the auditor’s report, setting the date for tax payments and allowing the selectboard to set the tax rate, all passed with essentially no discussion.
- Article 5, fund requests from 22 local agencies and groups for a total of $20,474 passed with very little discussion.
- Article 6 contained the main six annual budgets for the town. Although this article was divided and each budget was voted on separately, there was actually very little discussion and all budgets passed for a total of $1,205,632.45 (excluding school budgets). Discussion of these articles did reveal that municipal taxes will go up significantly in 2013 for a variety of reasons.
- Both Articles 9 & 10 related to the proposed natural gas transmission pipline passed. Article 10 was modified prior to passage
- There was much discussion about these two articles and the next/last article
- Article 11 asking if Town Meeting should be moved to the Saturday before the first Tuesday in March was defeated. This was the only article voted on by floor vote that was rejected.