ROXBURY – An experiment to attract more residents to Roxbury’s town meetings has worked so well that officials this year have extended the social time and feed to 90 minutes.
It’s also being held at Mountain Valley Middle School in Mexico instead of Roxbury, because Roxbury is building a new municipal building and fire station.
“This has definitely attracted more people,” Town Clerk Tina Howard said Wednesday afternoon of the experiment.
Of the town’s 384 year-round residents, 60 now attend the meetings instead of 25 to 40.
“There’s even been meetings where we’ve had to go outside and solicit people, when we’d need seven votes,” Howard said.
The idea began with 30 minutes of socializing prior to town meeting two years ago. Last year, officials tried a full hour.
This year’s town meeting, which begins at 6:30 p.m. Monday, March 6, at the Mexico school, is to be preceded with food and nonalcoholic beverages made available from 5 to 6:30 p.m.
“If that’s what it takes to attract them,” that’s what officials will do, Howard said.
If voters approve all money articles in the 56-article warrant, the 2006 budget would total $321,595, a difference of $6,053.44 over last year’s budget.
It does not include tax assessments from Oxford County and SAD 43, which are determined later in the year.
“We run a very bare-bones budget,” Howard said. The increase represents just over a quarter of a mill. A mill in Roxbury raises $27,000 in taxes.
Among the warrant items that could trigger extended discussion is Article 54, which seeks to transfer $55,000 from the general fund to the town-building reserve fund account rather than raise it through taxation.
“There was never really a general fund to continue work on the municipal building, but that’s how we used money to buy the building and land,” Howard said of the town’s purchase last summer of the former Northwest Precision Co. building on Route 17.
Other warrant items include Article 13, which seeks a $13,500 increase in taxation over last year for winter roads maintenance, and Article 14, which seeks a $3,000 increase for summer roads maintenance.
Howard said the town’s five-year contract for winter road work is to expire this year, prompting the increase to cover an anticipated new contract price hike.
Planned replacement of culverts is driving the summer roads budget increase. Last year, no money was placed in the account.
Article 34 seeks $500 to begin building a reserve account toward development of a new cemetery, because two of the town’s three cemeteries are full, and one shared with Mexico is nearly full, Howard said.
Voters are to also elect a town clerk, tax collector and treasurer to a one-year term. Howard is running unopposed for all of them.
They will also elect a selectman and a SAD 43 director, each for three years.
Incumbent Selectman Mark E. Touchette, who has served the remainder of former Selectman Stephen Aldritch’s term, is running unopposed. Aldritch was elected on Sept. 1, 2005, to serve the last year of former Selectman Timothy Gallant’s term after Gallant resigned last spring. Aldritch then resigned two months and nine days later.
No one took out papers for the school board seat.
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