Voting at the June 17 Town Meeting

Opposition is growing to the Urbanica proposal to take the Old Library off the Town’s hands for $10,000 and convert its interior into three privately owned luxury condos.  When asked to sign a petition urging the selectmen to defer the June 17 town meeting vote to authorize this sale, many residents respond as they sign the petition with questions like, “Can’t we do better than that?!”

The December 2 town meeting may provide us all with a better alternative, if the June 17 town meeting votes to defer action until then.  It is worth the wait of a few months to decide the fate of this historic landmark in the Town’s center.

The next question is what should Weston residents do about the June 17 town meeting?  First, they need to attend the meeting.  Next, they need to support the motions that will be made to defer action on each of the three warrant articles that would, if passed on June 17, allow the Old Library to be sold to Urbanica on July 1 with the boost of $770,000 in public funds.  No postponement leaves no chance for any alternative to be considered at the December 2 town meeting.

At the selectmen's meeting on June 11, Douglas Gillespie took a dim view of motions to postpone action on these warrant articles.  He complained that residents who will take the trouble of attending the June 17 town meeting should have the opportunity to vote on the articles.  That certainly is one way of looking at what is at stake for the Town.

Another way to look at this hastily called town meeting is that it was made necessary solely because the selectmen succumbed to Urbanica's threat to walk away from its proposal if the sale of the Old Library is not approved before the Fall.  We can only wonder about the credibility of a threat to abandon an opportunity to acquire a million-dollar property for $10,000!  

Because Article 1, a zoning by-law amendment to allow residential use of the Old Library, the Josiah Smith Tavern and the Fiske Law Office, will require a two-thirds vote to pass, it will be the toughest hurdle for the Urbanica sale to go forward on July 1.  The dilemma for Weston residents is that the amendment in its own right is an innovative and commendable improvement by the Planning Board to the Town’s zoning flexibility for dealing with the re-use of historic buildings.  Its defeat would prevent reconsideration for two years as a matter of state law.

If a motion to postpone action on Article 1 is defeated on June 17, the selectmen will then have a tricky decision--namely, if the motion to postpone action misses a majority vote narrowly, will the selectmen risk losing a 2/3's vote on the zoning by-law amendment?  It would be prudent not to take that risk and choose instead to move to pass over Article 1.

Michael Harrity commented at the June 11 selectmen's meeting that the selectmen will persist in calling for a vote on Article 1.  And so the potential for a two-year moratorium on this zoning by-law amendment needlessly looms large.

But if that vote fails to pass, all would not be lost.  What would remain for re-use alternatives still to be considered would be those choices that don't require the sale of these properties.  That could still leave the way open for some creative structuring of long-term leases where progress might be made in the interim before the amendment would be allowed to come up for a vote again.

Consequently voters should vote against Article 1, if forced by the selectmen to deal with this vote on June 17, so that the Old Library does not slide out of the Town’s ownership without any alternative being considered.

Bill Sandalls, Wood Ridge Circle