BY DARRELL HALEN
A $9.9 million operating budget, a new central fire station, a gymnasium facility and many other proposed expenditures will be on Pelham’s town warrant.
Voters will have a chance to weight in on them at the deliberative session of Town Meeting, which will take place Saturday, Feb. 10, at Pelham Elementary School. The meeting starts at 10 a.m.
The town’s proposed operating budget is $9,916,234. If it is turned down by voters in March, selectmen will have to spend within a default budget – the current budget with certain adjustments – of $9,567,713.
Town officials are asking voters to approve a $7.3 million article to construct a new central fire station. If approved, $400,000 in impact fees would be used toward the project, while the remaining $6.9 million would be bonded.
The article needs a 60 percent majority to pass.
Voters are being asked to approve several new staffing additions. These include $138,901 to hire four new firefighters/emergency medical technicians, $57,770 to hire a full-time deputy fire chief, and $45,651 to bring on a new police officer.
A new three-year firefighters union contract is on the warrant. It calls for increases in salaries and benefits of $46,683 in the first year, $69,186 the following year, and $63,594 in the third year.
Other warrant articles offered by local officials for voters to consider are requests to:
• Approve a $345,000 five-year lease agreement for a fire pumper truck.
• Spend $244,407 to repair, maintain and upgrade town roads. This will be offset by a state grant for highway construction.
• Add $35,000 to a capital reserve fund. The town wants to repair the Willow Street Bridge which is on the state’s “red list.”
• Spend $170,000 to construct a second exit from Muldoon Park onto Nashua Road and to obtain permits for the project.
• Spend $195,000 to build two soccer fields and correct drainage and erosion problems at Raymond Park.
• Spend $40,000 to refurbish bathrooms at Pelham Veterans Memorial Park.
• Spend $198,000 to correct code issues with electrical and sprinkler systems in Sherburne Hall and to install heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems.
• Spend up to $35,000 from the forestry trust fund for maintenance and care of town forest land. There is approximately $94,000 in the fund. Expenditures must be approved by selectmen. Funds come from revenue produced by timber harvesting. There is no tax impact.
• Establish a senior center building capital reserve fund to make improvements to the center and to construct an addition to the center, and to put $100,000 into the fund.
• Spend $148,164 to build a cemetery garage. The department needs space for equipment, a small office, bathroom and meeting room.
• Create a fund to combat pandemics and outbreaks such as West Nile Virus and EEE and to put $40,000 into the fund.
• Designate the lower Beaver Brook wetland system as a prime wetland.
In addition, there are more than a half-dozen articles that were placed on the ballot by petition. These ask voters to:
• Adopt an interim residential growth management regulation “to preserve and enhance the existing community character and value of property.”
• Spend $30,000 to clean up an illegal tire dump at Raymond Park. Approval of the article would not prohibit the town from seeking restitution from the party responsible for burying the tires.
• Spend $960,000 to construct a 140-by-120-foot multipurpose gymnasium facility at Veterans Memorial Park. According to petitioners, fees collected from groups using the facility will offset the appropriation.
• Allow selectmen to appoint the six members of the planning board.
• Spend $100,000 to fix traffic problems at the intersection of Mammoth and Sherburne roads. The money would be combined with other funds to complete the project.
• Adopt a resolution that calls for national and local action to address the issues of global warming and climate change.
• Match $20,000 in town funds with $20,000 from the Pelham Little League to install fencing and a sprinkler system on two new fields at Muldoon Park.