Attendance down at Town Meeting 2007
BY MARY LANCASTER INDEPENDENT WRITER
There were still several empty seats in the high school auditorium when the annual Town Meeting convened Monday night, with the final voter count standing at 469 compared with 535 in attendance on the first night of last April's session. Town Clerk Catherine Stover could only guess as to why the number was down, considering that this year's warrant contains many important articles.

ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent Town Moderator Sarah Alger holds the ivory gavel that mysteriously disappeared about 100 years ago.

"I was disappointed in the turnout," she said. "People are busy. They're tired at the end of the day - I don't know."

The meeting kicked off with three presentations, the first being a citation from the state's House and Senate to former Planning Board chairman Donald Visco in appreciation of his 30 years of volunteer service on various town boards and committees.

"It's people like him who make Town Meeting work," said Legislative Liaison Tim Madden, who was joined in the presentation by Rep. Eric Turkington and Sen. Robert O'Leary.

Parks and Recreation chairman Maureen Beck and Board of Selectmen chairman Whitey Willauer honored Walter Flaherty for his 11 years as a Parks and Recreation commissioner. Describing him as a tireless volunteer, Flaherty was credited for many efforts, including negotiations with the town to allow the hospital to use Jetties Beach for its annual Boston Pops fundraiser.

An ivory gavel, originally given to Town Meeting in 1898, found its way back to its rightful place after mysteriously disappearing about 100 years ago. Selectman Brian Chadwick, who received the gavel from an anonymous person, passed it on to moderator Sarah Alger. According to Town Meeting records, during the Feb. 10, 1898 Annual Town Meeting, Allen Coffin, Esq., on behalf of Captain James F. Brown, presented the gavel for use by Town Meeting moderators. The moderator that day "accepted the gavel with hearty words of thanks to Captain Brown." Alger joked that she was afraid she would snap it in half at the first audience outburst, and said perhaps she would just use it ceremonially at the start of the sessions.

Prior to the call of the articles, Alger explained that there were some amendments not in the warrant, including a new motion for Article 13 on budget transfers for enterprise funds. The motion was to transfer $761,317 from solid waste retained earnings to the solid waste enterprise fund/expenses, an amount that represents the town's arbitration settlement with Waste Options, operator of the landfill.

A new motion for Article 17, for appropriation of the ferry head tax, was not to adopt the article because the collected fee amount of $231,400 has already been rolled into Article 8, the FY08 operating budget, and supplements the police budget for summer specials who will do traffic control near the Steamship Authority dock.

In Article 11, the amount for retained earnings for the solid waste fund was increased to $591,000. That money helps cover the solid waste enterprise fund.

The subtotal for debt service in Article 8 was reduced from $9,092,000 to $6,865,000, and the total operating budget appropriation came in at $66,089,199. Of the above, only Article 13 was called by Finance Director Connie Voges and will be discussed just prior to Article 80, which is

appropriation of free cash. I