Special Town Meeting begins tomorrow
BY MARY LANCASTER INDEPENDENT WRITER
This is the time of year when people want to spend as many hours as possible outside after work, but officials are hoping residents will set aside their grille mitts and fishing poles for one evening to attend tomorrow night's Special Town Meeting with a three-article warrant.

Town Moderator Sarah Alger will preside over Thursday evening's Special Town Meeting in the Nantucket High School Auditorium. It begins at 7 p.m.

Because two of the articles deal with appropriations, and appropriations may not be made at Special Town Meeting without a quorum of five percent of registered voters, the session requires 405 voters to succeed. If that occurs - if being the key word - it is possible the meeting will be over in a single night.

"I have no idea if we have a good chance to get [a summer] quorum," said Moderator Sarah Alger, recalling the July 22, 2002 Special Town Meeting when, even though Town Clerk Catherine Stover hosted a pre-meeting cookout, people still had to be rounded up by phone to obtain a five percent attendance. "If the 250 people who signed the petition (for Article One) asking for the meeting show up that would be a step," Alger noted.

The quorum issue is always a challenge, and Alger said that if one is not reached tomorrow night she will either adjourn the meeting to next week or, as moderator discretion allows, dissolve the meeting altogether instead of bumping it to Friday night.

"If we're not going to get one on Thursday why would we get one on Friday?" she asked. "Can you imagine how many people would call me to say I ruined their dinner plans?"

A two-thirds approval from those in attendance is required for Articles One and Three, since both deal with appropriations. Alger did say that a quorum is not needed to take action on Article 2, and that a quorum may not be needed for Article One, should voters elect to take the Finance Committee's recommendation to turn down the article. (A two-thirds vote would still be needed.) Any move to adopt the article, however, would require a quorum of registered voters.

The warrant for tomorrow's Special Town Meeting, which begins at 7 p.m. in the high school auditorium, seeks in Article One to determine voter interest in the town acquiring the Dreamland Theater by purchase or eminent domain taking. The idea is to preserve the historic movie house by conveying the property or leasing it long-term to an entity that would create a Community Performing Arts Center in the event that the property is not saved in the same manner by a private party.

Article Two is considered 'housekeeping.' It seeks approval to authorize the town to sell an oddly-shaped parcel by Sheep to Shore at the corner of Hooper Farm Road which was not needed for the new roundabout and is now considered surplus land.

Article Three seeks voter approval for the town to buy the Reith property at 10 and 12 Washington St. to be used by the Nantucket Regional Transit

Authority as a bus hub. I