Town Meeting to take up four citizen articles

By Scott Merzbach
Staff Writer

Published on March 13, 2009

Restoring town funding for human service agencies, providing voting rights to noncitizens in local elections, purchasing the Fiber Arts building back from Amherst College and endorsing an increase in the state gas tax by 19 cents are warrant articles Town Meeting will consider this spring.

Four so-called citizen petition articles, each with at least 10 signatures from registered voters, were filed with the town clerk's office by Monday's noon deadline and will be taken up by annual Town Meeting, which starts May 4.

Vince O'Connor, of Summer Street, representing the Coalition to Support an Amherst Human Services Budget, brought forward the article that seeks to restore $66,000 in human service funding that was removed from the proposed municipal budget developed by Town Manager Larry Shaffer.

The town dollars projected to be cut include $19,000 to the Amherst Survival Center, $14,000 to Big Brothers/Big Sisters, $13,000 to Family Outreach of Amherst and $20,000 spread among Not Bread Alone soup kitchen, the Men's Resource Center, the Center for New Americans and the Hampshire County Interfaith Cot Shelter Program.

Though funding was removed last year, too, it was restored by the Select Board. This year, though, the Select Board has gone along with Shaffer's proposal, which includes finding other avenues, including Community Development Block Grant money, to pay for new programs developed by these agencies. The money slated for cuts paid for existing programs.

The voting rights for noncitizens is a perennial petition article that would apply to local elections only. Vladimir Morales, representing the Amherst Voting Rights Campaign, is spearheading the effort to grant anyone 18 and over who lives in Amherst as a legal immigrant but is not a United States citizen the right to vote.

While Town Meeting has regularly supported the home-rule petition, the state Legislature has not granted Amherst this authority.

O'Connor is also bringing forward the idea of purchasing the 79 South Pleasant St. building that has housed numerous offices and for several years was the home of the Fiber Arts Center. The concern for some is that the 16,678-square-foot building, bought by Amherst College for $2.3 million, would be off the tax rolls. This year, the building is bringing in $16,289 in tax revenue.

The article calls for using eminent domain and spending $1.02 million - the average of the assessed value of the property over the preceding three years - and then using the building, once the First Baptist Church, for purposes including "downtown revitalization, economic development, parking, pedestrian and other municipal uses."

The article calls for the eventual resale of the property to any entity that doesn't have tax-exempt status and with the sale price to recover town expenses in full.

Finally, O'Connor is the lead petitioner supporting the 19 cents increase in the gas tax and at the same time would like Town Meeting to endorse the idea of increasing the federal gas tax so that it will go up by the rate of inflation.