An upcoming Morristown town meeting will determine how voters determine budgets, elections and other town business in the future. It also provides an opportunity to revisit a failed spending measure of the recent past, regardless of how unpopular it seemed at the time.
The special in-person meeting, being held the evening of April 18 at Peoples Academy, was made necessary after a group of Morristown residents petitioned the town in January to hold a vote calling for all town budgets to be approved by Australian ballot. Since then, other items have been added to the April 18 meeting agenda, including whether to vote on elections and other town business by Australian ballot — not just budgets.
It will also include a vote on whether to spend as much as $200,000 for sidewalk construction on Jersey Heights, where the most robust housing development in town is happening. If that spending measure seems familiar, it’s because voters shot it down on Town Meeting Day. Sort of.
Due to a misnaming of the road on the March 7 town meeting ballot — the spending article called it Jersey Way, which is a different road off Jersey Heights — all votes for or against that article were dismissed. There were far more votes cast against that article, with 1,345 voting against it and 431 voting for it.
After the dust settled on Town Meeting Day, the selectboard chose to put the sidewalk matter to rest and remove it from the April 18 meeting, citing legal advice that putting it back up for a vote, even with the correct road name, would be an affront to voters who defeated it. However, the board reversed that decision after a member of the town planning council urged them to reconsider.
“This project, as far as background, is absolutely my baby,” Josh Goldstein, a Wolcott resident, said at a special selectboard meeting held March 15. “I’m trying to create a walkable town in my role as planning council member.”
Some residents balked at putting it back up for a vote at a special in-person meeting, which is likely to draw far fewer voters than the 1,800-plus who filled out Town Meeting Day ballots.
“It’s way easier to convince a roomful of people to vote your way than to have a whole town vote on a ballot that we already know got voted on and already failed,” Eugene Dambach said.
There has been some confusion about why the revisited sidewalk article couldn’t be voted on by Australian ballot when the town also revisits its budget — the $10 million budget was roundly defeated March 7 and town staff has been charged with making significant cuts for a revote.
Town clerk Sara Haskins said she was told by legal counsel that H.42, the temporary legislation signed into law this year allowing a continuance of pandemic-era Australian ballot voting for town meeting, doesn’t apply to new articles.
“The legal opinion I got was by changing the word of the street, even knowing that it was a typo, makes it a new article,” Haskins said.
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