Articles meet voter approval
Published on May 14th, 2003
STONEHAM, MA - Despite meeting opposition from persons concerned with the timing of such an action, town meeting voters passed Article 19, allowing the town to obtain land appraisals for seven properties that could house the town's future emergency operations center.
In particular, the article allows for the allocation of $60,000 so that the town can investigate the possibility of rebuilding the town's fire station on a chain of five outside properties, and develop an initial design for the facility. While the proposed article at first only discussed obtaining land appraisals for those five properties in the Main Street and Hancock Street area, town officials added language to the measure that will explore rebuilding the fire station at its current site with two additional plots of adjacent land.
Acknowledging that the construction of the emergency operations center will not be fiscally feasible for years to come, Stoneham Fire Chief Lawrence Lamey appealed to the Town Meeting gathering to approve the proposal.
"This article is not for construction. It's for completion of a long-term plan so it will be available for implementation when financial abilities become a reality," declared Lamey, adding that the current fire station is in dire disrepair.
However, arguing that the land appraisals would be outdated by the time actual construction began, several residents questioned the usefulness of any work done.
"Nobody's questioning the need for a fire station. I question the wisdom of this expenditure at this point in time. Are we really in the position to get appraisals when it's going to take the town seven years for this to become a reality? I'll remind you of the big dig and their estimates," said Stoneham resident Dick Corbett.
Town officials responded by saying that the proposed 27,000 square foot operations center poorly isn't comparable to the scope and size of the Big Dig. Adding that the land appraisals and initial design will hammer out cost estimates, officials further explained that implementing article nineteen was necessary for scheduling a payment plan for the new station.
"Fortunately this is not the Big Dig, it's the construction of one building," said Finance and Advisory Board member John Warren. "This step is necessary so we can see what exactly is involved here and...start a funding plan. We don't have that information right now and it's too vague," he added.
Echoing statements similar to Warren, former Stoneham Fire Chief Bill McLaughlin told audience members that a new fire station development couldn't afford to be put off any longer.
"I totally endorse what Chief Lamey just stated. Our neighboring town Wakefield built a fire station and it took them ten years to do it...We're not stating too early, we're starting too late. It should have been done four years ago," McLaughlin said.
One Stonewood Ave. resident challenged the use of $60,000 for the appraisals when all of the town's children don't have crossing guards.
"I'm kind of baffled about this. We're talking about cutting crossing guards for my children to cross the street and we're going to pay $60,000 to build a new fire station. Let's get the crossing guards first, so we don't need a fireman to save my kid," Stone argued.
Claiming that the $60,000 would be bonded together with two other approved articles calling for the repair of a fire engine and the acquisition of three police cruisers, members of the Finance and Advisory Board told the gathering that the proposals would incur a one-time $300,000 cost. According to Warren, this cost would differ from the annual expenditure that the four crossing guards in question would incur.
Offering the last dissenting opinion before the article was passed by Town Meeting, town resident John DeGeorge told the crowd that the article should restrict the appraisals to lands at the existing site of the fire station.
"There's no question of us needing a fire station. The main problem I have is with the process we're using. This article is extending what was approved by October town meeting 2001, when we approved $25,000 to conduct this study," began DeGeorge, referring to Article Seventeen of that prior town meeting.
"That article was specific to the existing site. I think we have to respect what that study was for and stick with it...by approving this article, we are now condoning going elsewhere. I don't think that's what we intended and I don't think that's what we should do at this time," added DeGeorge, who petitioned to the gathering to vote down the measure.
Similar to the debate surrounding the new operations center, another article authorizing the lease of unused school buildings also met intense scrutiny before it too was passed by the assembly.
The article authorizes the school committee to lease the properties at the East School, the North School, and the Old Central School for up to ten years according to the zoning designation of educational purposes.
Saying that the school department would work with all neighbors to ensure they had an opportunity to comment on any such lease, School Committee Chairman Daniel Moynihan added a section that would require a public hearing before any agreement is finalized.
However, Stoneham resident Al Janko told the crowd that that extra protection for neighbors wasn't enough, and called for tougher approval processes that would require 75-percent of residents around a school to approve any lease of the property.
"It will give this school committee and any future school committee an uncompromised power to lease any school property for any purposes under the very loose zoning requirements," Janko stated.
Adding that his neighborhood suffered under a school lease that placed a significant burden on street traffic, Janko warned the residents that the power granted to the school committee could result in similar situations.
"As this thing grew out of hand from the proposed twenty people in the school building to 260 people, we got nowhere...We had to pay $15,000 in legal fees to get the town to back up. I'm only trying to forewarn everybody," he said of the neighborhood struggle, before the meeting rejected his amendment and approved the original article motion.
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