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Note from Fred Turkington, Town
Administrator
12/13/08
It will be a busy night at Town Building on Monday evening.
The Board of Selectmen hold their regular meeting. We begin by recessing to attend the budget presentation by the Finance Committee. At the meeting, the FinComm reviews the status of the budget including an overview of expected revenues and the proposed expenditures submitted by the various departments and boards. They also discuss the fiscal health of the town and how the requests match the long-range fiscal strategy. Next month, they review the requests in order to develop a budget recommendation for Town Meeting action.
The selectmen will be discussing the Board of Road Commissioners approval of the traffic improvements for Routes 20/27/126 related to Town Center and considering actions needed to finalize the traffic approvals.
Also on the agenda is a review of all articles submitted for consideration for Annual Town Meeting Warrant. The submission deadline is Monday afternoon at 4:30 p.m., so this will be the first opportunity for the public to hear all of the submitted articles.
The Board will also review liquor, auto dealer and other licenses subject to approval for the subsequent calendar year.
Last week, the Board heard the initial findings of the consultant retained by the Town to review the procedures of the Assessing Department and the work of the Board of Assessors. Subsequent meetings will focus on various aspects of operations including public information and relations, compliance with regulations and law, and data quality. The consultant review found a significantly higher incidence of appeals in Wayland compared to similar communities and expressed concern about patterns and trends of values from year-to-year. He explained the difficulty of establishing a baseline of accurate property data and the inability of a full list and measure to accomplish the goals of those who proposed such a step due to low entry rates and use of multiple inspectors lacking consistent perspectives.
We opened the public hearing of tax classification to determine whether a split tax rate will be used in Wayland. The hearing was continued to this week at 8:00 p.m. to allow final public comment. A vote will be taken after the hearing.