WORTHINGTON — Typically held at the R.H. Conwell School, this year’s annual Town Meeting on Saturday will take place in a large tent erected in the parking lot of the school to accommodate the substantial number of voters expected to show up for the meeting.
The issue drawing so much attention to the meeting this year, which begins at 9:30 a.m., is the choice of three options to bring broadband internet services to the town.
“There was an informational meeting on broadband this past Saturday and it was absolutely packed,” said Margaret O’Neal, executive assistant to the Select Board, adding that close to 200 people attended the meeting at the Conwell School. “And that was just for one issue warrant.”
The town is renting a 40-by-100-foot tent that can seat 250 people.
Like many of the surrounding Hilltowns also trying to acquire high speed internet, broadband has been a big issue town.
“There are the people who really want it and who have been waiting for a very long to get it,” O’Neal said. “Other people don’t want it because it will raise their taxes. Either they don’t care about having internet service or they can’t afford to care.”
Voters will choose between three options for broadband services.
One option carries a price tag of $2.1 million in which the town would design, construct and install its own high-speed broadband network.
Another option calls for $1.07 million to pay the town’s share of the cost of designing, constructing and installing a high-speed broadband network in conjunction with Matrix Millennium, a company that would own and operate the network.
According to O’Neal, after three years, the town would have the option of buying the network from Matrix for “next to nothing.”
The third option would be to accept a proposal from Comcast to build a cable/broadband network that the town would have no ownership in.
“Comcast would get paid from the towns portion of MBI grant money plus another million dollars from state,” O’Neal said, adding that this option would not cost the town anything but that services would not be all fiber and it would not reach all of the homes in Worthington.
Other items on the warrant include spending $210,000 to purchase a 2018 Freightliner 10-wheeler to replace a 2007 International plow truck, and $43,050 for asbestos abatement and demolition of the Moran property on Huntington Road.
The proposed budget for fiscal 2019 is $3,055,413, up by $179,259 from the current budget.
The annual town election will take place Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Town Hall.
Voters will decide two races this year.
Jeffrey Cranston, 23 East Windsor Road, and a current member of the Board of Assessors, is running against Selectman Charles Rose, 193 Huntington Road, for a three-year term seat on the Select Board.
There are also three candidates running for two, three-year term seats on the Worthington School Committee. They are Pamela Thompson, 42, Conwell Road; Cai Walkowial, 17 Old North Road, and Susan Warner 703 Huntington Road.
Uncontested races on the ballot include:
Jean Boudreau, assessor, three-year term; Katrin Kaminsky, Board of Health, three-year term; Mary Orisich, Cemetery Commissioner-Historic Cemeteries, five-year term; Bart Niswonger, Finance Committee, three-year term; Amy Wang, Planning Board, three-year term; Miranda Edison, Planning Board, one-year term; Jay Dreschnack, constable, three-year term; Katrin Kaminsky, town clerk, three-year term; and John Dearie, Municipal Light Board, three-year term.