HADLEY — A moratorium on recreational marijuana outlets until the end of next year was one of more than 20 articles the Hadley Select Board previewed Wednesday night in advance of the annual Town Meeting.
At the annual Town Meeting, at 7 p.m. on May 4 at Hopkins Academy, voters will be asked to approve the town’s $17 million budget blueprint for the upcoming fiscal year. They will also decide other issues that affect recreational marijuana, seniors, solar fields and farmland.
The proposed budget is not yet finished, with the Finance Committee set to meet three more times before Town Meeting.
But broadly, Town Administrator David Nixon said, the town is in a stable financial position. This year’s budget factors in a 3.24 percent expected gross revenue increase over last fiscal year, he said.
The town can expect some boosts in funding, Nixon said, mainly to the Fire Department. In his initial February proposal, he wrote that the town would like to add four full-time firefighters and boost services like fire safety awareness and code enforcement.
The budget outline also presents a plan for an enhanced building maintenance schedule and is the first year the town will implement a new “free cash” policy, which will stow away $75,555 of $500,000 in expected free cash next year.
The budget provides level funding of services, though some departments did not get the increases they asked for. One was the School Department, which received $6.75 million last fiscal year and requested $7.15 million this year. The proposed school budget reflects a more modest bump, to a little more than $6.9 million, Nixon said.
Challenges the town faces, Select Board Chairwoman Molly Keegan said, include the continued use of “free cash” to balance the budget, keeping services level while not asking for a tax increase, and constrained development in town due to a moratorium on new gas lines from Berkshire Gas.
There are more than 20 articles planned for the upcoming Town Meeting.
They include:
• Article 8 would allocate $26,000 to pave the Town Hall parking lot. Hadley Public Media requests $69,915 in their funds to be authorized for capital upgrades. No impact on taxes.
• Article 10 would remove Hadley from the Hampshire Council of Governments, but this may not appear on the agenda. Depending on the results of a Thursday HCOG meeting, the Select Board will debate whether the town should weigh leaving the organization.
• Article 11 If approved, qualifying senior citizens could perform work for the town in exchange for real estate tax abatement.
• Articles 12 and 13 propose a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement for two solar projects near Hampshire Mall. Owners would benefit from predictable cash flows; the town would receive more tax money in the long run.
• Article 14 would institute a 2 percent sales tax on any recreational marijuana eventually sold in the town.
• Article 16 would allow $10,000 in community preservation funds in Hadley to be used on renovations to the historic Hampshire County Courthouse in Northampton.
• Articles 18 and 21 would allow the town to place specific farmland under permanent agricultural protection.
• Article 23 With state plans in flux, this would impose a moratorium on recreational marijuana establishments until Nov. 30, 2018, or until the town develops its own regulations.
• Article 25, if passed, would resolve that Hadley supports an effort to limit money in politics and provide greater transparency to the public on a state and federal level. It is a non-binding, citizen-submitted initiative.
Jack Suntrup can be reached at jsuntrup@gazettenet.com.