ROYALSTON — By a nearly two-to-one margin, voters in Royalston Tuesday approved a $310,000 Proposition 2½ debt exclusion. The money will be borrowed to cover the coast of two vehicles for the town’s Public Works Department and for painting and repairs at Whitney Hall. The final vote count was 204 in favor of the debt exclusion, with 119 opposed. At June’s sparsely attended Annual Town Meeting, residents voted by a margin of 34-8 to approve the borrowing and send the question to a special election, which is required by state law.
The total amount will provide $50,000 in painting and repairs to Whitney Hall, $200,000 for a new DPW dump/sander cab and chassis, and $60,000 for a new pickup truck for the DPW.
Selectboard Chair Deb D’Amico told the Athol Daily News the morning after the vote that she and other supporters of the debt exclusion were “very happy” with the outcome.
“I was just looking at the numbers,” she said, “and it looks like about 60 percent of the votes that were cast were cast for the debt exclusion.”
Asked for her response to the lopsided nature of the vote, D’Amico said, “Personally, I’m surprised at the margin. We knew, though, that there were a lot of folks in the South Village who really pushed to support this debt exclusion because it involved Whitney Hall. As you know, there’s very strong sentiment in the town — especially in the South Village — of people who want to see that building at least maintained, if not reused somehow.
“I know there were emails sent out from the South Village Revitalization group to their network saying, ‘Come out and vote for this.’ It’s hard to quantify where the support came from, but I certainly credit the efforts of those folks to get support for this.”
D’Amico said town officials were uncertain at this point what the length of the bond will be, noting that the debt exclusion covers three distinct expenditures.
“There’s the purchase of the dump/sander, which has been estimated to be around $200,000, and then the purchase of the DPW pickup, again estimated at around $60,000,” she said. “As you know, we’re finalizing interviews to replace Keith (Newton) as the DPW superintendent; we have interviews at the end of this week for the three finalists. It will fall to that person to put forward those two purchases and work with our treasurer, Brenda Putney, who is the one who handles the loans for us.”
D’Amico noted that the purchase of the pickup truck could, in fact, be put on hold, depending on the opinion of the new DPW director.
“There has been some controversy around the pickup truck,” she explained. “Do we need it, do we not? I know the Selectboard and the Capital Planning Committee both recommended that purchase, but there have been some people who have said maybe we can get another year out of the existing truck. Again, that will be up to the new superintendent to assess.”
She then added that the new DPW chief will be in charge of the Whitney Hall project.
“Because the superintendent of public works oversees buildings, it will be up to that person to also get bids on the work that needs to be done at Whitney. And I believe this $50,000 is intended to go to paint the entire building and do repairs to things like some of the sills and some of the doors. So that, again, will be up to the DPW superintendent to get bids on that.”
Before the move to borrow the money takes place, the town will receive firm bids on the vehicle purchases and Whitney Hall repair costs.
Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@gmail.com