First Parish Church Adopted As The Town’s Own

      Approximately 400 Westford Voters assembled Saturday at the Westford Academy gymnasium to transact the business for this year’s annual town meeting. The warrant featured 22 articles.  Proceedings commenced at 9A and lasted well into the late afternoon.

         The premier controversial issue on the agenda was a proposal by the town administration to institute a “pay as through” system for trash disposal in Westford.  The proposal limits free trash pickup to 35 gallons per week.   Additional trash pickup would be subject to a $2.75 charge per additional trash bag.  Opposition against the proposal claimed, that it would unfairly burden families with children, who for the price of even one bag extra per week would be paying $145.00 more per year for trash pickup.  Concerns about dumping were expressed along with the closure of land fills, that were driving up the cost, all associated with a state climate initiative called “trash free 2030”, being pushed by state environmentalists.  Opponents attacked the measure early in the meeting by moving to delete a 150K expenditure aimed at starting up the program under Article # 2. However, the motion went down to defeat on a 268 Y to 130N vote. 

       There was a bit of dust up over requests to fund 3.9M in community preservation grants for various town interests related to recreation and historical preservation.  Objections were raised against an expenditure of 603K to repair the tennis courts at the Roudebush center and for 60K to fund a skylight restoration in the newly renovated JV Fletcher library, but this opposition was overcome in both cases.

          A direct challenge was offered against a 591K expenditure to assist the First Parish Church in renovating its steeple.   The argument against the expenditure was that the church had received a 1M grant from the community preservation fund a few years ago and this additional expenditure would move the town into the position of patronizing the church rather then merely supporting a historical landmark, which would run afoul of the separation principle of church and state.   First Parish Church members were obviously alerted to this challenge because a succession of speakers came to the microphone identifying themselves as affiliated with the church in some capacity. Each urged approval of the funding. One proponent was a 16 year old boy-scout to whom the town meeting granted special permission to speak.  A recurring theme from proponents was that the First Parish church was the town’s church and it deserved to be supported.   The challenge to the funding failed on a  284Y to 54N vote.

          In other business the town approved the establishment of a new pay ban for a management analyst on a 173Y to 68N vote.  A 143.9M town operating budget was passed late into the afternoon.   This meeting was town moderator Angela Harkness’s last as town moderator as her term expires this May.  IZON wishes to express a thank you for her service.