Troy budget, water commission emerge from 4-hour meeting intact

Abigail Ham, The Keene Sentinel, N.H.Keene Sentinel

TROY — Residents gathered at the Troy Elementary School for town meeting Wednesday evening were in for a show. The three-act saga unfolded over more than four hours. An hour-long discussion of the budget was followed by an hour of talk about the town’s water and sewer commission before voters turned to the remaining 35 articles. Both the budget and the water and sewer commission ultimately survived the scrutiny.

‘I can’t afford to live’

The budget is $3,408,574, up $390,550, or 12.9 percent, from the $3,018,024 figure voters approved last year. Town Administrator Jeremy Bourgeois told The Sentinel earlier this month the hike was driven by rising health insurance premiums, as well as increases to highway department, fire, ambulance, police and library budgets.

“I can’t afford to live. My son can’t afford to buy a house here,” Jody McDermott said — a sentiment met with scattered applause in the crowded gym.

Longtime resident Francis Fournier told town officials they are “pricing us all out of town,” before proposing an amendment to cut the budget by 10 percent.

Town officials warned against doing so. Selectboard member Dick Thackston said retention of employees would become more difficult if the budget was cut.

“As selectmen our greatest concern is that we’re going to lose people that we’ve trained — literally raised from pups — who get job offers from Keene … that’s not what you want to be, the up and out place,” he said.

The highway department budget was a flashpoint in the discussion, with some residents questioning an about 20 percent increase in the highways and streets appropriations. Town officials said the increase was driven by the cost of maintenance that had been put off in the past, as well as a raise for the road agent, which was part of the contract when he was hired.

“You’re paying for things that you didn’t do in the past. We’ve operated the highway department for decades on the ‘we’ll do it in the future when it’s cheaper’ theory, but here we are in the future,” Thackston said.

Resident Gary Phelps agreed with town officials, arguing it’s better for the town to overbudget than to underbudget. “We need to keep this budget. If we don’t spend it all, that’s glorious. If we need it, we have it,” he said.

The amendment failed, and, in a secret-ballot vote, the budget passed 93-56.

Water/sewer commission lives on

An article on the warrant by petition called for disbanding the town’s water and sewer commission and shifting its powers to the selectboard. The elected five-seat commission oversees the water and sewer department.

The language of the eight-paragraph article as petitioned included claims about the commission, including that it “has a long history of failure” and that “current litigation has been exacerbated by the Commission.”

The commission joined a lawsuit earlier this year in which a developer is suing the town over water and sewer system fees and capacity.

Ben Drugg, Troy’s budget committee chair and a member of the water and sewer commission, called for an amendment to remove six paragraphs from the article to prevent them from being added to permanent town records. “It would be inappropriate to leave this in the minutes as part of the permanent record,” Drugg said of the claims made in the article about the commission. “If you want to say all those other things ... do it at the mic.”

Drugg’s amendment passed.

At a candidates forum earlier this month, incumbent selectboard member TJ Chasse, who was reelected Tuesday, told residents that if the commission was dissolved, the selectboard would likely pass the management of the town’s water and sewer systems on to the state or a third party.

Thackston told voters at Wednesday’s town meeting that was not the selectboard’s official stance, but noted the board is not seeking another role.

According to Drugg, the water and sewer commissioners put in about 500 hours per year. According to town budget documents, they make a stipend of about $342.

“What sense does it make to fire the cheapest people you have?” Drugg asked.

Kim Cassidy, a resident who has been outspokenly opposed to the commission, raised concerns about all taxpayers having to help pay for a system that not everyone uses.

Lynda Cutts echoed that sentiment. “There is no possible way that I could be on town water or sewer. When my system goes down, is ‘the good of all’ going to help repair mine?”

Thackston encouraged residents to think about the common good.

“At some point as a community you have to decide if you want to pay for things that are for the common good. I haven’t ridden in an ambulance recently — it’s been 50 years since I’ve ridden in an ambulance, and I’d like to keep it that way — but I think it’s a good thing that we have an ambulance service,” he said. “You can’t always bill individual users for the entire cost of things.”

Eric Farris, the developer suing the town over water and sewer issues, argued the water and sewer department needs at least four more employees, which he said would lead to a 42 percent rate increase for users. Farris questioned where the commission would find revenue to balance that.

In response, Drugg told residents that both of Farris’ claims used “made up numbers.”

“This is craziness,” he said, to applause.

Despite saying he felt the commission should be disbanded, Farris ran unsuccessfully for a commissioner seat on Tuesday’s ballot.

Town Treasurer Adam Hopkins spoke against the article, arguing that a few voices on social media have created a false narrative about “lack of accountability.” Hopkins pointed out that five seats on the commission have been filled in elections over the past two years, giving voters ample opportunity to change how the commission is run.

“The group advocating for this article is trying to get their way by cutting the commission after failing to convince voters to vote for their candidates,” he said.

The article failed in a secret-ballot vote, 125-41.

Other business

In a secret-ballot vote, residents approved reclassifying part of West Hill Road to allow building permits to be issued on it. A landowner on the hill had upgraded the stretch to town standards at his own expense, according to residents who spoke at the meeting.

The town also voted to downgrade a portion of Gap Mountain Road to Class VI.

Five residents submitted petitions for secret-ballot votes on 14 articles — a move that would have spelled a long evening for the ballot counters, who already had callouses forming from Tuesday’s annual marathon town elections count — but one of the signees left the meeting early, invalidating the petitions and allowing voice votes on the remaining articles.

The town approved the purchase of a new excavator for the highway department after an amendment offered by the road agent to reduce the expected cost from $175,000 to $100,000. The budget committee had not recommended the original article due to the expense, but committee chair Drugg said the road agent found a different, cheaper piece of equipment that would serve most of the same purposes.

After some discussion about whether the excavator is the right move for a department that has other equipment aging and likely soon needing to be repaired, the article passed by hand count, 97-21.

Voters approved spending about $7,000 on a ballot-counting machine to speed up elections, half of that cost to be reimbursed by a state grant. They turned down an article that would have sent any non-residential building permit applications to the town, preventing the selectboard which did not recommend the article from issuing those permits without getting approval at town meeting.

Residents also approved a long-term lease of LED lights for the town’s streetlights, which Thackston said would make up in electricity savings what they cost the town.

Article 37 asked voters to authorize a $30,000 withdrawal from the transfer station/recycling center special revenue fund for a new baler. An amendment to remove the word “new” passed after discussion of purchasing a used baler for less than the proposed amount.

The remainder of the warrant passed unchanged.