Blackstone, Millville to hold meeting Wednesday to pick moderator

Towns have yet to agree on moderator for upcoming super town meeting

BLACKSTONE — With voters in both Blackstone and Millville set to meet simultaneously at a super town meeting on Aug. 8, the selectmen from the two towns are holding a joint meeting Wednesday to determine who will get the nod to moderate the historic regional meeting.

The joint meeting, which begins at 7 p.m. in the Frederick W. Hartnett Middle School media center in Blackstone, could become contentious.

Millville’s town moderator is Leslie M. Davis and Blackstone’s moderator is Mark N. Poirier. The Millville selectmen have stated publicly that they want a neutral town moderator from outside Blackstone and Millville to oversee the meeting and have reportedly approached several neighboring moderators, including Uxbridge Town Moderator Ed Maharay.

The Blackstone selectmen, however, say they will recommend former Blackstone Town Moderator Frederick Stone, who was the town’s moderator for years before the job was taken over by Poirier.

Whether the two boards will be able to reach a compromise remains to be seen.

The super town meeting is being held to break a voter impasse on the regional school district’s school budget for next fiscal year. The meeting is scheduled to be held at 7 p.m. in the Blackstone-Millville Regional High School auditorium and will be open to all registered voters in Blackstone and Millville.

The single warrant article will ask voters to approve a re-certified school budget of $22,623,707, which includes an $8,562,533 assessment to Blackstone and a $2,919,338 assessment to Millville.

The Blackstone assessment includes $6,317,741 in minimal contributions; $1,347,481 in exclusionary costs; and $897,311 in supplemental investments.

The Millville assessment included $2,074,258 in minimal contributions; $507,776 in exclusionary costs; and $337,804 in supplemental investments.

Super town meetings have only convened a handful of times in the Commonwealth, and there has never been one in Blackstone and Millville.

Super town meetings are allowed by the state to force compromise if one or both of

the towns in a regional school district fail to provide funding for their district assessment after two rounds of voting. If that happens, the regional school committee schedules a combined district-wide meeting, often called a “super town meeting” in a single venue with its own moderator.

This regional meeting includes all eligible voters from both towns who vote on a single article - the school budget. Voting is by ballot and requires a two-thirds majority. If the regional vote fails, the school committee reconsiders its budget (it may or may not reformulate it) and calls an-

other regional meeting. This super town meeting step can be repeated as many times as necessary to approve budget funding.

The Blackstone-Millville super town meeting is being held because Millville voters at a special town meeting last month failed to muster a twothirds majority vote to pass an article approving $39,000 in additional contributions to the regional school budget.

At the Millville annual town meeting in May, annual town meeting voters in Millville funded the minimal contribution and an additional amount of money. At its annual town meeting, Blackstone voters funded the minimal contribution and funded an additional $99,425 contri-

bution that surpassed Millville’s vote (per percentage). That meant that Millville had to come up with an additional $39,000. But that funding request was rejected by voters.

As a result, the Blackstone-Millville Regional District School Committee had three options. The first was to re-certify a lower budget figure at $22,484,000, which would match what both towns have already voted on. The second option was to keep the May 30 re-certified budget of $22,623,707 and offset the amount not approved by Millville with new revenue sources. Those new revenue sources included a $70,000 increase in transportation reimbursement from the state.

The third option was to call a regional super town meeting and resubmit the same budget. The committee decided on the third option, which means voters in both Blackstone and Millville will now vote on a budget that includes Blackstone’s $99,425 and the requested $39,000 in additional contributions from Millville.