Super town meeting is talk of the town in Blackstone

BLACKSTONE — An historic districtwide town meeting on Aug. 8 to break a voter impasse on the regional school district’s school budget for next fiscal year was the major news story in Blackstone in 2018.

Districtwide town meetings, sometimes called super town meetings, have only convened a handful of times in the Commonwealth, and there had 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 districtwide meeting, often called a “super town meeting,” in a single venue with its own moderator.

The Blackstone-Millville super town meeting was held because Millville voters at a special town meeting in the spring failed to muster a two-thirds majority vote to pass an article approving $39,000 in additional contributions to the regional school budget. Meanwhile, at its annual town meeting, Blackstone voters funded the minimal contribution and funded an additional $99,425 contribution 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 agreed to call a regional super town meeting, where both Blackstone and Millville voters voted on a budget that included Blackstone’s $99,425 and the requested $39,000 in additional contributions from Millville.

Here’s a look back at what else made news in Blackstone in 2018:

• The Planning Board says one of its goals for 2019 will be to discuss a possible amendment to the town’s solar energy ordinance, which some residents are hoping will put the brakes on new solar photovoltaic facilities in town. In response to residents’ concerned about the large number of solar project applications over the past nine months, the planners have agreed to look into a possible moratorium on all commercial solar facilities as well as amendments to the town’s solar energy ordinance.

• The selectmen award a $667,727 contract to Aqualine Utility, Inc., an East Weymouth company that will oversee the Lincoln Street Bridge culvert replacement project, which will begin July 1, 2019. The project will include the installation of six precast six-foot by 36-foot bridge culverts, which will be ordered in January and then manufactured offsite before being delivered to the construction site no later than the middle of May of next year. The project will include replacing the bridge for a total project length of 500 feet and adding new guardrails and sidewalks, including tying the sidewalk across the street from the Blackstone-Millville Regional High School into the sidewalk heading to the John F. Kennedy School.

• Gurpreet Kalra, proprietor of the Family Grocer convenience store on Main Street, announces that he is applying for a retail license from the CCC to operate a retail dispensary in 1,368-square feet on the second floor of the existing building at 202 Main St. Meanwhile, Blackstone is also being eyed by DDM Sales, Inc., which has notified the selectmen of its plan to put an adult-use retail cannabis dispensary in at 1 Lloyd St., the former Bell Liquors building located between the Millerville Men’s Club and Stop & Shop plaza.

• Blackstone Skilled Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, a small family-owned nursing home that has been operating on Butler Street for more than 40 years, closes. Rehabilitation Associates, which owns and manages the Blackstone facility as well as eight other small rehabilitation and skilled nursing centers, files an application with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to close the 8 Butler St. facility effective Dec. 31 due to funding challenges.

• Police, fire and first responders throughout the Blackstone Valley are recognized for their commitment and self-sacrifice at the third annual Blue Mass on Oct. 18 at St. Theresa’s Catholic Church in Blackstone. The “Blue Mass” is a tradition where police, fire and EMS responders of all faiths gather for a special celebration and blessing for their work on behalf of the community.

Police, fire and emergency first responders from nine communities in Massachusetts and Rhode Island attend the Blackstone Mass.

• The town releases a final draft of its new master plan, which is later reviewed and approved by the Planning Board. The first master plan for Blackstone was completed in 1988, but it hadn’t been updated since 1996. A community master plan is a policy document that helps town staff and elected officials make decisions on land use development and redevelopment, public services and facilities, and economic development.

• The town’s deteriorating Main Street finally gets a long-awaited makeover. State workers begin a a weeklong project to pave all of Route 122 in Millville and Blackstone all the way to the Woonsocket state line. It’s the first time in nearly 30 years that Main Street (Route 122), a state-owned road, is reconstructed and paved.

• Dr. Jason DeFalco is hired as the Blackstone-Millville Regional School District’s new superintendent. DeFalco will earn $160,000 a year. He succeed School Supt. Allen W. Himmelberger, who retired Sept. 1.

• The town’s audit report for fiscal 2017, which ended June 30, shows the city’s finances to be in excellent shape. The report by Roselli, Clark & Associates shows the town in excellent financial shape and ended the last fiscal year with a positive net position of nearly $30 million as of June 30, 2017. The town also had a fund balance of approximately $12.3 million.

• The town is awarded more than $198,000 through the Municipal Small Bridge Program for the reconstruction and preservation of the historic stone arch bridge on Elm Street. Blackstone is one of 12 cities and towns selected as part of the second round of funding for the state program, which helps cities and towns replace or preserve bridges with spans between 10 and 20 feet that are not eligible for federal funding.

• The power plant on Elm Street changes hands again. Dynegy, Inc., which spent $3.3 billion last year to acquire global energy and services provider ENGIE’s United States portfolio – including International Power America (IPA) of Blackstone – sells the portfolio in November to Vistra Energy Corp in an all-stock deal worth $1.74 billion, combining the two Texas-based power producers.

Vistra, the largest retailer and generator of electricity in Texas, is based in Irving, while Dynegy is headquartered in Houston. Dynegy operates 27,000 megawatts of power generating facilities throughout the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, and Texas, including the Blackstone plant, the NEA Bellingham cogeneration and ANP Bellingham power plants in Bellingham and the Milford Power LP in Milford.