On Thursday
February 13 at 7PM at the South Hampton Town Hall, the selectmen invite you as
a resident South Hampton voter to participate in a discussion of road
maintenance and the old Barnard School, which sits next to Town Hall. Both
topics will be front and center at our annual town meeting a month later on
March 12. The decisions we make on these two topics then will impact our
quality of life and significantly impact our property taxes.
We urge you
to attend both the discussion and later the town meeting. The discussion is
important because the selectmen want your input, and because these topics are
not straightforward, and it is best that you know and think about what’s at
stake before Town Meeting. It is important that you participate in Town Meeting
because our voters are the legislature of South Hampton, and only we assembled
can make critical decisions, and, for all practical purposes, only once a year
at Town Meeting.
Road
maintenance is at issue for two reasons. The first is that our longtime road
agent, Joe Brunet, stepped down last summer, and the second is that our roads
have reached a stage in their lifespan—which is inevitable—at which we must
consider deeper restoration. Over the years, Joe has provided real value to our
town. The selectmen have been well aware that once Joe stepped down that, in
light of the going rates that other towns are paying, South Hampton would face
a substantial increase in our annual road maintenance costs, and so we are.
Reclamation potentially represents an even greater additional expense. How we
stage and go about this reclamation will greatly impact these costs and how
they are spread out.
In its
current decrepit state, the old Barnard school represents a hazard that must be
dealt with soon. A fire there would engulf our town hall, and anyone breaking
into the building risks injury. Our options are to demolish the building or see
it restored. Both options are challenging to do and come at a cost that could
be large or small. Much thought and legwork have gone into working through
these options. You should hear about them, and we should discuss them.
