By MAUREEN DOHERTY
NORTH READING – The terms of the purchase and sales agreement for 1 Central Street signed by the Select Board Dec. 22 were accepted by the sellers last Friday.
Those terms set the sale price for the one-half acre lot at $650,000, Town Administrator Michael Gilleberto told the Transcript on Tuesday, which moves the process from “an agreement in principle” to one in fact.
“We do now have a signed purchase and sale agreement with the exact terms that were in the draft that we gave the Select Board and in fact reviewed the Monday before at the regular board meeting,” he said.
“The document was public then but now it has been agreed to in writing by both parties and is conditioned upon the authorization for the purchase, and the approval of funding for the purchase, by Town Meeting,” he explained.
The date of the Special Town Meeting was set by the Select Board for Tuesday, January 30 at 7 p.m. in the NRHS gymnasium.
A two-thirds majority approval will be required at the Special Town Meeting at which a quorum of 150 registered town voters is also required.
“Because it’s a land acquisition, regardless of the funding source, it does need to be a two-thirds vote,” Gilleberto said.
New residents to town who have not yet registered to vote and who wish to participate in the Special Town Meeting have until Saturday, January 20 to register to vote. The Town Clerk’s office will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the last day for those who wish to register to vote in person. Residents may also register online via the secretary of state’s website prior to midnight on January 20 to meet the deadline.
At the Select Board’s meeting on Dec. 22, Select Board member Stephen O’Leary thanked the Wheeler family for their willingness to give the town “basically the right of first refusal for the purchase of this property” which is directly adjacent to Ipswich River Park. Chairwoman Liane Gonzalez agreed. “This has been a gift from the Wheelers for us to add on to the gem of Ipswich River Park,” she said. The half acre lot would give the town an additional 125 feet of frontage on Central Street and the town would then retain the all of the frontage abutting IRP and the former Wheeler property to rear, from Chestnut Street to Park Street.
Warrants will be mailed to all residential addresses in town and an informational hearing date to enable the public to discuss the warrant article with the Select Board will be set at the board’s next meeting on Monday, January 8.