Published October 28, 2020
By DAN TOMASELLO
LYNNFIELD — Get ready for Round 3.
The Board of Selectmen unanimously voted on Monday to schedule a Special Town Meeting for Saturday, Nov. 21, beginning at 1:30 p.m. at Lynnfield High School’s Pioneer Stadium. The selectmen scheduled the Special Town Meeting in order to ask townspeople to approve expanding the two elementary schools due to growing enrollment. This will be the third Town Meeting of 2020.
The $17 million school project will be the only article appearing on the Special Town Meeting warrant. The project needs a two-thirds vote in order to pass Town Meeting.
While Town Meeting traditionally has a 175-voter quorum requirement, the selectmen and Town Moderator Joe Markey recently agreed to reduce the quorum to 50 voters for the spring and fall sessions of Town Meeting. The same quorum requirement will be used for the special session even though local officials are anticipating more than 50 people will be attending the meeting. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the State Legislature approved a law this past spring that allows municipalities to reduce quorum requirements to no less than 10 percent of the traditional threshold.
If the Special Town Meeting okays the project, voters will be asked at a special election to approve a debt exclusion on Tuesday, Dec. 8. Polls will be open from 7 a.m.-8 p.m. in the Lynnfield High School gym.
“If those two things do not happen, this project will not happen,” said Town Administrator Rob Dolan in an interview with the Villager.
Voters who asked that all ballots for 2020 elections be mailed to them will also get a special election ballot in the mail, providing that Town Meeting participants approve the school expansion projects on Nov. 21. Voters will also be able to request a ballot from the Town Clerk’s Office.
The school expansion plan entails constructing permanent additions onto both elementary schools that would each contain five classrooms. The project also includes renovating two existing classrooms at each school and enlarging Huckleberry Hill School’s gym.
Additionally, the elementary schools’ expansion project includes expanding the pick-up and drop-off areas at both schools, expanding each school’s parking area and building new fields at both schools. A new playground will be built at Summer Street as well.
After opening and closing the Special Town Meeting warrant this week, the selectmen unanimously voted to support the expansion project.
“I think it’s important that we give our affirmation with a strong vote of support,” said Selectmen Chairman Chris Barrett.
This will be the second straight year there will be three Town Meetings. A Special Town Meeting that took place in September 2019 overwhelmingly approved allocating $348,000 for the Wakefield-Lynnfield Rail Trail’s final design.