By Jordan J. Phelan
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NEWPORT — Hand sanitizer, mask-wearing and a change of venue defined this year’s Town Meeting Day in Newport as 11% of registered voters made their way inside Newport Middle High School on Tuesday to cast their ballots for a number of elected positions and articles, most of which were approved.
Town Meeting Day preparation saw initial plans developed by officials go through numerous alterations over the past four months due to the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic. Originally scheduled for May 12 at the Newport Opera House, the state’s stay-at-home order — which was in effect from March 26 to June 15 — forced officials to move the deliberative session to June and town meeting to Tuesday.
The revised plans also called for voting to be conducted by drive-thru — as the Newport Opera House is presently going through renovations — in which residents would pull up in their vehicles and fill out their ballots in an effort to maintain social distancing and best ensure public health and safety while participating in the voting process. However, plans were changed as the Newport Board of Selectmen moved the venue from the Newport Middle High School parking lot to inside the institution’s main building.
According to Town Clerk Liselle Dufort, Newport Superintendent Brendan Minnihan informed town officials that making mask-wearing mandatory, along with following other school guidelines such as temperature checks and signing in/out, during this final step of the electoral process was up to their discretion. The town decided, per legal council that informed officials that if they tried “to require [face coverings] for a public meeting that [Newport] could be looking at a lawsuit,” to instead strongly encourage mask-wearing by offering face coverings at the entrance.
Only 20 masks were given out, but most voters came prepared with a mask of their own, according to Dufort.
Officials made sure to create an environment that was easy to navigate and allowed for individuals to keep their distance from fellow voters. The floorplan was set up to divide the space to accommodate masked voters and unmasked voters. Two-thirds of all booths — eight of 12 — were marked off as unusable to provide more space between those who were voting and tables with dividers were offered as an alternative place to vote. Voters were also provided with an under paper which created a barrier between the resident and the table’s surface, pens that they took with them so as not to be used by another person and hand sanitizer after they submitted their ballot.
Low turnout
Just under 500 of the town’s 4,233 eligible residents cast their vote on seven elected seats and 14 articles.
Dufort described the day as people trickling in between the 11 hours the facility was open on Tuesday.
“It was very, very slow in the middle of the day. The lines were never super long. At most there were five or six in line for the ballot clerk,” she said.
For Dufort, the lower voter turnout could be attributed to both a lack of “hot button” issues and fears over the novel coronavirus.
“To be honest I believe it’s a combination,” Dufort said. “There wasn’t a lot of campaigning for any position, at least as far as I saw. We took steps to announce [the meeting] more than usual but to be honest if we don’t have anything that people are particularly riled up about… then turnout isn’t normally high.”
Dufort also noted that an article concerning a community center was not put on the ballot, an issue that she believes might have encouraged further participation.
Results
Of the 14 articles up for vote Tuesday, Article 11, concerning the raising and appropriation of $50,000 to be transferred to the Revaluation Capital Reserve Fund, was the lone article to be rejected.
In an interview with Newport’s Finance Director Paul Brown, he said that the funding for the constitutionally-enforced project — which in total will cost between $150,000 and $200,000 and is set to begin in September 2021— is absolutely necessary.
The town spreads out the burden of the total cost throughout the five years leading up to each revaluation. In 2018, $40,000 was allocated to the upcoming revaluation but in the past two elections the article has been turned down.
“I think it’s really a case of that it’s not mandated this year and people saw it as a chance to save a few dollars on their taxes this year,” Brown said. “That would be my guess.”
Due to the lack of funding since the last revaluation in 2017, Brown said that the town will have to shift those remaining costs or raise the funds the year of the revaluation. In light of this, Brown said he expects the remaining balance to present itself next year either as a $110,000-$160,000 article on the ballot or as an item in the town’s operating budget.
“I think next year we’ll probably be asking for the full appropriation to do the job,” Brown said. “So we’ll try to get the estimate of the cost and try to raise the remaining balance next year.”
The revaluation includes inspection of properties and developing a model of what the sales in the town are by neighborhood and type of property. Those factors help create the model for the revaluation that gets applied to all properties to assess the town. Brown also said that the town may forgo inspections, which accounts for the $50,000 difference in what the total cost may be.
In the lone competitive race, Newport Board of Selectmen incumbents Barry Connell (292) and Herbert R. Tellor Jr. (230) won their reelection contests against Tobin Menard (174) and Robert W. Merrill Jr. (112).
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