At their meeting last Thursday the Board of Selectmen heard about the town of Easton’s experience with the Community Preservation Act (CPA) from the Chair of their Board of Selectmen, Colleen Corona. Ms. Corona was attending at the invitation of Selectman Keohane. Corona stated that the CPA had been beneficial to Easton and that the act had provided the town with ~$5 million to fund a variety of projects and enabled them to “control their community’s destiny.”
Ms. Corona said that the town had done “incredibly creative things’ with the funding including historic preservation, affordable housing development, and open space preservation. (You can find a list of completed projects and those in the works here.) When asked about how the residents of Easton responded to a new tax Corona said they saw the benefit, an overall opportunity “to preserve the character of the community.” Ms. Corona did not completely agree on the characterization as a “tax.” (note: adoption of the CPA puts a surcharge on the residents property tax). She noted that “it’s a tax that returns 22%.”* Ms Corona added that recent legislation should increase the amount funded back to participating towns.
Ms. Corona concluded by saying that “There’s not a limit to what you can do.” The selectmen thanked her for coming.
Residents of the Governors Road neighborhood who have long expressed concerns about both the volume and speed of traffic on their street, and many of whom were crowded in the Cronin Conference Room, received some good news. Governors is used as a cut through by commuters, many from out of town according to DPW Director Joe Lynch. The selectmen, after listening to residents, Director Lynch and a traffic engineer, voted to approve road closures for Governors Road and Plymouth while construction is done on the Quincy end of Governors. The construction is expected to take between 4 – 6 weeks. The closures are expected to place a burden on Bryant and Granite Avenues but that is a price that the town will need to pay. Member Keohane said, “if a child were hit [on Governors] we should have no trouble in shifting the traffic. Why not do it now?” The question received applause from those residents in attendance. A motion was made and passed.
In other business:
- Lynda-Lee Sheridan gave an update on Miolton 350th events. There was a horse show this past Saturday and there is an upcoming Magical Trolley tour on October 21st. You can find details and ticket information here.
- The Fruit Center is seeking permission to add craft beers to their alcoholic offerings. They currently sell wine. The beer would be locally sourced and come from small batch brewers.
* from the Massachusetts Department of Revenue:
During FY2012, 147 cities and towns collected the local Community Preservation Act (CPA) surcharge and are eligible for state matching grants in FY2013. DLS estimates that the balance in the state trust fund will be sufficient to provide a first round match of 22% of the surcharge levied by each city and town. This will trigger an equity and surplus distribution for those cities and towns that have adopted the maximum 3% surcharge. With these additional distributions, the total state reimbursement for qualifying cities and towns will increase, depending on their decile and total surcharge amount (see CPA Ranking used in Equity Distribution 
for applicable FY2012 decile). Please note that these estimates are subject to change depending on Registry of Deeds collections between now and September.
When Chairman Hurley asked about the tax Ms Corona said it was actually a surcharge on a tax and that even if viewed as a tax, “it is a tax that returns over 20%.”