Barnstead voters decide to buy new police car, but not other vehicles

BARNSTEAD — The people of Barnstead met for Town Meeting Saturday morning, and passed 25 of 27 articles on their town warrant.

Several of the warrant articles passed over on Saturday involved the purchase or lease of new municipal vehicles.

Voters approved Article 5, a $77,000 appropriation for the town to purchase a new cruiser for their police department. It’s a replacement vehicle, and the article was supported unanimously by both the town selectboard and budget committee. The anticipated impact to the tax rate is $0.70 on $1,000 of assessed valuation.

Article 6, however, was voted down by voice vote.

That article would have approved a five-year lease or purchase agreement to acquire a new excavator for the town’s highway department, raising and appropriating $59,401 for the first payment to come from the Heavy Equipment Capital Reserve fund. The total cost was $297,005, and the current balance of that reserve fund was $143,805. It was recommended unanimously by the town’s selectboard but just 5-2 by the budget committee. There was no anticipated impact to the municipal tax rate.

Article 7, for the purpose of purchasing a new fire rescue utility vehicle, asked voters to raise and appropriate $70,617 to fund the purchase of a replacement vehicle. That amount would have been withdrawn from the Fire Rescue Special Reserve Fund, but voters passed it over by voice vote. That item was recommended by the selectboard 4-1 and by the budget committee unanimously, and there was, again, no anticipated impact to the municipal tax rate associated with it.

The third item which failed to pass was a withdrawal from the Parks and Recreation Capital Reserve Fund for the purpose of repairing existing features at the municipal parks and recreation facility.

Voters elected not to withdraw from the reserve fund the amount of $57,842 by voice vote. That item was recommended by the selectboard 4-1 and unanimously by the town’s budget committee. There was no anticipated impact to the municipal tax rate associated with it.

But voters did approve other important items, including the $5.44 million operating budget for general municipal operations outlined in Article 29, and a petitioned warrant article to submit a pre-application to the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services.

Townspeople approved Article 28, submitted by petition, to submit a 2025 Clean Water State Revolving Fund Stormwater Planning Pre-Application to NHDES.

The pre-application includes a scope of work to include the investigation of existing and future environmental, economic and recreational impacts to Upper and Lower Suncook lakes and the Suncook River to develop a watershed management plan.

The pre-application, which is non-binding, will compete for CWSRF funding to develop a Suncook Lakes watershed management plan to ensure the eligibility for state and federal funding dedicated to the protection and restoration of the various surface waters in Barnstead.

The meeting started at 9 a.m. at the elementary school on Saturday morning and ended at 1:05 p.m. the same day.