Joe Cormier: Moultonborough CruCon property issue for Town Meeting

To The Daily Sun,

It's getting to be Town Meeting debate-the-issues-time. Moultonborough has one dealing with potentially acquiring a property; namely, the CruCon property on Route 25 that goes through the middle of town.

This acquisition would affect existing town properties like Town Hall, recreation building, and former Lion's club. Consolidate them into the CruCon building. The deal offered to the town last summer is a great one, most agree, price-wise.

The town had initially used RSA 41:14-a for authority to acquire (adopted by the town in 2003). That statute has the selectboard, not the town voters, as the authority to acquire/sell properties. After some anomalies in executing that statute by Moultonborough were pointed out, the selectboard is now not using that statute. It will place the acquisition on the Town Warrant, for a town vote the “regular” way, such as for budgetary items. RSA 41:14-a allowed three people to acquire (selectboard quorum). 

A different issue was the funding of the acquisition. RSA 41:14-a doesn't speak to funding. In Moultonborough's case, this was not a problem. It has the funds already in capital reserves and unassigned funds. The selectboard is “agent to expend.” It can buy and fund without voter approval.

A verbiage problem with RSA 41:14-a was “written petition of 50 registered voters ... According to the provisions of RSA 39:3, the proposed acquisition, ...  shall be inserted as an article in the warrant for the Town Meeting.” This might be viewed as a “safety valve” to bring to Town Meeting. RSA 39:3 has 50 voters for a Special Town Meeting and a 25 voter petition for the annual meeting. The Legislature does not normally stipulate “according to RSA 39:3” when referring to the annual meeting, especially when requiring a 50 voters petition.

Fun times again. Here are some resources: 

• moultonboroughnh.gov/DocumentCenter/View/4100/Updated-Presentation-11226-FINAL
• gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/III/41/41-14-a.htm
• gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/III/39/39-3.htm

Joe Cormier

Moultonborough