Danvers Special Town Meeting Left In Purgatory Set To Conclude Monday

DANVERS, MA — Danvers town meeting members were perhaps understandably anxious to head out for the night after the presumed conclusion of a year-long town debate on a proposed $200 trash and recycling fee and the apparent end of a special town meeting on Feb. 5.

Only they all headed to the doors before forgetting to do one key thing.

They never formally voted to adjourn.

As such, the special meeting has remained in recess for the past two-plus weeks, with a second special town meeting set for this coming Monday (Feb. 26) for what should be the sole purpose of voting to end the previous special town meeting.

But what happens if the town is unable to rustle up enough town meeting members to fill the room on a Monday night for what should be a largely perfunctory purpose?

"This is a fairly novel situation that we find ourselves in," Town Manager Steve Bartha said at Tuesday's Select Board meeting. "The town attorney, David DeLuca, working with colleagues in his office who serve in similar roles in a number of communities, has determined that the meeting can be held on Monday with less than a quorum. But it limits the action that can be taken.

"The way to think about that is: You may have an annual town meeting where town meeting members trickle out throughout the night and you might be left with an absence of an ability to dissolve the meeting, then you might be stuck in perpetuity. So there are mechanisms where the meeting can be dissolved with less than a quorum.

"No matter how many members turn out on Monday, the meeting can be adjourned."

In looking forward to the next town meeting this spring, Bartha said his office was preparing article language for the styrofoam and other non-disposable takeout material ban that the Select Board approved at its Feb. 6 meeting, and that town departments are faced with looking to trim about $400,000 from the upcoming town budget after state contributions came in lighter than expected.

He said those adjustments include the infusion of $1.3 million from the trash fee and would be ready for the daylong town budget presentation summit tentatively set for March 16.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at [email protected]. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)