By Devon Cormier
Staff Writer

When voters walked into the New Boston Central School on Tuesday, March 8, they were greeted by the regulars; but upon leaving, voters were invited to put their ballots into a ballot counting machine for the first time.

The machine was offered to the town virtually for free in return for a warrant article asking voters to purchase the machine. After much controversy over the machine at the annual deliberative session, the article, valued at $6,250, passed overwhelmingly with 727 residents voting for the machine and 393 voting against it. With the help of the machine, the tallying was completed by 9:30 p.m. The trustees of the trust fund had asked selectmen to consider the machine because counting often lasted long into the morning after voting day.

The long days at the polls may have affected the accuracy of the counters, some said.

Firefighter insurance
Voters also overwhelmingly supported a warrant article that will offer the town’s 50 volunteer firefighters supplemental insurance; 885 voted for the insurance and 231 against. The insurance will cost voters $3,878 this year and the entire three-year plan will cost $11,633, although it will become part of the fire department’s budget from now on.

These expenses are generally budgeted for with selectmen approval, but because two of the three selectmen are members of the fire department, they thought it would be unfair to make the decision themselves and turned to voters.

The insurance is aimed at filling in large gaps in the worker’s compensation pay that can leave the volunteers and their families financially and physically vulnerable.

“That was probably the most important article we’ve had in years,” Fire Chief Dan MacDonald said. “I’m glad to see that the majority of the town felt the same way. It’s this insurance that will keep the volunteers volunteering.”

Zoning amendments
Town residents who signed a protest petition to make a steepslope ordinance harder to pass got what they wanted. Article 2 received a majority vote, 585- 550, but failed to make the petitioned two-thirds vote. Petitioners believed about 8,000 acres of town property would be harder to sell and build on if the amendment passed.

But officials aren’t sure if the petition applies to Article 3, which also deals with the adoption of the steep slope ordinance. That article passed by a majority vote of 565-560. Officials are looking into the legality of that result.

Residents are unclear of what will happen in the event of one passing and one failing. Fliers were sent to every resident from the recently formed Concerned Land Owners of New Boston, asking everyone to vote no on both articles.

Stephen Dunbar was involved in the group. Although Dunbar is a Deering resident, he signed the petition because he owns land in New Boston that would have been affected by the ordinance.

However, Dunbar is not a registered New Boston resident so he could only wait and see.

“This is going to be something for the lawyers to figure out,” said Dunbar. “We’ll see what happens and hopefully whatever happens, the town wants to sit down and figure out what this slope article should be.”

Operating budget passes
The operating budget, set at $2,879,610, was approved. The budget is a less than 1 percent increase over last year, much of which accounts for the rising cost of health insurance.

“If everything goes through, we anticipate a small drop in the tax rate or no change at all,” said Selectmen Gordon Carlstrom. “There has been an increase in the revaluation which means the larger we get, the more we spread that out over the tax base. If everything goes through, including the warrant articles, we anticipate taxes to stay the same. That takes into account town and school.”

The school district’s operating budget was also approved by voters at $8,220,277, which is a 5.13 percent increase from last year’s school budget.

A special education teacher, salary increases, rising health insurance costs and the purchase of textbooks make up a good portion of the increase.

Christine Quirk, chairman of the board of selectmen, was reelected for another three-year term. She ran uncontested.