By Jodi Wolfe
Staff Writer

A new police station and putting an addition on Allenstown Elementary School will be on the minds of Allenstown voters this Election Day. Voters will also be asked if they want to abandon the official ballot law, often called SB2, and return to the traditional Town Meeting form of government.

Voting will take place on Tuesday, March 8, at Allenstown Elementary School from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Candidates
There are two contested races in Allenstown. William Barnett, Thomas Gilligan and Robert E. Lee are running for a one-year term as selectman. Also, Jason J. Carrier, Victor Martin and Evelyn P. Guilbeault are running for two slots on the school board, each for three-year terms. No one filed for school district clerk, school district moderator, or four town budget committee slots.

School articles
• Article 1 will ask voters to approve spending $3,535,985 for an addition to the elementary school and renovations to both the Armand R. Dupont and elementary schools.

While the project is estimated to cost $3.5 million, taxpayers would only pay for a 10-year $3.4 million bond with a 4.5 percent interest rate. The $52,255 difference would come from interest.

The addition would give the school 16,922 square feet of space, including an expanded library, a new computer lab, separate classrooms for art and music, as well as adequate rooms for special instruction such as occupational therapy and Title I reading. Currently, occupational therapy is given in one of the elementary school’s locker rooms.

With 32 four-bedroom homes being constructed, the school district will need to house all those new students, said school board member Thomas Irzyk, chairman of the school building committee.

By building an addition to the elementary school, the fifth grade would be moved out of the overcrowded Dupont School – where two classes are in modular classrooms – and into the elementary school.

The school district receiving 60 percent reimbursement from the state for the school project if approved.

• Article 3 will ask voters to approve a $8,138,708 operating budget, which is 5.67 percent more than last year’s proposed budget of $7,701,903. This year’s proposed default budget is $8,028,507.

If the operating budget is approved, the tax rate for both the local and school tax rate would be $15.30.

• Article 4 will ask voters to approve the salary and benefits increases established in a collective bargaining agreement between the school board and the Allenstown Paraprofessional Association for the next three fiscal years.

This article will also ask taxpayers to raise $41,139 for salary and benefit increases in the 2005-06 fiscal year.

Town articles
• Article 7 will ask taxpayers to raise $725,000 to purchase and renovate the current Allenstown Tractor Building at the corner of Route 3 and Granite Street for use as the police station.

The 10-year bond would have a 4.5 percent interest rate, which would increase the tax rate by 34 cents next year, then decease each year to a 24 cent tax rate impact in 2015.

The current police station is located in the basement of the Allenstown Municipal Building, which is inadequate for the department’s 10 full-time employees.

Last fall, the town’s insurance company did a study on the police station and found several liability issues which could result in expensive lawsuits for the town.

• Article 9 asks voters to take $125,000 from surplus to put into a Public Safety Facilities Capital Reserve Fund. If Article 9 passes, Article 7 would be reduced to $600,000.

However, if Article 7 fails and Article 9 passes, the $125,000 would go to improving the police station and design plans to construct a new building.

• Article 8 will ask voters to spend $3,653,611 on the town’s operating budget, which does not include the money appropriated for any of the other warrant articles.

If the operating budget is defeated, a $3,124,646 default budget would be adopted. • Residents will also see warrant articles making amendments to the zoning ordinance concerning flea markets, a question about putting $10,000 collected from the Land Use Change Tax into the Conservation Commission Fund, putting money into capital reserve funds and increasing tax credits.