GRANVILLE — Residents of Granville on Tuesday evening elected a new selectman, decided to get rid of the town lister positions, and, after adding in a few thousand extra dollars, approved a town spending plan at the town meeting.
Sean Linsky won a three-year seat on the Granville selectboard, replacing Victoria Crowne, who chose not to run.
Others elected by voice vote from the 30 or so residents at the meeting included Kathy Werner as treasurer, Bruce Hyde as school director, Nancy Needham as delinquent tax collector, Mark Belisle as cemetery warden and Brent Stickney as second constable.
Residents picked up an article that was tabled at last year’s town meeting. It called for a change to the town charter that would eliminate the elected town listers, which would pave the way for the selectboard to hire a professional assessor.
“The listers recommended this,” explained Werner, who is also town clerk. “They felt they were not as qualified as a professional assessor.”
Since last March, state law has changed, Werner said, so that towns no longer need to change their charter (a cumbersome process that requires approval by the Legislature) in order to get rid of the elected lister position. So on Tuesday, Granville townspeople simply voted out the lister positions. The Granville listers will still be on the job for 45 days until the appointed assessor position becomes active.
When it came time to consider the town spending plan, which was warned at $290,859 (which was broken out as $169,359 for expenses through the town office and $121,500 for roads), voters decided that that wasn’t enough. The road foreman explained to the meeting that the $17,000 budgeted for winter sand in last year’s budget had already been exceeded by $3,000 this winter, and the same figure was budgeted for this coming year. So townspeople amended the town spending article to add another $8,500 for additional sand.
After another small amendment, they approved a town spending plan of $299,774.
The school budged passed as warned — $580,935.
Granville also approved spending another $20,000 to continue a years-long repayment to the Federal Emergency Management Administration for assistance after Tropical Storm Irene hit in 2010. Werner said there is still one more $20,000 FEMA payment scheduled next year (with voter approval) and then repayment drops off after that.