Temple Town Meeting voters rejected warrant articles calling for echo-dampening changes to Town Hall and a reclassification of Perkins Lane, while tabling a move that would allow logging on the Skladany property.
The 70 voters present approved the other 20 articles during the meeting Saturday in Temple Elementary School, including the $1.687 million budget and an amended Warrant Article 20, which relates to a grant that would make rural roads safer for pedestrians.
Warrant Article 12
Article 12 asked the town to raise and spend $12,000 to install echo mitigation materials in Town Hall.
“I put this proposal forward because of the echo problem we have in the Town Hall during meetings,” Select Board Chair Ken Caisse said.
Caisse said an audiovisual system was installed to record meetings and has a mechanism to dampen echoes, but the building’s acoustics prevent it from doing that well. “What we’re suggesting is putting up a plastic barrier made of panels with one inch insulation inside to remove the echo,” he said.
Robert Wills, a longtime electric engineer, disagreed with the proposal.
“I worked with audio equipment for many years, and I can tell you audio visual equipment doesn’t fix an echo, it often makes it worse,” he said.
While some residents supported the proposal, others sought alternative solutions or rejected it.
“The building is on the National Register of Historic Places, so we should be mindful of its appearance,” resident Peggy Counoyer said. She recommended adding curtains in place of panels.
Village Green Committee Chair Gail Cromwell thought the proposal was poorly conceived. “I believe this entire project should be denied. It won’t be useful,” she said. “The colors of the panel don’t match the building, and I don’t think this is going to work. I’d like to call for it to be taken off the warrant.”
Residents rejected the article after Town Moderator Philip Lauriat requested a standing vote.
Warrant Article 19
Steve Anderson, a member of the Temple Existing Municipal Facilities Maintenance/Construction Committee, as well as David and Eric Foley of Foley Logging, addressed Article 19, which proposed logging the Skladany property located at Lot 7-36.
Anderson said there had been talk of creating a trail system on the property, which would require logging, but added that the warrant article might be premature. He noted the town doesn’t have a cost for the project yet, but he advised against rejecting it and recommended tabling the article.
“I want the community to talk about it first, but if you vote ‘no’ today to log that property, the Select Board can’t log it, which wouldn’t be good,” Andersen added.
According to Eric Foley, the plot has valuable timber that the town can selectively cut.
“The town has had ownership of the land for 20 years and hasn’t done much with it,” he said. “There are enough young trees to where they can be left alone so the whole area doesn’t have to be logged.”
Deb Harling, Temple’s Emergency Management director’s assistant, thanked the Select Board for making the matter a warrant article. “Legally, the Select Board isn’t required to make this issue a warrant article,” she said. “But they’re giving the town the opportunity to have a say in the matter.”
Community Advisory Committee Chair Lilliane LeBel pushed back against the article and raised concerns over deforestation and disturbing the wildlife.
“The number one item people want in this town is green space,” she said. “The Skladany land has the opportunity to provide that, but if we start going in there and cut down the most precious trees, the ones that suck up all the carbon, we lose that.”
David Foley said that in his 35 years of owning a logging company, he has routinely changed people’s minds on the matter.
“A lot of people think logging is a terrible thing,” he said. “The act of logging is proper forest management, and the type of logging we’d use is conventional logging with low impact.”
He said the method involves leaving trees with at least 20 years of productive life left in them to grow, but said the town has a high number of century-old trees, 25% of which are rotted and unusable.
“They’re useless and are going to fall down in a few years,” he said. “We try to prevent that by cutting them early enough so the forests stay healthy.”
LeBel said the town should get a concrete estimate for the work and also recommended tabling it. “There could be benefits to this, but many of us aren’t educated enough on the matter to make a decision.”
Voters voted to table the article for a future meeting.
Warrant Article 21
Ken Perry, Temple’s road agent, discussed Article 21, which requested reclassifying Perkins Lane from a Class V to a Class VI road to the town wouldn’t have to maintain it.
“I’d like to watch this road stop bleeding money,” he told the audience. “The burden that we’re feeling is in hours and cost.”
Perry said a recent storm cost the town $6,000 in wages to maintain the road. “We go up, plow and fix it, it snows and gets torn up all winter from plowing, and then we go back and rebuild it,” he said. “So, I’d like to change it to a Class VI for this simple reason.”
Reclassifying the road to Class VI removes the town’s responsibility for maintenance.
“My family has been using that road for 90 years as my grandmother built the house there in 1936 on an 1870s cellar,” resident Camilla Lockwood said. “Since then, the road has been maintained, and I’ve never heard any complaints from any of the previous road agents.”
Resident and former town moderator Steve Cullinan recommended the town reject the article.
“If we downgrade this road, the town is losing value from a citizen’s property, which is not in our best interest,” he said.
After a standing vote, the article failed.
Other articles
Warrant Article 20 passed with amended wording. The original article said the town had an opportunity to apply for a grant to make roads safer for pedestrian and horseback travel.
It proposed adding signs reading “Entering Town Village” on Route 45, General Miller Highway and West Road, alerting drivers to reduce their speed when approaching the town center.
It also proposed painting white fog lines along the edges of West Road for increased visibility.
The amendment added language stating “the work will only be done if the town receives the mass grant to cover the cost of both projects.”
“I’ve lived on West Road for almost 80 years,” resident Charlene Eddy said. “I remember when it was still dirt. That slowed traffic down.”
Eddy said she wanted to keep the town rural and opposed adding signs and white lines. “We just got a new police cruiser, maybe they could patrol the road,” she added.
LeBel said that whether the article passed or not, it wouldn’t cost the town money.
“The traffic on General Miller has tripled in the last 30 years and has become very dangerous for us to walk on our own country roads, so please vote for this,” she said.
All other warrant articles passed, including the $1.687 million operating budget, a 7.8% increase over the previous year’s $1.565 million.