All -                                                                                               Saturday March 25, 2006

 

  I wanted to pass along some results regarding today's town meeting in Harvard.

 

  There are 44 articles on Harvard's 2006 Town Warrant.  The first 10 articles took nearly 4 hours to complete with the number of voters at about 486 at it's maximum. (on one of the articles a hand count was required and the total was 486).

 

  The main article of interest for Devens' residents was article 15 (basically the article asked the voters do they support the establishment of the Town of Devens).  This was defeated with 187 for and 201 against (a total 388 voters).  You can see there were a number of voters who left almost 25%.  They allowed public comments and statements that lasted over an hour however they called a vote with still many people in line waiting to talk (I'd estimate 20 to 25 were not allowed to speak).

 

  Devens residents that I saw that were able to provide their position were Mary Leonhardt and Judy Armstrong.  A number of Devens residents were still in line waiting to talk when the vote was required (this included myself, Dave Winters, Tom Kinch and Mike Donabedian).

 

  On Tuesday the Harvard local elections take place and there are two questions of interest.  Question 4 (endorse a proposal to establish the Town of Devens).  Question 5 (should Harvard endorse a proposal to return jurisdiction of all or most of the on Devens to Ayer, Harvard and Shirley).  This election also has a contested Selectman seat, Bill Marinelli (incumbent) vs. Tim Clark.  Bill supports Devens as a town and Tim does not.

 

  These questions 4 and 5 are advisory in nature and are specifically spelled out that way.  Article 15 was not identified in it's written form to indicate it was advisory or not.

 

  I'd like to speak for the DC and request all registered voters to get out on Tuesday and make your preference known. 

 

  Regards,

 

  Mike