Special Town Meeting Tonight

Residents are asked to attend Special Town Meeting Monday night at 7 p.m. to vote to approve $15,500,000 of additional funds for the school building project.

The Board of Selectmen and School Committee held a joint meeting last Monday night to announce the new school building project total of $122,652,133. The town will need $15,500,000 more to complete the school the way it was originally designed.

If residents vote to approve the additional funds, the project will remain on schedule, items will not be removed from the budget, the MSBA will still reimburse the original amount planned and there will be no annual impact on the operating budget. The school will be built the way it was originally designed.

If residents decide not to approve the additional funds and vote against it, there could be up to a seven-month project delay at a cost greater than $400,000 per month, the project will not be constructed as it was originally designed and several items will be removed from the budget.

Residents are also asked to vote at a Special Election on March 22. Residents can vote at St. Theresa's Parish between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m.

According to the town's website, the ballot question will read as follows:

QUESTION #1
Shall the Town of North Reading be allowed to exempt from the provisions of Proposition two-and-one-half, so-called, the amounts required to pay for the bond issued in order to construct an addition and renovate the Middle School and construct a new High School to create a new integrated Middle-High School located at Park Street and Sherman Road?