Some Progress, but Miles to Go

Dear Common-Sense Reading Voters,

Some good news to start: Carlo Bacci was appointed Select Board chair at the March 26 meeting. Karen Gately Herrick is the vice-chair, and Chris Haley is now secretary.

A big thank you to the Reading Votes community! No doubt your advocacy—through attendance at Board meetings, emails, and letters to the editor—contributed to Mark Dockser finally passing the gavel.

Still, the Town is in a precarious position with a deadlocked 2-2 board in which autocratic behavior is a feature, not a bug.

The May 14 special election for a new Select Board candidate is crucial. More on that to come.

In the meantime, we need to continue to push for an independent investigation into the Board’s conduct and not let the issue be swept under the rug.

Select Board members discussed the issue at last Tuesday’s meeting. Based on input from Town Counsel, they addressed how to structure an investigation, define its scope, understand what the outcome is intended to result in (e.g., policy changes), and complete the work in a timely fashion.

Karen Gately-Herrick stands against it, citing concerns about cost and Jackie McCarthy’s privacy.

The investigation will be discussed again at the April 9 meeting. Please attend the meeting and/or contact the Select Board (selectboard@ci.reading.ma.us) to endorse it. Let’s continue to press for transparency and a complete and timely report on the Board’s behavior.

Let the Select Board know the damage is already done; therefore an investigation must also be done. Reading residents deserve the facts.

Community Preservation Act

Also on Tuesday, Bacci was designated as the representative on the seven-person committee investigating the Community Preservation Act.

195 cities and towns in Massachusetts have adopted the CPA; Reading is not one of them. If adopted, homeowners pay up to a 3% surcharge (3% of a homeowner’s property tax bill) to fund projects ranging from parks to public housing. CPA funds from the town are eligible for matching state funding. However, the match percentage is not guaranteed and often fluctuates yearly based on the state budget.

To learn more about CPA, see this presentation.   Note that CPA is a permanent tax surcharge, which can only be repealed or changed (e.g., percentage reduced) via town-wide vote.  Also be aware that voters will be deciding, in the next one to two years, more debt exclusions coming that may increase residential tax rates significantly—namely, for Killam and/or a new senior center.  

We at Reading Votes feel it is important that the town be transparent with voters about the estimated costs of these debt exclusions before asking us to support a CPA surcharge as well. Given that the average residential tax bill in Reading is about $10,000, a CPA surcharge of up to $300 (3%) is not insignificant.  

Furthermore, expect activist pressure on how the funds are spent. Per The Greater Boston Real Estate Board, only one in five CPA projects focuses on affordable housing, despite a requirement that 10% of funds be spent on it. This group advocates for “tweaks” to the law, making 20% of funds go to affordable housing.

Eyes on MBTA Communities!

We believe in keeping a very close eye on state initiatives that threaten local sovereignty and come with strings attached. This includes the aforementioned CPA and of course, the MBTA Communities act.

There is a meeting on Thursday, April 4 in Wakefield, where an attorney representing some towns will discuss the legality of the initiative. Sign up here ASAP. More information on the event here.

As well, this Facebook group is a good place to hear about other towns’ concerns and efforts surrounding MBTA Communities.

Eyes on Killam and Inter-Generational Center Costs

We do not yet know the costs of either of these projects, but last week, two town boards, Reading Center for Active Living (ReCalc) and Council on Aging (COA), were given preliminary cost estimates to implement essentially the same senior center design on each of three possible sites: Oakland Road, Symonds Way, and the current Pleasant Street location. The estimated cost was about the same at each of these sites: $27.9 million dollars, not including potential site-specific costs (e.g., blasting ledge on Oakland Road, water drainage concerns at Pleasant Street, or soil remediation at Symonds Way).  

A video of that meeting is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym2YY0NN-aY

There is also a Daily Times Chronicle article summarizing that meeting and the costs.

Regarding Killam, the final design and costs are still unknown.  Former town manager Fidel Maltez gave an estimate to FINCOM in fall of 2022 which showed that, for an estimated Killam debt of $80 million (Reading’s share, after MSBA reimbursement), the cost per average value Reading home would be an extra 88 cents per $1000 to the tax rate.  

This translates to an extra $756 for an average-value Reading home ($859k).  

If similar computations were done for senior center debt of $28 million, that works out to an extra 31 cents per $1000, or an extra $266.  Thus, the potential impact of both of these debt exclusions could be another $1022 to the tax bill if the total debt works out to around $128 mil for both projects. For perspective, the current debt amount being paid for both the library and the high school, is approximately $377 of the average $10k tax bill.  Both of those debts go away starting in FY2026.  If they were replaced with the hypothetical debt amounts above, the net  increase on an average $10K tax bill would be $645.  The CPA mentioned previously could add another $100-$300 on top of this.

Sincerely, Reading Votes