Clinton’s Annual Town Meeting is this Monday, June 5, at 7 p.m. in the Town Hall auditorium.
It’s the time we gather each year to debate and vote on the annual budget, capital requests, and any other town business. It’s representative democracy in its purest form.
The warrant and proposed budget are attached below.
Hope to see everyone on Monday!
As a candidate for re-election to the Clinton Select Board, it was great to get together and talk about some of the issues facing our town.
Video of candidates night is now live on the Clinton, Mass. YouTube page here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_8Dg7dLNcY
It’ll also be shown daily on Clinton Cable TV Comcast Channel 8 through June 1 at 9 a.m., 1 p.m., 6 p.m., and 9 p.m.
If you aren’t registered to vote, you can still do so in the Clerk’s Office at Town Hall until this Friday, May 26. And don’t forget Annual Town Meeting on June 5 and Election Day on June 12.
It’s campaign lawn sign season once again. If you or someone you know would like a lawn sign to support my re-election to the Clinton Select Board, please let me know and I can drop one off.
Email kerriganforclinton@gmail.com with your address and I’ll have one there soon.
I’m running for re-election on Clinton’s Select Board, and I need your help.
If you’re out and about this Saturday, April 8, or just want to treat yourself to a tasty cold beverage, stop by Sterling Street Brewery from 1 to 3 p.m. While you’re there, you can share your ideas for making Clinton better and help me get on the ballot for another term on your Select Board by signing my nomination papers.
See you Saturday at SSB!
Tonight, the Select Board will cast its most important vote of the year: Setting the annual tax rate for residential and business property owners.
First, some background: In Clinton, where we have a split rate — one for residential property and another for commercial, industrial and personal property (CIP) — setting the tax rate involves deciding how much more the CIP rate will be. The total amount of property taxes raised remains the same. It’s simply a matter of how big a share each group pays.
After many years at the maximum shift, giving artificial relief to homeowners by shifting more of the burden onto business owners, the board began to chip away at the business rate in 2013. In 2018, I chaired a commission to look into the tax split and what might be best for Clinton going forward.
The board adopted two recommendations from that commission:
We’ve continued to stick to that plan, and the tax split now sits at an historic low of 1.50. It’s small but steady progress, a sign to the business community that we understand their part in making Clinton what it is.
Last year, after dramatic increases in property values, the board voted to hit pause on this plan and hold the split at 1.50. We received some great news from our Assessors Office on new growth this past week, and so I was looking forward to returning to our schedule and setting the FY2023 split at 1.48.
After unanimously approving a reduction every year and mostly without debate, times have apparently changed. A majority of the board now seeks to reverse our course and increase the split again, possibly as high as 1.55.
We’re not elected to make easy decisions. We’re elected to make the right ones.
What does this mean? At my proposed split, the average residential homeowner would see an increase to their tax bill of $70, well below the average annual increase of $131.75 and the lowest increase in more than a decade. In turn, owners of a commercial/industrial parcel of the same value would see a decrease of $49 as we work to close the historical imbalance past boards have burdened us with.
However, under a split that’s increased to 1.55, the average residential homeowner would pay $11 less than last year, while the owner of a business property at the same value would see an astonishing jump of $339.
After five years of welcoming new businesses to town, we’re now going to thank them for choosing Clinton by taxing them 175 percent more for their property than a home of equal value.
It’s always a hard vote to take when you’re raising taxes. But that doesn’t mean lowering the split isn’t a smart vote. We’re not elected to make easy decisions. We’re elected to make the right ones.
Critics will say that the tax rate isn’t a major factor in attracting businesses. It’s certainly not the only factor, but it is a factor we can control. By voting to raise the split, we’ll be losing a key tool from our economic development toolbox. More important, we’ll be sending a message that Clinton is in danger of heading back to the bad old days when petty politics too often trumped good policy.
Others might say that things have changed in the five years since the board adopted this policy. They’re right: Clinton is a better, stronger town, thanks in part to our reduction of the tax split.
In 2018, we had the 25th highest commercial tax rate in the state. Last year it had dropped to 46th, lower than Berlin, Maynard, Ayer, Worcester and Hudson.
Downtown is alive again, with half as many vacancies as in March 2017 and more new storefronts opening every month. Our town is growing, with total property valuation topping $2 billion for the first time ever.
And the tax rate is just one part of a bigger story of financial stability and success. We continue to add money to our stabilization account, and last year Moodys raised our municipal bond rating.
I know times are hard for many. But our commitment to our long-term plan of strengthening and broadening our tax base is worth the sacrifice. Clinton isn’t like other towns in our region. We were built on mills and stores and factories. Business and industry is part of who we are. We would not survive without them.
The bottom line is that Clinton is once again a place where people want to live, work and spend their free time because we were willing to make the hard decisions necessary to put us on this path. We cannot change course now.
If this about-face bothers you as much as it does me, speak up. Tonight’s hearing is the first item on the agenda and will start just after 7 p.m. Come and have your voice heard. Or email us today at selectmen@clintonma.gov. Every voice counts.
I wanted to expand on my comments during the Select Board’s recent discussion about getting more town boards and committees onto local cable television and the town’s YouTube account.
The Item had a story on the meeting on the front page of today’s paper.
When I joined the Cable Committee in 2017, one of my first goals was to get as much local government on television as possible. The Select Board and School Committee are fortunate in that all of our meetings are broadcast live on CCTV (and, once we expanded to web broadcasting, also YouTube). Archives of our meetings can also now be found online, for people who can’t watch live.
But, back then, most other town boards didn’t have that option. We didn’t have the personnel or equipment to cover so many meeting spaces, and some people didn’t see the need.
In 2019, when Ed Devault joined the Cable Committee and I took over as chair, we hired a full-time station director and started work on filling out programming. We both agreed that broadcasting more meetings wouldn’t just give us more content, but it would help you better see all the good work the rest of local government does. We really saw it as a win-win, both for our rebooted cable channel and the community at large.
So I have to say I was disappointed to learn that the Council on Aging voted unanimously last month to keep their meetings off the air. I guess I can understand how some people who aren’t accustomed to a spotlight might feel uncomfortable in it. And I understand that the majority of people who work in town government don’t do it to get famous or to draw attention to themselves.
As an independent board, it was a unanimous decision by the COA board to not video meetings for Community Television. The overall feeling is that the public is well aware of the activities and programming provided by the COA and the logistics of videotaping could impact scheduled activities at the center and would be redundant for people who would be interested in the schedule and activities of the COA.
Council on Aging Chair James LeBlanc, in an September 22 email to Select Board Chair Matt Kobus
What I don’t understand is how anyone in pubic service can claim that we’re doing enough to get the word out about what is happening in town, the decisions we debate and make each meeting, or how your tax dollars are being spent.
We don’t have a daily newspaper. Our weekly newspaper was just spared from near death, but is still understaffed and under-resourced. (Here’s hoping this week’s announcement soon changes that.) And yet local government is more complicated and important than ever. To hide anything we do from the biggest possible audience is a disservice to democracy and our duty as public servants.
Forget about relying on the “‘number of avenues that communications are put out,’ such as [the Council on Aging’s] newsletter, emails and Facebook page.” These are all well produced and well read, I’m sure.
Still, it’s not enough. We need to find more ways to connect with you and and the community at large. We need to show that transparency and accountability aren’t just words some people throw around at election time. They have to mean something.
You deserve nothing less.
We’ll keep working with the COA and other boards to show them the value that broadcasting meetings can bring to their mission and to our community. In the meantime, you’re welcome to wander in to the Council on Aging meetings, as COA Chair James LeBlanc offered when he met with us. (But don’t take my word for it. Thanks to our meetings being broadcast, you can click here and see for yourself.)
Or better yet, as Mr. LeBlanc suggested, contact the Council on Aging at 978-733-4747 or coa@clintonma.gov and tell them how you feel about seeing their meetings on CCTV and YouTube. If they don’t listen to us, maybe they’ll listen to you.
I was thrilled to take part in yesterday’s Clinton Area Chamber of Commerce economic development summit at The Museum of Russian Icons. So great to see local, state and business leaders come together to talk about keeping our momentum going. After a breakfast meeting, we took a walking tour of downtown, including a look backstage at The Strand Theatre.
We’ve come a long way, but there’s still so much more we want to do. It’s nice to know we have the support of our delegation at the State House — Harriette Chandler, Senator John J. Cronin, and State Representative Meg Kilcoyne — and a newly invigorated Chamber in our corner. Thanks also to Tim Murray and his team at the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce for their help in pulling this event together. #thisisclinton
The town of Clinton is currently updating its Hazard Mitigation Plan. This plan is important because it helps the town plan and receive funding for projects that reduce the risk of injury or damage to property from future natural hazard events such as flooding, severe storms, and drought.
The Clinton Local Hazard Mitigation Committee needs your help and input as it gathers information for the plan. The information you provide in the attached survey will help coordinate activities and identify projects. The survey should take less then 10 minutes to complete and responses will remain anonymous.
Please take a few minutes to complete the survey today. It’ll go a long way toward making sure Clinton gets the funding it needs to help fight future natural disasters.
In light of the Supreme Court’s declaration of war on female bodily autonomy, it’s more important than ever that people seeking reproductive health services get help from real health-care professionals.
The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office has recently issued a consumer advisory warning patients seeking reproductive health services about the limited and potentially misleading nature of the services provided by crisis pregnancy centers. In Massachusetts, abortion remains legal, and people have a right to access comprehensive reproductive health care.
Unfortunately, in Clinton and other communities, many crisis pregnancy centers present themselves falsely to women in need of real help during what can be a confusing, troubling time. They do not provide comprehensive reproductive health care. Instead, despite what they advertise, they are organizations that seek to prevent people from accessing a full complement of reproductive health-care options, things like contraception and abortion care.
If you or someone you know needs reproductive health care, please make sure they seek out a licensed reproductive health-care provider by talking to their doctor or by checking this list.
At the June 1, 2022, Select Board meeting, I placed an item on the agenda that shouldn’t have been there. Once this mistake was made, however, I could’ve done things differently. I did not and, because of my mishandling of the discussion, the meeting went totally out of control.
The way I treated members of the board and members of our community was unacceptable.
I am ashamed of my actions. I apologize to my board, and to anyone who was at the meeting or watching at home. Most important, I apologize to the entire town. You elected me to serve you, and I did a poor job of doing that on Wednesday. It was by far the lowest point in my five years on the Select Board.
The town of Clinton deserves better than what it got from me on June 1. I promise I’ll learn from this mistake, and I pledge to serve you better in the days ahead.
Sean Kerrigan, Clinton Select Board 