Shall the Town of Hampton vote to raise and appropriate the sum of $50,000 for the purpose of removing trees from the High Street Cemetery in order to protect grave sites, gravestones and abutting properties and roadways, such sum to be used by the Tree Warden under contract for the removal of the trees and for the restoration of said Cemetery caused by such removal, and to authorize the Tree Warden in consultation with the Board of Selectmen, Town Manager and the Cemetery Trustees, to contract the work for said purposes, and to authorize funding for said appropriation through the withdrawal of $50,000 from the principal in the Cemetery Maintenance Trust Fund, which has a principal balance of more than $500,000 generated from the sale of cemetery burial lots? (Majority vote required)
What it means: The Town of Hampton owns cemeteries, among the largest of which is the High Street cemetery. There are many trees in the cemetery, and quite a few are dead or dying, or have large branches that are compromised. The Trustees put forward Article 33 because they feel that it is a basic maintenance obligation of the Town and that a hazard exists for visitors and vehicles. The tree removal will be performed using principal from a fund that was set up as a funding source from which annual interest was to be disbursed annually. This use of the principal was allowed via Article 33 in 2016, which passed.
Those in favor say: Removing trees and doing long-overdue pruning represents an important safety issue. These are Town-owned cemeteries, and the Town is responsible for their upkeep. Last year’s request for $50,000 to remove dead trees failed, receiving only 29% approval vote. The work needs to be done, and the funding available to the Cemetery Trustees is limited. The annual interest from the fund was $16,000 last year and about $20,000 this year. This is not enough to fund the larger expenses, as well as pay for general annual maintenance. Articles 31, 32 and 33 outline work/equipment of $103,000.
Those against say: The issue with Articles 31, 32 and 33 is that the Cemetery Maintenance Fund was set up to use the annual interest to support upkeep. If the principal is reduced by the amounts requested in these 3 articles, it will reduce the fund by about 20%. This in turn will substantially reduce the interest in future years that is available to support needed annual care of the cemeteries.
Fiscal impact: There is no direct tax impact because the money will be taken from a dedicated cemetery fund. However, removing principal will reduce the available funding in future years.