More than 250 Harvard voters were already in the Cronin Auditorium when Moderator Bill Barton called the meeting to order at 12:10 pm last Saturday, April 6. People continued to arrive for the next half hour or more, up to the official total of 392, which is more than double the 2023 turnout.

One of the liveliest discussions at the April 6 Town Meeting involved an article that would allow the town to put a lien on the property owned by any resident who ignores charges, fines, or fees related to town bylaws.

Three and a half hours into Town Meeting, voters began debate on the proposed bylaw to create an 8-acre multifamily zoning district on Ayer Road at the intersection of Route 2. 

Shortly into the warrant articles for Town Meeting, April 6, 2024, came a much anticipated moment, a moment awaited by residents at town meetings going back to 1967—the time to pay tribute to the year’s Citizen of Note. This year that is Bob O’Shea. 

The dilapidated Department of Public Works buildings will finally get the attention they have needed for years. Voters at both Town Meeting and the polls approved the request to borrow $9,894,200 to revamp the facility.

Voters at Tuesday’s Town Election approved two ballot questions, but rejected a third, and returned incumbent moderator Bill Barton to office for a three-year term.

MassDevelopment, the state agency responsible for the commercial and residential development of Devens, signaled last week it is ready to work with the Devens Jurisdiction Framework Committee to increase housing at Vicksburg Square, site of an iconic quadrangle of Army barracks.

Barbi Kelley, longtime physical education teacher in Harvard, has received the Joseph McKenney Award for distinguished service from the Massachusetts Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance.

At Annual Town Meeting Saturday, April 6, voters will be asked to approve 26 articles. The warrant—the meeting’s agenda—is devoted primarily to financial matters. A second Town Meeting is usually convened in the fall to consider changes to the town’s bylaws as well as pressing financial decisions that can’t wait until spring 2025.

It’s a simple story, though its telling is worthy of a Dickens novel. To quote Wilkins Micawber in “David Copperfield,” “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”

The annual Town Election will be held Tuesday, April 9, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., in the Bromfield School cafeteria. Residents will vote for five positions: Select Board, moderator, library trustee, School Committee, and Warner Free Lecture trustee. Additionally, there will be two questions on the ballot, one regarding a DPW building project, and the other regarding a budget override.

Readers who seek a one-page overview of the fiscal 2025 budget—and assurance that it balances—should turn to Harvard’s five-year budgeted revenue and expense projection, sometimes referred to as the “recap.”

Article 22 asks voters whether Harvard should designate an 8-acre overlay district on Ayer Road where multifamily homes could be built by right. To create the zone, a new bylaw must be passed by two-thirds vote.

Ever think about leaving the rusted-out 1983 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme that your grandmother left you in the parking lot at the town beach after dark and walking away? Article 21 may make you think twice.

If residents want the same services that they have come to expect over the past year from their schools, police, fire, and other departments in fiscal 2025, they will need to approve a Proposition 2½ tax override at the ballot box April 9. Voters will have two choices.

If the questions asked and answers given at Tuesday night’s Proposition 2½ override information session are any indication, the town’s senior boards have work to do in educating voters about the financial decisions that await them a week from now at Town Meeting and Town Election.

At a Board of Health meeting on Feb. 26, Chair Sharon McCarthy said she was “outraged” that Town Administrator Tim Bragan changed the board’s budget request for six additional administrative assistant hours to an additional 16 hours. 

The 2023 drinking water quality report for the town’s public water supply was just released, and it shows no actionable items, although sodium has risen to its highest level in at least 15 years.