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Chief among them is article 2, which asks voters to appropriate $290,000 for the permitting and survey of the building site for construction of one wind turbine at Wellfleet-by-the Sea that would generate more than $200,000 in revenue to the town by the third year of its operation. Voters will be asked to fund the actual procurement and construction of the turbine at the 2010 Annual Town Meeting in April.
In article 3, votes will be asked to raise and appropriate money to construct and reconstruct Lt. Island Road. This project has been talked about for years; voters will be asked to act on it now, since the town will be eligible for a grant of up to $500,000 to help pay for it. A positive vote at the meeting is necessary as a condition of applying for this grant under the Small Town Road Assistance Program.
Town Administrator Paul Sieloff says he is confident that the town has an excellent chance of receiving this grant. However, there is some concern that this is not the time to take on such a project.
Article 4 would authorize the imposition of a local option meals tax of 75 cents on the sale of restaurant meals within the town, and article 5, would amend the local excise tax on the rental of hotel, motel, bed and breakfast and lodging homes within the town from 4 percent to 6 percent. This 2 percent increase in the room tax would raise an estimated $40,000 in revenue for the town.
Selectman Dale Donovan, chair of the board of selectmen, said these articles no doubt will be controversial.
Article 14 asks voters to allow the selectmen to convey 9.48 acres of the land on which the senior center is built to Outer Cape Health Services for possible construction of a community municipal health center.
Bruce Bierhans, an officer on the board of directors of Outer Cape Health Services, said, "I'm obviously very much in favor of this because I am hopeful it will advance to a significant degree the probability of getting a new Outer Cape Health facility built in Wellfleet to serve all of our Wellfleet patients."
Questions came up at a recent meeting about whether there would be room on this site to also have apartments, possibly to house Outer Cape Health Center's workers.
"We haven't gotten to that point yet," Bierhans said. "The stage that we are at now is just getting the town's support for a location for a facility. Obviously, there would be other planning and considerations after that point. This is just the first stage. "
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