Town Meeting Warrant Tuesday, June 5, 2018 at 7 PM

TOWN WARRANT
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
FRANKLIN, ss.
To the Constable of the Town of Wendell in the County of Franklin,
Greetings,
In the name of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, you are hereby directed to notify and warn the 
inhabitants of said Town, qualified to vote in elections and in Town affairs, to meet in the Town Hall in said 
Town on Tuesday, June 5, 2018 at 7 PM, then and there to act on the following articles:
ARTICLE 1: To see if the Town will vote to accept the reports of Town Officials as printed in the Town 
Report, or take any action thereon.
ARTICLE 2: To see if the Town will vote to authorize the Town Treasurer, with the approval of the 
Selectboard, to borrow money from time to time in anticipation of the revenue of the fiscal year beginning 
July 1, 2018 in accordance with the provisions of the MGL Chapter 44, Section 4, and to issue a note or 
notes as may be given for a period of less than one year in accordance with MGL Chapter 44, Section 17, or 
take any action thereon.
ARTICLE 3:  To see if the Town will vote to authorize the Town Treasurer to enter into compensating 
balance agreements during fiscal year 2019 as permitted by MGL Chapter 44, Section 53F, or take any 
action thereon.
ARTICLE 4: To see if the Town will vote to fix the salary, compensation, and expenses of all elected and 
appointed officials of the Town for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2018, as provided in MGL Chapter 41, 
as amended, and to see if the Town will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of $2,649,601 from taxation or 
such other sum of money as deemed necessary to defray such salaries and expenses for that period, or take 
any action thereon.
ARTICLE 5: To see if the Town will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of  $65,789 to pay the fiscal year
2019 debt service on the Town Building Construction loan, or take any action thereon:
ARTICLE 6: To see if the Town will vote to raise and appropriate or transfer from available funds the sum 
of  $12,099 to pay the fiscal year 2019 debt service on the Mahar Construction loan, or take any action 
thereon.
ARTICLE 7:  To see if the Town will vote to raise and appropriate or transfer from available funds the sum 
of $15,000 for the Reserve Fund, or take any action thereon.
ARTICLE 8: To see if the Town will vote to raise and appropriate or transfer from available funds the sum 
of $6,000 for the Independent Audit expenses, or take any action thereon.
ARTICLE 9: To see if the Town will vote to raise and appropriate or transfer from available funds the sum 
of $34,522 for Group Health Insurance, or take any action thereon.
ARTICLE 10:  To see if the Town will vote to raise and appropriate or transfer from available funds the 
sum of $2,000 for Tax Title Expense, or take any action thereon.
ARTICLE 11: To see if the Town will vote to raise and appropriate or transfer from available funds the sum
of $5,000 to pay for Fire Department turn-out gear, or take any action thereon.
ARTICLE 12: To see if the Town will vote to raise and appropriate or transfer from available funds the sum
of $32,000 from the Stabilization Fund to pay the 2019 debt on the Highway Department dump/sander/plow 
truck or take any action thereon.
ARTICLE 13:  To see if the Town will vote to raise and appropriate or transfer from available funds the 
sum of $8,000 to pay for Wendell’s share of capital projects at Swift River School, or take any action 
thereon.
ARTICLE 14: To see if the Town will vote to transfer from Stabilization the sum of $35,000 to reduce the 
tax rate, or take any action thereon. 
ARTICLE 15: To see if the Town will vote to apply for, accept, and expend any Federal, State, and private 
monies, such as Community Development Block Grants, Public Safety Grants, Massachusetts Public Library
Construction Funds, etc., or take any action thereon.
ARTICLE 16: To see if the Town will vote to transfer the sum of $108,643 from Free Cash to the 
Stabilization Fund, or take any action thereon.
ARTICLE 17: To see if the Town will vote to authorize the Selectboard to declare certain items as surplus, 
and to trade in or sell surplus equipment, or take any action thereon.
ARTICLE 18: To see if the Town will vote to transfer the sum of $15,200 from the Rehab Loan Payback 
Account to complete repairs to the Town Hall crawlspace, or take any action thereon.
ARTICLE 19: To see if the Town will vote to transfer the sum of $20,000 from the Rehab Loan Payback 
Account to cover the cost of purchasing and installing solar panels on the Town Office Building, or take any 
action thereon.
ARTICLE 20: To see if the Town will vote to transfer the sum of $2,600 from the Rehab Loan Payback 
Account to pay for the replacement of three windows on the south side of the Senior Center/Community 
Center, or take any action thereon.
ARTICLE 21:  To see if the Town will vote to transfer sum of $65,368 from the Rehab Loan Payback 
Account to establish a new Energy Repair Program Account, a revolving loan fund for citizen rehab and 
conservation loans on their houses, or take any action thereon. These loans will not accrue interest and will 
not have to be paid back until the homeowner gets a new loan on their property or until the property is sold. 
The loan will create a lien in favor of the Town on the property.
ARTICLE 22: To see if the Town will vote to adopt the following resolution or take any action thereon:
We call on the United States to lead a global effort to prevent nuclear war by:
* Renouncing the option of using nuclear weapons first
* Ending the president’s sole, unchecked authority to launch a nuclear attack
* Taking US nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert
* Cancelling the plan to replace its entire arsenal with enhanced weapons
* Actively pursuing a verifiable agreement among nuclear armed states to eliminate their nuclear 
arsenals
The Town Clerk is directed to send copies of this resolution to the two Massachusetts US Senators and to the
U.S. Representative for this district, and to the President and Secretary of State of the United States.
ARTICLE 23: To see if the Town will vote to adopt the following resolution or take any action thereon:

Resolution in Support of Changing the State Flag and Seal of Massachusetts
Whereas the history of the State of Massachusetts is replete with instances of conflict between the European
Colonists and the Native Nations of the region, who first extended the hand of friendship to the Colonists on their 
shores in 1620, and helped them to survive starvation during the settlers' first winters on their land;
Whereas members of the Native Nation for whom the State of Massachusetts is named were ambushed and killed by 
Myles Standish, first commander of the Plymouth Colony, in April of 1623, barely two years after the Pilgrims arrived 
on their shores;
Whereas the naked Colonial broadsword brandished above the head of the Native man on the Massachusetts State Flag
and Seal is copied from Myles Standish's own broadsword, borrowed from the Pilgrim Hall in Plymouth by the 
illustrator Edmund Garrett in 1884;
Whereas the belt binding the Native's cloak on the Flag and Seal is modeled after a belt worn by Metacomet, known to 
the English as King Philip, who was among the Wampanoag leaders who resorted to a mutually destructive war in 
1675-76 in defense of Native lands against Euro-Colonial encroachment;
Whereas the proportions of the body of the Native man in the Flag and Seal were taken from a Native skeleton kept in 
Winthrop, the bow modeled after a bow taken from a Native man shot and killed by a colonist in Sudbury in 1665, and
his features taken from a photograph of an Ojibwe chief from Great Falls, Montana, considered by the illustrator to be 
a “fine specimen of an Indian,” though not from Massachusetts;
Whereas the history of relations between Massachusetts since Colonial times and the Native Nations who continue to 
live within its borders includes the forced internment of thousands of so-called “praying Indians” on Deer Island, in 
Boston Harbor, where they died by the hundreds of exposure in 1675, their subsequent enslavement in Boston, 
Bermuda, and the Caribbean Islands, the offering of 40 pounds sterling as bounty for the scalps of Native men, women
and children in Massachusetts beginning in 1686, increased to 100 pounds sterling for the scalps of Native adult males 
by 1722, half that amount for Native women and children;
Whereas Native Nations within the boundaries of Massachusetts were kept in a state of serfdom, and their members 
legally considered incompetent wards of the state until the nonviolent action of the so-called Mashpee Rebellion of 
1833 led to the granting of Native self rule by the Massachusetts legislature in 1834, as if the sovereign right of Native 
self-government was the Massachusetts legislature's to confer;
Whereas Native Americans were legally prohibited from even stepping foot into Boston from 1675 until 2004, when 
that law was finally repealed;
Whereas the 400th anniversary of the landing of the Euro-Colonists at Plymouth Plantation, which gave rise to the long 
chain of genocidal wars and deliberate policies of cultural destruction against Native Nations of this continent, is 
approaching in the year 2020, affording every citizen of the Commonwealth a chance to reflect upon this history and 
come to a new awareness of a better relationship between the descendants of the Euro-Colonial immigrants and the 
Native Nations of these shores;
And whereas Native Americans have long suffered the many abuses of racism, the appropriation of their symbols for 
public schools and sports teams, the diminution and pollution of their ancestral lands and the encroachment of their 
cultural lifeways;
Therefore we, the voters of the Town of Wendell, support the bill introduced by State Representative Byron Rushing, 
(D-Suffolk) H-1707 calling for an investigation by a special commission, including members of the legislature and 
representatives of Native Nations of Massachusetts, to recommend changes to the State Flag and Seal of the 
Commonwealth.
Be it further resolved that within five days of the dissolution of this town meeting, the town clerk shall forward copies 
of this resolution to Representative Susannah Whipps, to the Senator who is elected to replace Stanley Rosenberg, to 
the chairpersons and members of the Massachusetts House Ways and Means Committee, to which H-1707 was 
reported with an “ought to pass” recommendation by the House Rules Committee on February 22nd, 2018, and to 
Executive Director Geoffrey Beckwith of the Massachusetts Municipal Association.
ARTICLE 24: To transact any other legal business that may come before said meeting, or take any action 
thereon.
And you are directed to serve this Warrant by posting up attested copy thereof at the Wendell Town Office 
Building, 7 days at least prior to the time of holding said meeting.
Hereof fail not, and make due return of this Warrant with your doings thereon, to the Town Clerk, at the time
and place of meeting, as aforesaid.
Given under our hands this 22nd  day of May in the year of our Lord two thousand and eighteen
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SELECTBOARD
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OF
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     WENDELL
A true copy.  Attest: ________________________________________, Constable
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