Falmouth Town Meeting Adopts New Firearms Bylaw, Funds Local Arts, Upholds Water Bottle Ban

Town Meeting voted to adopt a bylaw ensuring the disposal of surplus firearms, along with likewise-restricted guns, as defined under the Massachusetts Assault Weapons Ban. The bylaw states the guns shall be destroyed, which the Massachusetts State Police can do for free, according to article petitioner Nan Logan. Ms. Logan argued that, without the bylaw, the weapons could be sold into the wrong hands. The Reverend Deborah M. Warner, former minister of the Church of the Messiah in Woods Hole, helped present the article.

“You are quite simply being given the opportunity to choose life over death,” Ms. Warner said.

The new bylaw follows a fierce debate this spring over whether to sell or destroy the police department‘s used assault rifles. The rifles were sold.

Single-Use Plastic Water Bottles

Town Meeting members struck down the petition to repeal the ban on the sale of single-use plastic water bottles. The original ban was approved by Town Meeting in September 2020 and went into effect a year ago. Robert P. Volosevich Jr., who petitioned for the repeal in Article 11, was unable to attend the meeting. Dana C. Nielsen, who had proposed a similar repeal in Article 12, spoke for both of them.

“I’m not against recycling,” Mr. Nielsen said. “I’m against bans that hurt local businesses.”

Many audience members spoke in support of the ban, saying plastic does not biodegrade and leeches chemicals into the environment. Rosemary Carey of precinct 5 pointed out that Falmouth has clean municipal water and refillable water bottle stations around town. 

“Falmouth is a leader in green, sustainability issues,” Ms. Carey said. “Why go backwards?”

Mashpee and Sandwich voters both approved single-use plastic water bottle bans last year, but then repealed them so quickly the bans never went into effect. 

Funding Falmouth Arts And Culture

Falmouth Cultural Council chairwoman Alice Kociemba’s persistence was rewarded with $10,000 in annual town funds for the council, which oversees the dispersal of state money to local artisans and cultural programs. Ms. Kociemba originally petitioned for the town to match the money the council receives each year from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. The finance committee voted against endorsing the request in October, citing a lack of town oversight. 

On the Town Meeting floor, Ms. Kociemba proposed an amendment to her article: allocate a set $7,300 from free cash, with the town manager overseeing distribution to qualified applicants. (This fiscal year, the council received $8,400 from the state.) She said the council must turn down a large number of grant requests and then described the projects the council did fund this past year.

"We do the best we can to stretch the funding," Ms. Kociemba said.

"They rewrote the article to meet what we requested," finance committee chairman Keith Schwegel said. He said the article now allows for the funds to be tracked and approved before a check is written.

Robert Donahue, precinct 3, moved to amend the petition from $7,300 to $10,000. The amendment passed, as did the article.

Zoning Bylaw Changes

Article 3, which corrected a procedural misstep in the recodification of the town's zoning bylaws, passed by the required two-thirds majority. The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office informally rejected the revisions to the zoning bylaws approved by Town Meeting in November 2021. The review found that the exact changes were not clear enough when Town Meeting members approved them. The review also found that some of the changes to the bylaws were substantive rather than simply organizational. Some Town Meeting members argued that the vote on the bylaws should wait until the next Town Meeting to ensure it would not get rejected a second time.

Planning board chairwoman Charlotte Harris presented briefly on the bylaws' changes. She said the concerns from the state were addressed and a detailed explanation of the changes was available on the town's website.

“This is as clean a thing as we can make it,” Ms. Harris said.

All of the articles mentioned above passed by a voice vote, meaning that a clear majority (or two-thirds majority) voted "aye." When votes are too close to call by ear, a full vote count is taken via handheld electronic voting devices. 

Town Meeting also appropriated a total $13.1 million for capital projects and to supplement the operating budget. The next Town Meeting will be on April 10, 2023.