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PLYMOUTH —
Hurry. You may have only 65 days to save 37 cents on dinner for two at the Lobster Hut. Or, try the 75-cent savings at Rye Tavern. A Happy Meal will be about a nickel happier from now until Jan. 16. And you can save a dime at Dominoes, too.
Jan. 14 is the date set for the referendum on the local meals tax. And, assuming residents don’t put a fork in the article Town Meeting approved last month, on the Monday following the election, the town clerk will call the state Department of Revenue and say, “Show me the money!”
Actually, all Town Clerk Laurence Pizer will do if voters affirm Town Meeting’s vote is advise the state that the meals tax rate for Plymouth-based restaurants should – from that point on – be 7, not 6.25 percent.
The Department of Revenue will in turn tell Plymouth restaurant owners to collect that additional three-quarters of a percent as part of the meals tax. The state will continue to collect the funds, but will send .75 percent of the tax collected in Plymouth back to the town.
If voters overrule the Town Meeting vote, nothing needs to happen. The town clerk was required to wait for 10 days after Town Meeting before notifying the Department of Revenue of the vote. Before that time expired, however, the referendum petition was certified.
The date of the referendum was set Tuesday night, when Pizer met with selectmen.
At that meeting, Pizer explained to the board that the town’s charter calls for the referendum to take place within 35 to 45 days of the certification of the signatures of at least 3 percent of the town’s registered voters on a petition calling for the referendum.
That 3 percent has been certified, Pizer said, but because there are hundreds of communities across the commonwealth that are, like Plymouth, redrawing their precinct lines in response to the 2010 federal census, the town should not hold the referendum within that 35-45 day period.
The state’s voter registry database will not be available (to be sure the right people are voting in the right precincts) until the new year.
Likewise, the town needs until mid-January, Pizer said, to educate local voters about the new precinct lines and polling places.
Because the new Precinct 15, which is essentially The Pinehills, has no governmental office space suitable for a polling place, the Stonebridge Club in The Pinehills will be used on election days.
Hurry. You may have only 65 days to save 37 cents on dinner for two at the Lobster Hut. Or, try the 75-cent savings at Rye Tavern. A Happy Meal will be about a nickel happier from now until Jan. 16. And you can save a dime at Dominoes, too.
Jan. 14 is the date set for the referendum on the local meals tax. And, assuming residents don’t put a fork in the article Town Meeting approved last month, on the Monday following the election, the town clerk will call the state Department of Revenue and say, “Show me the money!”
Actually, all Town Clerk Laurence Pizer will do if voters affirm Town Meeting’s vote is advise the state that the meals tax rate for Plymouth-based restaurants should – from that point on – be 7, not 6.25 percent.
The Department of Revenue will in turn tell Plymouth restaurant owners to collect that additional three-quarters of a percent as part of the meals tax. The state will continue to collect the funds, but will send .75 percent of the tax collected in Plymouth back to the town.
If voters overrule the Town Meeting vote, nothing needs to happen. The town clerk was required to wait for 10 days after Town Meeting before notifying the Department of Revenue of the vote. Before that time expired, however, the referendum petition was certified.
The date of the referendum was set Tuesday night, when Pizer met with selectmen.
At that meeting, Pizer explained to the board that the town’s charter calls for the referendum to take place within 35 to 45 days of the certification of the signatures of at least 3 percent of the town’s registered voters on a petition calling for the referendum.
That 3 percent has been certified, Pizer said, but because there are hundreds of communities across the commonwealth that are, like Plymouth, redrawing their precinct lines in response to the 2010 federal census, the town should not hold the referendum within that 35-45 day period.
The state’s voter registry database will not be available (to be sure the right people are voting in the right precincts) until the new year.
Likewise, the town needs until mid-January, Pizer said, to educate local voters about the new precinct lines and polling places.
Because the new Precinct 15, which is essentially The Pinehills, has no governmental office space suitable for a polling place, the Stonebridge Club in The Pinehills will be used on election days.
But the selectmen were more concerned with the cost of the special election and the likelihood that the article could be rejected because of its wording.
Pizer estimates the cost of the special election at a little more than $32,000.
“Is there any way we could delay this until March?” Selectmen Sergio Harnais asked Pizer, in hope of saving that money.
Pizer reiterated that to remain within the spirit of the town charter the referendum has to be held at the earliest possible date.
Harnais also said he’s heard “around and about” that the article’s language might not stand up to close scrutiny.
Pizer said there is no mandated review of these kinds of articles by the Attorney General.
“If you want it reviewed, town counsel is the property agency,” Pizer said.
Town Manager Mark Stankiewicz noted that town counsel had, in fact, looked over the article prior to Town Meeting and, he said, “It passed muster.”
The selectmen voted to approve both the date of the referendum and the location of the Precinct 15 polls.
