Pepperell Selectmen Appoint Three Founding Directors for New Cable Access Corporation

PEPPERELL — October 17, 2011 — Pepperell selectmen voted Monday to appoint three founding directors for a new nonprofit cable access corporation and to place a North Middlesex Regional School District budget amendment on the November 7 special town meeting warrant. Richard Potts was appointed to a three-year term, Mark Walsh to a two-year term, and Alan Leo to a one-year term as founding directors of Pepperell Community Media, which will take over local cable programming from the town's cable committee. The board also voted unanimously to hold a single tax rate across all four property classes for fiscal year 2012, with no shift of the tax burden. On the school district matter, the board pushed back against a September 29 letter from district treasurer Michael Hartnett informing Pepperell that the school committee had voted to draw $495,750 from its Excess and Deficiency fund for unemployment, textbooks, and special education costs. "This is an action outside of town meeting — it's a half a million dollars," one selectman said. The board added a warrant article to the November 7 special town meeting requiring voters to formally consider the amendment, a step the other member town of Townsend had already declined to take.