Truro DPW vote is back on after voter challenges are resolved. When and where to vote.

After a series of voter registration challenges and a larger-than-expected turnout forced Truro to reschedule its November town meeting, the town is now gearing up for a weekend of back-to-back meetings with a combined tally of 57 articles between both warrants.

Truro Select Board Vice Chair Susan Areson said the idea is to commence the annual town meeting Saturday, immediately postponing it in order to open the special town meeting. Once all 15 articles on the special town meeting warrant have been addressed, she said the town will then resume the annual town meeting and begin proceedings on the 42 warrant articles therein.

“In essence, meetings that were supposed to be six months apart are now going to be hours apart, maybe one day apart, depending on how long the special town meeting takes,” Areson said.

The 15 special town meeting warrant articles remain unchanged from the ones that were supposed to be voted on in the fall. Top issues voters will consider include competing proposals for a new Department of Public Works facility, as well as a housing initiative to build 160 units on a roughly 70-acre plot.

On the other hand, articles in the annual town meeting warrant encompass a wide scope of focus, including budget amendments, zoning and bylaw changes, funding proposals and certain articles relating to special town meeting items.

Should Truro build a DPW on Route 6 or Town Hall Hill Road?

One of the most contentious issues leading up to the postponed fall special town meeting had to do with plans for a new Department of Public Works facility. Central to each parties’ concerns were the locations and cost of the project.

Articles 2 through 4 and 14 on the special town meeting warrant deal with the location, engineering, construction and cost of the proposed DPW facility. Articles 13 and 42 on the annual town meeting warrant address the project as well.

There are two competing proposals for the new facility. The site the Select Board voted in favor of in July would place the DPW facility at 340 Route 6, which is Article 2 on the special warrant and calls for approximately $28 million to complete. The other site, proposed in special Article 14, calls for the DPW facility to be built on Town Hall Hill and estimates a cost around $16 million, Areson said.

Truro Town Manager Darrin Tangeman said in an email the town has since appointed a committee to review the Article 2 plans. The committee managed to reduce the square footage of the project to 21,050 square feet and reduce the cost from $35 million to the proposed $28 million figure.

“The current (DPW) facility is nearly 50 years old and is in significant need of replacement to provide a safe work environment for public works operations and personnel and to preserve the significant cost of rolling stock (fleet) over time,” Tangeman said.

Articles 13 and 42 in the annual town meeting warrant correspond to the two DPW plans outlined in special town meeting articles 3 and 14. Article 13 corresponds to article 3, requesting the town to appropriate $35 million — which will be changed to $28 million at town meeting — to construct a new facility on Route 6. Article 42 corresponds to special article 14 and asks the town to advance the site engineering and plan development for a facility at the Town Hall Hill location.

If either special articles 3 and 14 are voted down during the special town meeting vote, an annual town meeting vote on articles 13 and 42 will be indefinitely postponed.

“This is going to be really tricky and complicated, because if the Route 6 site is delayed, or the Town Hall Hill site is defeated at the special town meeting, … then the Select Board is going to have to decide whether to push these articles forward,” Areson said.

Housing complex on the Walsh Property

The other significant measures — articles 5 and 6 — on the special town meeting warrant relate to a 160-unit housing initiative on the Walsh property — articles 5 and 6.

“When the committee had a community listening session and community presentation last summer, people freaked out and said it was way too many units,” Areson said, of the committee assessing the plan's viability. “So, they came back with a proposal that said we will build a maximum of 160 units, it will be done in phases, and the first phase would be 50-80 units. ”

$1.4 million for school HVAC and holding meetings outside Truro

Special town meeting warrant article 1 proposes allocating roughly $1.4 million for Truro Central School HVAC and roof repairs. Article 12 on the annual town meeting warrant does the same.

In the annual town meeting warrant, Article 31 addresses the problems raised during the previous attempt to hold the special town meeting at a venue that couldn’t hold the number of people who showed up. Article 31 would allow the town to hold town meetings outside the geographic limits of the town at a site capable of hosting a large sum of voters.

What is town meeting?

A town meeting is a gathering of a town’s eligible voters and a legislative body for towns in Massachusetts.

Thirteen of the 15 Cape Cod towns, including Truro, have “open town meetings,” meaning all voters who live in that town may vote on all matters. Falmouth has a “representative town meeting,” where all voters elect town meeting members who then vote on all town meeting matters. The town of Barnstable is governed by an elected town council rather than by a town meeting.

Where and when is Truro's town meeting?

The meetings are scheduled to be held Saturday at Truro Central School at 10 a.m. — with check-in beginning at 8:30 a.m. A copy of both warrants can be found on the town of Truro’s website, here.

Walker Armstrong reports on all things Cape and Islands, primarily focusing on courts, transportation and the Joint Base Cape Cod military base. Contact him at WArmstrong@capecodonline.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jd__walker.

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Where will Truro build its new DPW? Contentious vote this weekend.