Sharon voters give nod to bonding for transfer station

SHARON — At a town meeting that lasted a mere 17 minutes (including the nearly 10 minutes needed by the town clerk to read the meeting’s “call�), approximately 25 Sharon residents approved the financing plan that will allow the town to proceed with plans for a new transfer station.

The meeting was at Town Hall on Friday night, April 17.

Also at the meeting,  Sharon residents approved the annual town report; and approved a change in the language of the ordinance that creates the new Salisbury-Sharon Resource Recovery Authority.

Many meetings, hearings and votes led up to Friday’s vote. At an earlier meeting this year, residents of Sharon were asked to approve an ordinance creating a shared transfer station authority. Sharon and Salisbury will share control of the new entity — and of the planned transfer station on Route 44 near Dimond Road in Salisbury, near the Millerton border.

The present transfer station is on Route 41 in Salisbury on property owned by The Hotchkiss School.

The Route 44 property will cost each of the towns $700,000. The town of Sharon approved a plan at Friday’s meeting to take out a bond anticipation note in the amount of $760,000. The note is good for one year, explained Sharon First Selectman Malcolm Brown. Interest rates at this time are expected to be very low, especially for towns with a good credit rating, he said. The rate for Sharon’s note could be between .5 and 2.5 percent.

In the next year, he said, a building committee for the new transfer station will be formed and an engineer will be hired to design and plan the facility. After the plans are firm, Brown said, the towns will have a sense of how much the station will cost to build (estimates are that it will be less than $1.5 million).

“In a year, we’ll go for the full bond,� Brown said.

The full bond will pay off the bond anticipation note. The additional $60,000 added to the purchase price for the land of $700,000 will cover expected interest costs, legal fees and engineering fees.