Walpole rejects override; Scituate voters are split

Increase taxes or streamline services?

For thousands of Massachusetts residents, that was yesterday's question of the day.

And their answers varied.

In Walpole, residents rejected a plan to increase tax revenue by $3.9 million.

Supporters had said the money would help keep the town's budget balanced for the next three years and would restore town and school jobs eliminated in recent years.

But Darlene Leonard in the town clerk's office said last night that 48 percent of the town's registered voters came out to defeat the proposed override by a nearly 2 to 1 ratio, 4,545 to 2,937.

Meanwhile in Scituate, five override questions had mixed results. Voters approved two overrides, for $2.7 million and $800,000, but rejected two others that would have paid for a new senior center and firefighters' salaries. The results of a fifth proposal -- for a $3.5 million fire station -- were too close to call last night.

In Harvard, nearly 600 residents came to the annual Town Meeting to consider three proposed tax increase plans. By day's end, they had agreed to place two of the proposed tax increases on the ballot in this Tuesday's town election.

One calls for generating an additional $650,000 in property taxes to supplement the town's operating budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

The second calls for increasing tax revenue by $113,500 to increase the math and science education budget for the local schools.

But a third proposed tax increase which would have paid for a new $140,000 dump truck for the town's Public Works department was rejected for the ballot by Town Meeting.

"It was a great Town Meeting," said David Westerling, the town moderator, late yesterday afternoon. "People walked away feeling refreshed about the government process."