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Hull voters approve funds for field, track
By Johanna Seltz
Globe Correspondent

Hull Town Meeting reaffirmed its support Monday for a $1.9 million artificial turf field and track at Hull High School. But Town Manager Philip Lemnios said actual construction of the project depends on voters’ passage of a larger debt exclusion Tuesday, May 10.

The vote asks for permission for Hull to spend more on debt payments — about $5.3 million in the next five years — than allowed under the constraints of Proposition 2½, the state tax-limiting law.

If approved, the debt exclusion would add $209 to the bill of the average Hull property taxpayer in 2017, with the amount gradually falling to $30 over the 17-year life of the bond, Lemnios said.

Hull would use the money in the next five years to repair more than half the roads in town, as well as for improvements to six playgrounds, emergency sea wall repairs, and to install the new high school field.

The turf field has been a contentious topic since fall of 2015, when Town Meeting first rejected the proposal, then voted for it after midnight in what opponents called a legal but “morally bankrupt’’ reconsideration maneuver.

Local residents, led by Rhoda Kanet, brought the issue back to this spring Town Meeting, asking for the 2015 vote to be voided. The measure failed, as the project’s supporters argued that the current grass field at the high school was overused and in poor shape and that only an artificial turf surface would work there.

Johanna Seltz can be reached at seltzjohanna@gmail.com.