Pool Funding Defeated by Razor-Thin Margin

It was about as close as could be.

Voters at Hamilton Town Meeting on Monday night turned down a proposal to use $2.5 million in Community Preservation Act money to build a new pool at Patton Park.

The final tally was 219 voters in favor and 112 opposed. The measure required two-thirds support, or 221 votes, so it came up short. Two-third was needed because it called for borrowing $1.959 million and borrowing measures require two-thirds approval.

The vote came after about 75 minutes of discussion in the auditorium at Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School.

A total of 360 voters, or 8.9 percent of the town's 5,653 registered voters attended the meeting. The crowd filled a significant portion of the auditorium.

Before the final vote, voters turned down a motion from resident Jay Burnham to refer the proposal back to the Community Preservation Committee and have it brought back to Annual Town Meeting in April.

The vote on the CPA spending started as a voice vote and then moved to a “visual vote” where Moderator Bruce Ramsey took a look at the voter cards being raised from his position on the stage.

When that was too close to call, he went to a “teller count” and the tellers went row-by-row taking a tally. There was no recount.