In the five years since Derek Narducci has lived in Warner, he’s watched his tax bill increase by 40 percent.

At this year’s town meeting, residents will weigh roughly a 30 percent increase to the local portion of their tax bills, and with that, Narducci is throwing his hat in the race for a seat on the select board.

“A lot of people will complain about how things are and nobody really has any solutions, nobody has ideas and everybody’s really always comfortable with complaining,” he said. “I’m not going to just complain. It’s not in my nature.”

Narducci is running against longtime resident Alfred Hanson, who grew up in Warner and has served on the town’s budget committee for over a decade.

“I want to continue, and I just want to give back,” Hanson said. “I’ve got some ideas to hopefully make some stuff a little different, more affordable.”

Warner residents will vote on a warrant article to expand their select board to five members at Town Meeting, but that change would not go into effect until next year. In the meantime, residents will elect either Hanson or Narducci to fill a three-year seat on the board.

Narducci has heard concerns from older residents on fixed incomes and watched others gripe at select board meetings and on the floor at previous town meetings. Now, he wants to do something about it.

While decisions at the state level impact local property tax bills, Narducci thinks that Warner residents deserve full transparency on how local decisions are impacting their bills.

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That would mean doing away with midday select board meetings, publishing meeting minutes in a timely manner and opening Town Hall on Tuesday nights and Saturdays to engage with residents.

“I want residents to come to me. I want them to bring me their ideas,” he said. “Obviously we have tax issues, but if they have revenue issues, I want to listen to everybody. This is your town, this is your government, this is your money.”

He hopes greater accessibility will help eliminate the need for people to file right to know requests for meeting recordings, sealed minutes and other information. That would also help cut expenses, with money currently budgeted for legal advice to handle the 91-A requests.

“We’ve had a lot of closed door meetings with sealed minutes. If nothing sketchy is going on, the optics sure don’t look that way,” he said. “If we were just transparent, we wouldn’t have that issue. We already have budgeting issues in the town, we don’t need to be spending money on that.”

Narducci currently serves on the Warner zoning board and was among a handful of volunteers who stepped forward to fill a vacant select board seat in 2023.

If Hanson can sustain running his own farm in town, he thinks the town of Warner can find level footing after a series of tax increases.

“I’ve had to make adjustments my entire life in order to be successful at what I do. Sometimes we gain, sometimes we lose,” he said. “We got to sharpen are pencil on the lose side and on the other side you need to put it away.”

In his 13 years on the budget committee, Hanson has watched town revenue stay stagnant while expenses grow. Taxpayers make up the difference.

“I think the town can operate quite differently,” he said. “My whole idea of this whole thing is me going to look at things very closely and see where we can make adjustment so it doesn’t impact the taxpayers so much.”

He’s also seen moments of division in the town and hopes that residents will come together and participate more in local government.

In the last 40 years, Hanson joked he has never had to drive more than eight miles to work, working for himself through different business ventures in town. He’s owned a farm and an auto garage and given back the support residents have given him. He said he wants to continue to serve them in return.

“It’s time for me to give back to the town because of what the town has given me,” he said. “I can do that now because I do work for myself, I am self employed. And if it’s the last thing I do, I want to know that I did the best I could.”

BUDGET: Residents will vote on a $4.6 million operating budget, which result in a 29 percent increase to the town portion of residents tax bills. The jump this year comes from a revenue shortfall of over $600,000, which is a 32 percent loss. Increases to employee wages and benefits are also driving spending.

WARRANT ARTICLES: At Town Meeting residents will also consider 26 warrant articles – with proposals to increase the elderly property tax exemption, as well as citizens petitions to increase the tax credit offered to veterans.

Other citizens petitions ask if the town should implement a tax cap, which would restrict the amount of local taxes raised to 3.8 percent each year.

While a ballot question will ask residents if the position of town clerk and tax collector should be combined, a citizen petition warrant article asks voters to spend just over $16,000 on additional compensation for the tax collector.

In addition, voters will be asked to approve a lease on a new highway grader, backhoe and to spend $20,000 to establish a community center capital reserve fund for improvements to the building.

WHEN AND WHERE:

Voting will take place at Warner Town Hall on Tues day, March 11 from 7 a.m. to 7. pm. Town meeting begins at 6 p.m. , also at town hall, on Wednesday, March 12.

Michaela Towfighi