WHITEFIELD — Voters at the annual Town Meeting this past weekend approved town budget proposals but voted down a proposed moratorium on commercial solar development and the proposed purchase of an electronic sign.

Residents approved every town funding article put before them, effectively passing the proposed $3.8 million town budget that was up by 2% over last year’s $3.7 million budget, according to Town Clerk Yolanda Violette.

About 100 residents attended Saturday’s annual Town Meeting, Violette said.

They also approved an ordinance regulating medical marijuana cultivation facilities, which will regulate commercial grow operations and limit the number of such facilities in town to just one. Those rules would not apply to home-based businesses.

Residents, after extensive debate, rejected a proposed 180-day moratorium on new commercial or community solar developments, and a proposal to use federal pandemic relief funds to purchase an electronic sign for town use, Violette said Monday.

The sign proposal would have used up to $20,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funds received by the town from the federal government to purchase an electronic changeable sign, to be installed at either the fire station or Town Office. Violette said there was a lot of discussion about the proposed purchase and residents ultimately voted it down.

Residents also rejected a proposal to temporarily ban any new solar energy commercial or community developments for 180 days, to give the Planning Board time to write an ordinance regulating such commercial developments. The moratorium would not have applied to solar panel collection systems of individuals on their own property for personal use.

Violette said a landowner and a solar company developer who together have a project in town currently before the Planning Board spoke about the moratorium at the meeting, as did Daniel Burns, a Planning Board member.

Some residents expressed concern the moratorium could delay that current project, and the moratorium was voted down.

Violette said she didn’t know if the tax rate will increase until the Regional School Unit 12 and county budgets are finalized. The tax rate is currently at $17.89 per $1,000 of property value.

Friday, in secret ballot voting in municipal elections, residents elected: Seth Bolduc, with 81 votes, and Keith Sanborn, with 85 votes, to two open spots on the Select Board; Glenn Angell, with 91 votes, to the Planning Board, and Kathleen Goetzman, with 75 votes, to Regional School Unit 12 board of directors.

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