Acting on 30-plus articles one night is no joke, but there were moments that bordered on comedy during the opening night of Concord's annual Town Meeting, which convened Monday night at Concord-Carlisle High School.

There was the one retirement-related jest about Selectman Greg Howes' bid for the 3rd Middlesex state senate seat Susan Fargo is vacating after her current term.

And School Committee Chairman Peter Fischelis bravely introduced the high school budget with thanks and a line about Concord-Carlisle losing out on the top spot in Boston Magazine's list of best schools over a rumor about outsourcing the entire district. That one was an obvious refrerence to the recent uproar over, and subsequent reversal of, plans to privatize transportation services that have been handled in-house.

Finally, with the town and school budgets behind him, Town Moderator Eric Van Loon vocalized that it had been a quiet night for annual Town Meeting. Minutes later, with the roads program and Light Plant expansion plans out of the way, Van Loon remarked on the number of unanimous votes. 

And then, on the final article of the evening, a zoning amendment that lays out regulations for a large-scale solar installation, Town Meeting spent more time debating three words than it had approving four budgets.

Concord's annual Town Meeting reconvenes at 7 p.m. tonight at CCHS, and there's a special Town Meeting scheduled for 7:30 p.m. In the meantime, here's a breakdown of what the opening night articles and actions:

Article 1 – Choose Town Officers What it asked: Nothing, really. What happened: Town Moderator Eric Van Loon read off results of the March elections. What that means: n/a

Article 2 – Consent Calendar What it asked: That articles 3, 4, 5, 11, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 29, 30, 31 and 41 be taken together and acted upon without any discussion or debate. What happened:  Approved by more than two-thirds majority.  What that means:  This collection of mostly routine annual actions were lumped together and voted without debate, because they’re generally considered noncontroversial.

Article 3 – Meeting Procedure What it asked: To adopt a rule of the meeting to assure compliance with the requirements of Proposition 2 1/2. What happened: Approved as part of the consent calendar. What that means: It’s an annual procedure that specifies every motion to appropriate funds is required to identify the source of that funding.

Article 4 – Ratify Personnel Board Classification Actions What it asked: To amend the classification and compensation plan to reflect changes the Personnel Board has voted since January. What happened:  Approved as part of the consent calendar. What that means: Five temporary changes approved by the Personnel Board are now ratified.

Article 5 – Classification and Compensation Plan for Regular Status Positions What it asked: To amen the classification and compensation plan that outlines hourly rates and salary ranges for regular-status town positions. What happened: Approved as part of the consent calendar. What that means: Salary ranges are established in the plan, which keeps salaries competitive in the market and maintains internal equity and comparability with unionized employees. The Town Manager and Personnel Board set actual salary increases after Town Meeting.

Article 6 – Town Budget What it asked: For approval of a $35,263,484 budget to provide for all tax-supported town operations. What happened: Approved What that means: That Town Meeting has approved a budget that Town Manager Chris Whelan says maintains current programs and allows for modest improvements within the spending guideline set by the Finance Committee in November 2011.

Article 7 – Public School Budget What it asked: For a $29,755,538 operating budget for the Concord Public Schools for the fiscal year ending June 30 2013. What happened: Approved by more than two-thirds. What that means: That the public schools for students pre-K through 8 have a budget of $29.75 million for the 2012-2013 school year.

Article 8 – Concord Public Schools Renovations What it asked: For $675,000 for renovations and repairs at Concord Public School facilities. What happened: Approved by more than two-thirds vote. What that means: That there’s funding available for things like flooring and asbestos work at Concord Middle School’s Peabody and Sanborn buildings, plus HVAC at Peabody and meeting room improvements at the Ripley Building.

Article 9 – Concord Public Schools – Supplemental Appropriation for Current Year What it asked: For $325,000 to cover unanticipated special education costs incurred during fiscal 2012 in the Concord Public Schools. There were increased needs for pre-school special needs students, ages 3 to 5, according to the language of the article. What happened: No motion made. What that means: n/a

Article 10 – Concord-Carlisle Regional High School Budget What it asked: For the appropriation of $15,320,349, the town’s assessed share of Concord-Carlisle High School’s budget for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2013. What happened: Approved unanimously after the article was introduced with a big thanks to voters who approved a new CCHS. What that means: That Concord taxpayers will pitch in their share for the public high school.

Article 11 – Concord-Carlisle Regional School District Technology Stabilization Fund Transfer What it asked: For $250,000 from the fiscal 2011 high school budget for technology expenses. What happened: Approved as part of the consent calendar. What that means: An addition to the stabilization fund.

Article 12 – Minuteman Career and Technical High School Budget  What it asked: To appropriate $437,910 for the Minuteman High School budget for the 2012-2013 school year. What happened: Passed with no debate. What that means: That the town has agreed to pay its regional assessment to the regional vocational school district of which it is a member.

Article 13 – Minuteman Regional Vocational School District Stabilization Fund What it asked: For approval of the establishment of a stabilization fund for Minuteman High School to pay for capital repairs, renovations and improvements. What happened: Approved with no questions or debate. What that means: That Concord has supported the establishment of the fund, which requires a two-thirds vote of all of the district towns. (That’s 11 ‘yes’ votes.)

Article 14 – Free Cash Use What it asked: To authorize and direct the Assessors to take $850,000 from free cash to reduce the tax levy for the current fiscal year. What happened: Approved as part of the consent calendar. What that means:  A portion of the available general fund balance is being used to support the 2013 budget.

Article 15 – Elementary School Debt Stabilization Fund Use What it asked: For $475,000 from the Elementary School Debt Stabilization Fund to be put toward debt service due in fiscal 2013 from bonds issued for the Alcott, Thoreau and Willard school building projects. What happened: Approved as part of the consent calendar. What that means: Completing the third year in a five-year planned allocation period to reduce the tax impact of the debt service cost.

Article 16 – Unpaid Bills What it asked: For an appropriation to pay unpaid bills from prior years. What happened: No motion made. What that means:

Article 17 – Property Tax Exemptions What it asked: For approval to increase state-set property tax exemption amounts by 100 percent. What happened: Approved as part of the consent calendar. What that means: That, as it has since 2001, Concord’s annual Town Meeting has voted to double the state-set property tax exemption amounts for disabled veterans, blind persons and older residents who meet income and asset limitation requirements.

Article 18 – Light Plant Payment in Lieu of Taxes What it asked: To authorize the transfer of $385,000 from the Concord Municipal Light Plant’s operating fund to be used by the Board of Assessors to reduce the tax levy. What happened: Approved as part of the consent calendar. What that means: It’s an annual action in which funds are transferred from the Light Plant’s operating fund to the General Fund as a payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) roughly equivalent to the amount an investor-owned utility would pay in property taxes.

Article 19 – Light Plant Expenditures What it asked: To allow Light Plant’s income from electricity sales and service to be appropriated for the utility’s expenses. What happened: Approved as part of the consent calendar. What that means: Another routine annual action. This one permits the town Manager, as the manager of the Light Plant, to use CMLP’s income to cover its expenses.

Article 20 – Road Repair Revolving Fund Expenditures What it asked: That income from fees paid by applicants for town permits to dig up, alter or disturb a public way be used to road maintenance and repairs. What happened: Approved as part of the consent calendar. What that means: Another annual routine action to fund a program with fees.

Article 21 – Solid Waste Disposal Fund Expenditures What it asked: To vote that income from user fees from solid waste disposal services and associated services by Concord Public Works be used to operate the town’s “pay-as-you-throw” curbside collection and recycling program. What happened: Approved as part of the consent calendar. What that means: A routine annual action.

Article 22 – Sewer System Expenditures  What it asked: To use income from user fees, special service fees and jobbing services by the Water and Sewer Division for the operation and maintenance and improvement of the town’s sewer system. What happened: Approved as part of the consent calendar. What that means: Routine annual action

Article 23 – Sewer Improvement Fund Expenditures What it asked: To use income from sewer improvement fees for constructing and expanding the town’s sewer lines and treatment facility capabilities. What happened: Approved as part of the consent calendar. What that means: Routine annual action.

Article 24 – Water System Expenditures What it asked: For user fees, special service fees and fees for jobbing services from the Water and Sewer Division to be used for operation and maintenance and improvement of the town’s water system. What happened: Approved as part of the consent calendar. What that means: Routine annual action.

Article 25 – Beede Swim and Fitness Center Enterprise Fund; fiscal 2013 budget  What it asked: To appropriate the amount required for the total expenses of the Community Pool Enterprise Fund for fiscal 2013 for the operation of the community pool. What happened: Approved as part of the consent calendar. What that means: According to the warrant, this article enacts the operating budget for the Community Service and Fitness Center, a facility that’s self-supporting from its own revenues.

Article 26 – Fiscal 2013 Roads Program What it asked: For an appropriation of $950,000 for repair, reconstruction, renovation of streets and roads. What happened: Approved What that means: The Town Treasurer is authorized to borrow $950,000, which will be combined with expected state road aid and $90,000 requested under Article 6, item 23, to repair and replace public roads, with work including drainage and sidewalk construction and renovation.

Article 27 – Police/Fire Station 1 Renovations What it asked: For the allocation of $700,000 for police and fire station renovations. What happened: Passed with no questions or debate What that means: That the town can continue making improvements at the police and fire department headquarters. According to Town Manager Chris Whelan, $100,000 will be spent on the Concord Police Department side, with the remaining $600,000 to be put toward improvements on the Lexington Fire Department side.

Article 28 – Light Plant Expansion What it asked: For $4.4 million to be borrowed for expansion of the Forest Ridge substation and the Concord Municipal Light Plant’s an on-site warehouse. What happened: Approved unanimously What that means:  Possibly that theft will be less of a problem at CMLP, where an at-capacity warehouse has led to outside storage and, subsequently, thieves targeting things like $80,000 spools of copper, according to Light Board member Hugh Lauer. But the bulk of the borrowing will be put toward an expansion of the Forest Ridge substation, which will have its two 50 megawatt transformers replaced by two 70 megawatt transformers to accommodate anticipated increased capacity demands.

Article 29 – Emergency Response Stabilization Fund Creation and Funding What it asked: To establish an Emergency Response Stabilization Fund for reserving $1 million from the developers of a 350-unit housing project in West Concord. What happened: Approved as part of the consent calendar. What that means: $1 million will be transferred from Free Cash into the new stabilization fund the day after town meeting wraps. This past December, the town received payment of $1 million from West Concord Development, LLC, to mitigate the impact of the 350-unit development on the town’s police and fire emergency response capacity.

Article 30 – Retirement Board, Local Option Acceptance, Chapter 131 of the Acts of 2010, Increase Allowance for Surviving Spouse of Certain Disability Retirees  What it asked: For the town to accept the provisions of this act, which under certain circumstances grant a supplemental annual retirement allowance fixed at $9,000, an increase of $3,000 over the amount otherwise payable. What happened: Approved as part of the consent calendar. What that means: That there is the possibility of an increased allowance to a surviving spouse of “a former employee who has been retired for accidental or ordinary disability but who dies from a cause other than the cause of the retirement and under which retirement the retiree was unable to provide for any annual allowance to be paid to the surviving spouse at the time of the retiree’s death.” 

Article 31 – Construction Noise Bylaw Amendment What it asked: To add an enforcement section to the Construction Noise Bylaw adopted under Article 61 of 2010’s annual Town Meeting. What happened: Approved as part of the consent calendar. What that means: The bylaw is now consistent with Appendix A of the construction noise bylaw, which was amended at an April 2011 special Town Meeting after the original article was tossed out by the Attorney General’s office because Appendix A lacked a fine for violations of the bylaw.

Article 33 – Town Sustainable Electricity Supply (by petition) What it asked: For the sense of Town Meeting to express that town officials and staff should prioritize technologies and practices that maximize environmental benefits when planning, contracting for or participating in the construction of new utility-scale electric power sources. What happened: The motion failed. What that means; The sense of the meeting was that, while increasing the sustainable quotient in Concord’s energy portfolio is a priority all agree on, the language in the motion is too abstract.

Article 34 – Zoning Bylaw Amendment – Large Scale Solar Facility What it asked: To add a new section to the town’s zoning bylaw for dealing with large-scale, ground-mounted solar photovoltaic installations. What happened: Approved by a comfortable margin, but not before the evening’s longest debate over “minimum” versus “maximum” that resulted in an amendment that added the word “Rated” to the bylaw’s language in a pair of references to the capacity of an installation. What that means: Concord now has a bylaw with provisions for regulating development of a large-scale solar facility, through localizing requirements laid out in the state’s model bylaw.

Article 41 – Zoning Amendment – Mobile Medical Facility What it asked: To amend the bylaw by adding a new definition for “mobile medical facility” and increase the length of stay allowable by special permit. What happened: Approved as part of the consent calendar. What that means: Medical facilities in town can now be permitted to park large trucks or trailers with specialized medical equipment on their sites for 10 years at a time, rather than 2 years at a time.