25 May, 2013
I have been attending Town Meetings for about 40 years and this year’s Town Meeting was a big disappointment from beginning to end. When it was announced that one budget (both school and the rest of the town) was being proposed to make the meeting more expedient, it became obvious it was at the expense of the voter. It seemed this year that any past decisions made at other Town Meetings were no longer pertinent.
For example, several years ago it was voted that Town Meeting would end at 11pm and resume the next day. On the second night with 10 plus articles still left to go, a vote was taken to continue because the Moderator was concerned it would be difficult to get a quorum the next day. But when the “no” voters left the hall and we no longer had a quorum the Moderator concluded that a quorum was not necessary since there were no money articles left. If that is true, then why did we vote several years ago to increase the quorum from 50 voters to 100 voters if we don’t even need a quorum to vote? But after voting on several articles we came back to the Article that appropriated $130,000 to pave behind Town Hall. So if the Moderator did acknowledge there was no quorum, but it didn’t matter because we aren’t voting on money articles then what happens to the money we appropriated without a quorum? Is it a valid note? And since when do you not need a quorum for non-money articles? As always, these controversial articles are strategically placed at the end of Town Meeting when they can be rammed through because of the late hour and debate is curtailed because everyone wants to go home. Who wants to debate hot top at 12:20 am? That is when Town Meeting ended. And as far as debate goes, sometimes people were allowed to speak several times on an issue and then other times debate was ended. Sometimes when a question is moved we continue to debate and other times when a question is moved debate ends. There was no consistency to the rules. For me it was a very disappointing Town Meeting. Let’s get the rules straight and stick to them.
I see we are ready for a vote.
Dale Danahy
