Here is bucolic Sturbridge there it is just about Town Meeting time and there will be at least two important questions on the warrant this year. Now, if the Warrant was actually published somewhere I would give you the warrant numbers but alas it isn't.
The first article for us tea party type folks who believe in holding the line on spending has to deal with spending. As soon as i get the exact wording on this I will be posting it her, I don't want to mislead anyone, there are plenty of others who are much better than I am at that already.
The second one is trying to change the day the Town meetings are held to Saturdays. Evidently this was brought up in the past and it was voted down be just one vote. As one who goes to bed early I would love to see the Town Meetings on Saturday. The Town Meeting is where the actual business of the Town gets done. This is where spending is mostly controlled, this is where stuff gets passed which will cost us more money. Wouldn't it make sense to have the meetings on Saturdays when most people could attend without having to worry about having to go to work the next day?Of course there are those special interest groups who count on people not being able to attend the Town meetings so they can get what they want by stacking the meetings. You know the articles where after they are voted there is a mass exodus from the auditorium, yup, those people. These groups play to that every year and hence there really isn't a fair representation of voters at the Town Meeting.
When I get the actual warrant I will make sure I post the article number for these two articles. I thought I might find mention of them in the Board of Selectman's Meeting Notes, but interestingly enough those don't seem to be available. In fact even the Chairman, Tom Creamer has been asking why they aren't, seems there might be some issue about there being a violation of state law if they aren't available after the meeting or something. Of course with the new Town Administrator telling the BOS Secretary she doesn't have to attend the meetings I guess it's hard to take notes.
For what it's worth, one of the advantages one gets from the weekday EVENING meeting is that those of us who are "old timers" in MY town and know the details of Roberts Rules of Order understand that any Article passed, can be brought up for "reconsideration" at anytime prior to the meeting being adjourned. SO...when the special interest group marches in and votes a huge chunk of your hard earned tax maoney ut to say, build a beautiful bucolic bicycle path throught the middle of a series of drab old cow pastures on land taken by eminent domain and costing the taxpayers $3.4 million so that the "bike riding lobby" doesn't have to ride on back streets like al of us did as kids, you waqit for them to leave, en masse, and then bring the vote up for consideration....
ReplyDeleteJust sayin'.....
Of course if the bicycle lobby or say the more recreational field lobby had the Town Moderator this interesting bit of information might never be know.
DeleteThanks for that very interesting piece of information Chip.
It's always enjoyable, in a sick sort of way, to watch the "carpetbaggers" screaming "that's not fair" the next day when the local paper is delivered. Much more entertaining and less costly than a trip to the cinema!!!
DeleteIn regards to the minutes of the meetings... Go to the towns website and try to get minutes from the finance committee meetings, i think the latest that are available are from 2009. I was really interested in seeing the minutes from one of the meetings from last week as they were talking about the catastrophic ramifications of keeping the spending at 2012 levels. Get ready for some very well thought out heart wrenching propaganda coming from the FINCOM in the coming weeks.
ReplyDeleteIt has already started. As far as meeting minutes go, by state law they must be available right after the meeting closes, at least a preliminary set. They certainly can't be months and years behind.
DeleteMaybe i am missing the minutes somewhere? If it is indeed state law that they be available, can you post a link to where they are? I would hate to have the town get sued by the state for not having the minutes available since it will cost us in terms of legal fees but we the tax payers need to have information readily available to hold all the boards accountable. Nothing is worse than an uneducated voter. They thrive on it.
DeleteSince I wrote this post the minutes are now available here: http://www.town.sturbridge.ma.us/Public_Documents/SturbridgeMA_SelectMin/
DeleteAs much as I would like to think it was becasue of this post that they miraculously appearred, i am sure that isn't it.
It was probably the threat by Mr. Creamer to call the Attorney General (4/30/12 notes) which got the TA off his you know what that got it done.
So i did see the BOS minutes. However, the FINCOM minutes were last updated on 4-23-09.
ReplyDelete