I just spent two hours participating in what made this country great, the Sturbridge Annual Town Meeting. The Town meeting is where it all began, where business was conducted and the decisions were made.
If only that were true in this case. How can you make a decision when there is a real chance that half the voters present had no idea what they were voting for? And I am only talking one article. Two hours to vote on one article.
I've written about Article 4 a couple of times and I guess it didn't pass, and we'll get into that in a later post. But here is what did happen. First they had to take a vote moving Article 4, ahead of Article 3, becasue Article 3 is the actual line by line budget, and since Article 4 would affect the budget, basically if it passed, the budget would have to be reworked from the beginning, requiring Article 3 to be held until the meeting was reconvened. Got that so far?
So there was some discussion on whether or not that should happen, and since it only made sense to do that, it passed. So now Article 4 was actually the third article. Now, the Finance Committee has the ability to recommend that no action be taken on an article. If that happens then no action is taken on the article. Unless of course, a substitute motion is put forward, which happened in this case. now the substitute motion can't be the same as the original article, in this case where Article 4 required the budget (Article 3) to be level funded, the substitute motion split the difference between the original Article 3 budget number and the original Article 4 number. Still with me?
So after much passionate discussion, some which I agreed with, some which i didn't, the question was finally moved forward meaning that the substitute for Article 4 would be voted on. So we voted on the substitute motion fro Article 4, or so some of us thought. But then there were some who thought we were voting on whether or not we were voting on whether to allow the substitute motion to be voted on (which I think was what we should have been doing) which would then mean we would have to vote on the substitute motion. Since whatever we voted on first was soundly defeated, some in the room thought that we should then vote on the first Article 4, but since the Finance Committee already recommended no action be taken on Article 4, we could only vote on the substitute motion, although we don't know if we actually voted on the substitute motion or not.
Basically, what happened was the Town Moderator once again lost control of the meeting. He was confused which led the rest of us confused as well. Now Article 3 has to be voted on which is the line item budget. This is where those who can afford to stay all night get to vote on every item in the budget. Unfortunately the people with the most interest in keeping spending down, those of us who have to work and the seniors living on fixed incomes can't afford to stay all night. So, in a nutshell, my taxes will more than likely go up again next year.
One thing which came out which I found amusing was that the Chairman of the Finance Committee pretty much admitted he used scare tactics when he talked about the "nightmare budget".
sadly paul, you are absolutely correct.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid so. I have to admit i haven't been to a Town Meeting in a few years, partly becasue of the shenanigans like last night. I love the process, but it can and does frequently get out of control.
DeleteOne reason I support Saturday meetings.
Fortunately, we have another chance to look at moving TM meetings to Saturdays at the continuation of TM on June 18. Thankfully, my motion to move this question forward was defeated. So, Article 30 will be taken up on the 18th giving everyone in favor of it a chance to talk to more people and encourage them to attend and vote in favor.
DeleteI too, am very disappointed in the way Article 4 was handled. I did not know what was being voted on because the Moderator didn't seem to be able to get the numbers straight.
You summed up the evening quite nicely--I too left after the confusion of Article 4/3 for the reasons you stated--way past my bedtime.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that was never mentioned was why Sturbridge is in this predicament to begin with--spending money on silly brick sidewalks and the like for the past several years as residents were having to cut back due to job losses and no increase in their salary, if they are lucky to have a job. Also absorbing higher gas/oil prices as well.
And to the finance committee member who talked way past his 4 minutes (which the Town Moderator should not have allowed) about the non-union town employees going to the yellow pages and looking under "Union" if they didn't get their raise, where has he been? Union jobs are few and far between. I seriously doubt if any of the town employees who opted to look for a union job 1) would be qualified 2) would want to give up their cushy working conditions. The town should have done a better job at union negotiations. As a former union president who negotiated contracts, I've heard "The company cannot afford that" time and time again. That should have been the "party line" when negotiating with the town's union employees. Has this gentleman read the newspaper lately? There are countless articles on the stagnent incomes of most people, but at least they have a job! Why should the town's non-union employees be any different than the rest of Massachusetts' non-union "at-will" employees?
I also took offense to a quote by the Town Administrator in the Sunday Telegram that the increase is "only about $150 month" for most taxpayers. Say what? Maybe on his salary that's a small amount, but Sturbridge taxpayers cannot afford ANY increase in taxes at this time!
It was hard for me to stomach the pompous attitudes of the finance committee member mentioned above, the Town Moderator (who seemed to show favortism to me besides losing control with his confusion), and the Town Administrator.
Going to be hard to sell your house and get out of town--people can get just as nice a house in surrounding towns that have a much lower tax rate and visit Sturbridge's brick sidewalks for free!
Good luck Sturbridge taxpayers!
The meeting was hijacked by heckling firemen who taunted speakers. They were disrespectful all night to people, especially Mr. Miller and the other woman who spoke about trying to save money. So unprofessional.
ReplyDeleteAs I never read nor respond to any Blog. Someone suggested to take a look at this blog as they felt it was well done.
DeleteAs I read through the comments, I must respond to this one comment.
Myself and several other people sat in front of these so called "heckling" firemen. They were not anymore disrespectful as anyone else that night in making comments on all the holds including myself. There was no harm in making a comment on some of the holds. Mr. Miller was the only one that stood up and identified himself for what he put on hold, kudos to him for that.
We found the firemen to speak honestly and respectful. It's so unfortunate that there was this negative comment made about our firefighters. They have been singled out of all the others that were doing the same that night. As Bob Brier let us know, it was even happening in his section of the auditorium , though they were not pointed out.They were as professional as anyone else there. Unfortunate you felt that way.
Leslie,
DeleteThank you for the comment and I am glad mine is the first blog you have read.
I will be posting another entry with more about the Town Meeting, and I agree about the firemen, I was in the balcony and where I was the heckling was pretty evenly divided between both sides of the issue.
THis was the 4th town meeting that i have attended. I feel like i should continue to attend but it is so frustrating. The confusion that seems to occur at every meeting is making me lean towards no longer participating.
ReplyDeleteArticle 4 would have kept the spending in check. It was not passed, nor the substitute motion. If more than 100k is trimmed from the budget while going line by line i will be shocked.
Is town meeting really the ideal form of government for our town? I don't know, i guess i am just mussing.
It seems like the FINCOMS budget gets passed without much trimming at all every year.
Thanks for all the comments, I will address all of them with another post to be posted this afternoon.
ReplyDeleteIt's not just fincom or TA. Except for Creamer and the new selectwoman no one from the BoS did anything to hold down spending. Gimas and Dowling just want to spend us all right out of town. They're quite the pair these days. Voters are saying that Gimas told them if they didn't vote for Article 3 the senior center would be closed. That's cause for recall. Can't wait for their reelections.
ReplyDeleteI'll be writing more on the Town meeting soon answering all these comments, but here is the problem as I see it, and yes, I admit I am as guilty as any, those of us who want to keep spending down, don't run for office.
Delete