Just Yesterday's Tomorrow, Once Again

Well these past two weeks have been very interesting indeed.  Last week certainly took my mind off the events of the week before.  

What is left to say at this point regarding the B of H race.  Next move is apparently on Mr. Wethington's part.  The deadline for the recount is Thursday, close of business (in this case I think the law says 5:00, however, going from memory, so not sure).

I still don't get the cries for a new election. It seems pretty clear there is no legitimate issue of ballot stuffing or tampering.  

It could be a whole lot of other issues that need to be addressed, well perhaps not simply "could be", but it doesn't seem to me the grounds exist for a "redo".  I am not even sure I know what those are.  Does anyone have an example of the same anywhere in the state? 

On issue seems to be handling the crowd that gathers.  From my perspective, the what went wrong simply cannot be attributed to the crowd of people being there.  The crowd didn't put the ballots in the wrong envelope.  The crowd didn't forget to check the envelopes.  The crowd is what it always has been, and quite frankly it was less than I have seen in prior years.

Unless I am missing the boat completely here, the one remaining thing we need for this particular election is a hand count of the ballots.  

But a do over?  The mess stems from the counting process, not the votes cast.  Had there been no mistakes Monday night in handling the ballots, had the first mistake not occurred by putting hand counts into reject envelopes, we would simply be skipping from the side show to the main event, i.e. the recount.

The argument that the "taint" somehow all by itself justifies a new election I suppose is only so strong as your belief in whether the "taint" should extend to the ballots actually cast.  

Lost in the intensity of all of the issues surrounding the "big" race is the one year unexpired term for the Planning Board.  Going with the explanation provided, the preliminary result would revert to John Farrell up by 10, with 7 reject ballots to be counted.  Not sure what those rejects hold in store for that race.

There are a whole bunch of statistics out there on recounts, shifts, hand counts vs. machine tallies, so knock yourself out finding the stuff. 

Whatever happens at this point is simply conjecture, so let's wait to see what happens.

What needs our immediate attention at this point is Town Meeting.  The warrant has been posted.  You can find a copy of the Town Meeting Warrant by going to the page link and clicking "download here".

The main event for town meeting day really should be the special town meeting.  That is where the proposed articles for the changes to town government made by DOR will be.  Public hearings are scheduled for April 10th and April 24th at Town Hall, both at 6:00 p.m., I believe.

The warrant for the STM has not been posted yet and won't be for another week or so.

You probably haven't seen the drafts of the DOR related articles.  Based on what I have seen however I think the the same, at least as written, will have a very difficult time of passing at best.  

Since there are two hearings coming up, and since there is the likelihood that there may be some changes, a blow by blow on the articles at this point isn't going to do any of us much good.  The drafts may change radically, or perhaps not at all.  I can even see one or more being withdrawn,

Anyway you look at it, the Selectmen are going to be busy the next few weeks seems.  This week they have the DOR article meeting on the 10th, and the are also meeting on April 9, 2012.

I just checked out that agenda.  The executive session notes list a "Request to amend Personnel Bylaws".

I am sure there has to be much more to this.  Much, much more.  I am absolutely sure of this because a discussion based on a request to amend the personnel bylaw cannot conceivable be subject to executive session.  

I am going to have to try and follow this one.  Might be worth the effort to show up and ask for an explanation when they announce this one. Might be, but not likely.  Monday's are not a easy night for me to get to the meetings.  

Like I said though, there has to be much more behind this particular matter.  

An executive session for closed door discussions about changing a by-law?  There just has to be more I think.

Plenty of food for thought on  Monday morning.

Be safe.