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Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Is it a right side of the brain thing?

The tempest in a teapot is starting to brew folks.  It is starting to perhaps spread a bit of steam throughout town, with certain deadlines and events upcoming.  

The first of which is the town election. Is it really less than two weeks away?  Is that right?  This one is seemingly sneaking up on us. 

Biggest mistake any supporter can make in this type of low profile campaign season is to make an assumption about who is going to win.  Get you body out to vote come April 7th.  The betting line for this one is under a 20% turnout.  I don't see anything to change that fact.

I truly hope, as I do every election, that I am not even close on the turn out, i.e. I have it way too low.  

I don't see this election actually being the main cause of any tempest.  But as with every election, there is a reason we actually hold the events, so never say never.

Anyway ...

Interesting debate brewing on several issues, adding to the overall tempest.  Should the town government proposals, if passed by town meeting be submitted to the general ballot for final determination?

One component of the debate is the fact that town meeting can make the changes subject to special legislation, so we are being told, and I believe it is properly the correct to say that body has the "legal" right to do so.  Indeed someone pointed out to me Acushnet abolished its BPW by a special town meeting with special legislation.

One significant distinction between Acushnet TM and Fairhaven TM.  Acushnet still has an open Town Meeting.  Each and every voter was entitled to vote at that Special Town Meeting.  

The argument then goes on to note the voters elect town meeting members as their representatives so ... 

Despite this, several strong supporters of maintaining the BPW status quo are making it known they intend to propose to TM the issue be put out to the general public.  I for one am inclined to agree.

Letting the foxes have charge of the hen house is not what most people have in mind when thinking of town meeting.  Town Meeting members certainly are elected to make decisions.  To legislate. Pass by-laws, regulations, spending articles.  That body and its members may indeed have the right to change our form of government. 

You will even have a memory or two about me ranting in the past about not "passing the buck" on certain issues and sending everything out to the "voters".  Do your job. Make decisions.

Nonetheless, having a right to do something does not always make it the right thing to do.  

Absolutely can be a very confusing thing.  Do your job, but be wise enough to know when you should not do it.  

Except do you consider it town meeting's job to change government in this way?  It appears legally, it can be.  Well it can be if the legislature in Boston determines the request is valid and the way to go.

Make no mistake about it.  We are proposing a change in government.  We will still have town meeting yes. It seems there will still be an elected BPW. Basically neutered, but it will still be there. We will still have a Selectboard.  More powerful in limited areas, i.e. expansion general policy making and broad oversight, but hopefully also somewhat neutered in day to day "operational" involvement. The change will be the fact of ceding a great deal of authority to an individual who will as a matter of right be entitled to exercise direction, supervision and control as to administration on a day to day basis, and operation control. An individual who will be answerable only to the extent of retaining his or her employment.  

I say the above with this statement also:  THESE ARE NOT A BAD THINGS. THESE ARE NECESSARY THINGS.  Important things.  Things I absolutely can support. Things I will support if structured correctly.

Where my personal dilemma comes in, the dilemma each and every town meeting member will face, is deciding whether having the right to change government as a collective body, will be the right thing to do.

Again I note that I believe the change is the right thing.  My conviction in that is absolute.  

Do the ends justify the means however?

For me personally, as an individual, as a member of Town Meeting the answer is no.

Causing the dilemma however: sitting where I do sit, dealing with what I deal with, seeing what goes on in this town on a day to day basis, well if I could ignore some long standing fundamental beliefs about government and its relationship to those governed, it would be a no brainer.

No one seems to be really discussing that fundamental issue in a larger context. It may be of course, I am the "majority of one" who sees this as a fundamental issue. 

Whether my foresight is totally lacking on this one, I actually am torn. What I do know is hard as I try to embrace the solid reasons for this being done, as easy and tempting as it might be to say, on something that is so clearly right to do, would it be right to take what I perceive as a shortcut.

If it is so right, it should be so obvious, not just to me.  Right?

Anyway, that is it for today.  That is a dilemma I will be spending sometime trying to reconcile.  Hopefully, we all will.

3 comments:

  1. If it was guaranteed that a fully-informed TM was voting on whether to change town government or not, then how is this question different than the subject discussed in your blog a while back about town employees 'stacking the deck' in order to benefit the department they work for?
    I may be wrong, or misunderstood what you said, but didn't you say in that discussion that the chances of a particular group of TM members being able to swing a vote was practically nonexistent? Just because a portion of TM members who work for a certain department vote for their department's budget, it's not necessarily going to guarantee it's the outcome of the TM vote.
    If that's true, then why would that be any different here? Unless all departments are for, or against the same choice, would it not make a difference if TM voted on the change in town government?
    I think my first point is a stronger argument here. If TM was to vote on whether to change the format of town government, I would expect every one of the members to understand exactly what they are voting for. If they don't do their homework to find out, then I would think that opening the decision up to all registered voters would be best. There are some residents who don't serve on boards, but are very aware of the mechanics of the town.

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  2. I would agree that a vote by all registered voters would be a fair way to make changes.But there probably is a bylaw etc.that doesnt allow this to happen.Supposedly town meeting is a pretty true representation of the towns wishes.Of course if you tune in to town meeting you will see a large portion of the members doent return to vote after the Article 4 budgets are passed.

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  3. To the best of my memory I didn't say "practically nonexistent". However if you found that statement in a particular blog let me know and I will review it.

    You are simply missing the whole premise of today's blog, and it seems you take the phrase "foxes in charge of the hen house" to mean "town employees" which is actually completely off base. Feel free to read into it what you want however this one has nothing to do with stacking, or town employees being town meeting members.

    If you can't see the obvious distinction between a normal town meeting action you allude to and apparently abhor and changing the form of government by a simply majority vote of town meeting, well I doubt I can make it clearer for you.

    Fundamentally it should cause all of us some real concern that It takes a 2/3 vote to change zoning because of the significant effect on the town, but eliminating an elected board and shifting and restructuring the power structure should be able to pass by a simple majority?

    You start your entire argument on a premise which you know simply does not exist, based on a non-existent "guaranty". You end it not on any stronger point but an extremely weak one.

    "If they don't do their homework to find out, then I would think that opening the decision up to all registered voters would be best."

    If they don't do their homework and vote, you can think long and hard about what should have been, but it is going to be too late to open it up to all the registered voters.

    No one has more respect for the town meeting process than I do. That doesn't mean I agree that town meeting should determine the FORM of our government. I would also note this is not one of those matters, in my humble opinion, where town meeting would be simply passing the buck. We would not be the only town to let the voters decide, and there are alternate methods of doing this that do require the voters to decide.

    It took a town wide vote back in 1930 to go from an open town meeting to a representative one. It took a town wide vote to create the BPW.

    I will state, because one has a right to do something doesn't always make it the right thing to do. You can certainly feel it is appropriate that town meeting should vote to change our form of government.

    You would have the law on your side apparently. It isn't going to change my belief that such a change should go out to the voters.

    Fair enough.

    In the end town meeting will decide it, one way or the other. I can live with that. May not agree with it, but I can live with it. As I said, I agree with the TA concept.

    We can all wait and see if we all agree with the actual proposal when that comes down.

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