Postscript

What do you take away from Saturday's annual and special town meetings? 

First and foremost, the need to strike while the iron is hot.  It was no hotter than it was ever going to be than last May, when the TA and BPW articles squeaked through. 

The problems for the TGSC which have developed since then result from letting the iron cool off. 

The BPW vote, if it actually had a chance of passing, needed to be attempted sooner rather than later. Not possible though given the fact that one particular article was passed by the legislature until December. Alternately, one needed to realize you had to continue to stoke the flames that heated that iron in the first place.

Lighting the fire to heat the iron isn't enough.

The iron also cooled as a result of inaction on a TA act.  Might not be able to lay this one totally at the feet of the committee however there is some understanding as to why the selectmen did not move forward with implementing the act. Note some understanding, not total agreement. Fact is, the TA act as written pretty much set in stone the resulting inaction.

It is what it is folks, and it was what it was going to be.

The foray into IT once again this year was as diplomatically as possible to say, tactically not the best move.

Substituting a dollar amount with instructions on how to spend it was viewed by many as simply a different way to try and accomplish what was soundly defeated last year. Add in the fact that the selectmen voted zero for the article this year, and the insistence of moving the article forwarded after that vote caused a whole lot of people to wonder just what mantel of authority was being assumed by some.

In the luck of the draw, or the bad luck of the draw, the IT article came up first on the warrant. The last thing you want to have happen is a losing vote out of the gate when you have a series of articles. 

This one had the feel of a game of Texas holdem. 

One rule of governance and politics (yes, the same do often go hand in hand), you absolutely have to know when to fold a losing hand. Of the 60 areas +/- stated to be in need of addressing, if this one made the top four, well then so be it.  But to many, if this was in fact one of the top four, just how bad could things really be?

Never forget that last year's town meeting and whatever success you had last year does not equate into success the following year.  Last year's arguments for an issue that happened to be soundly defeated aren't going to change the outcome for what was essentially a rehash of the same soundly defeated article.

I am not going to go through much detail on each of the three remaining articles.

As to term limits, well we can discuss and argue this one forever. When recent memory reveals incumbents losing, numerous uncontested races and vacant races, the average person begins to think a bit more in detail about the concept. A bit more than just the initial gut response to a simple question in a very simplistic survey.

As to quorums, might not be a good idea to put in writing that anything less than 50% is statistically inadequate and a line or two later note you are going to propose 40%.  Yes indeed one can argue that 40% is statistically less inadequate than 23.3%. One can also then argue that the 23.3% has nonetheless been very effective in reality.

While no one can truly say what number of people remain at the end of the day, most of those who do stay until the end of the day understand that the difference between the 170 +/- plus or minus proposed to be required to continue to do business ain't any going to result in any more effective a result than the 150 +/- who are still there on a bad day.

Might there come a time when only 100 people attend and make a decision.

Will there be changes to fin com and town meeting at some point in time? Yes there will be.

Are those changes needed? Needed, perhaps not in the sense of being a necessity.  I would say some of the changes proposed would in fact be very beneficial.

I have even been asked several times why not propose amendments to the articles then. There may come a point in time when I might be inclined to answer that more fully on these pages. At this point in time my answer will simply be limited to the statement that some matters absolutely need to be addressed in their entirety.

There will be some who will lament about an opportunity lost.  They will be right about that. In some ways I will join in that lament.

We are all going to suffer a bit from the fallout of certain events which occurred not just last Saturday, but last April and a year ago.

Accepting the bad with the good always has to be weighed and measured. Whether we most recently experienced nothing more than a bit of buyer's remorse or actually saw some more detailed thought on the bigger picture, the inescapable conclusion is that whatever percentage of bad vs. good this time around, it was simply too much.

More the shame really.  But the hard reality is, has always been and will remain the steadfast mantra that perception is 95% of the battle; and, when you wage that battle never forget it isn't your perception that matters.

Enough for today.

Be safe.