And we are off!

Set the DVR for the selectmen's meeting, but somehow the DVR didn't kick in for the start, so I missed the first three minutes or so.  Imagine that, it started on time apparently.  

To be honest, I was out like a light at meeting time.  I have been battling a head cold for about two weeks.  By mid-afternoon my head felt like it was going to explode.  To the disappointment of some, it didn't though.

Anyway, your tax rate was set last night. Read the papers for the figures, I am sure the Neighborhood News will have the numbers this week, and the Standard Times and Advocate usually get that info printed too.

The Voc-Tech addition was presented to the selectmen.  A tad larger presentation force than at fin com. A tad better presentation.  All the correct PC statements.  

The one thing I ask of everyone on this, is to judge the article on the merits.  Because if the criteria were to involve the process, this one would rightly go down in flames.  The merits though cannot be ignored, neither can one ignore the town's ultimate obligations by agreement, and by statute that altered the agreement.  

Let me state that at some point I will address the various articles in greater detail than touched upon below.  

I assume that now that the selectmen have finally finished altering the warrant, it will get posted to the web sit for the town and reference can then more appropriately be made to the articles.

Let me further state that I continue to be amazed, dazed, stunned, and a few other things that I can't state because I would violate my own blogging rules for comments.

If you ever wonder why things happen haphazardly in this town, keep in mind that there is no consistent logic applied to decision making.  There is no hard and fast policy, unless you happen to be on the opposite side of a majority.  Deadlines for warrant articles, no need to worry, if they like the idea they will find a rack to hang a hat on to get the matter on.

If you ever watch and pay attention to a selectmen's meeting, and listen to the rationale why some decisions are made, and wait long enough, sometimes no more than the next decision, you will see the rationale is less than consistently applied.  

Here is a personal philosophy for Special Town Meeting.  First, time constraints.  Must something be done within a specific period.  Both the Voc-Tech and the Digester articles, along with the settled labor contracts on the warrant, all need to be dealt with within specified times.

Did the article get the required number of signatures for automatic placement?  If so, it goes on as a matter of law.

Clean-up articles are okay.  A clean up article is to me a matter which procedural should be dealt with at the earliest available moment.  Bills of prior years, the sewer betterment loan accounts and cleaning up outstanding money articles all to me fall into that category.  You wouldn't call a STM for this purpose per se.

Money articles seeking to supplement budgets, for capital expenditures, or just a wish list should all most never be on a special town meeting held prior to the annual.  Criteria number 1 for an exception: a real emergency for which no other funding source is available.  

You will see an article for emergency shelter cots. If you have a truly pressing problem, and if you have the funds available from an alternate source other than the tax payer's pockets, that can be spent at any time, how pressing and real can a urgency be if you do not use the money, because you want to use it for something else?

If you have 16,000 people and you lament about how 8 cots aren't enough to meet a real emergency, tell me how 38 or 50 will be?  Tell me just what procedural steps are going to be taken to insure if we are ever truly in need of  meeting a disaster like that in New Jersey and New York.  Spending money to ease one's conscience accomplishes nothing but giving you a sound bite.  

Two selectmen making a decision prior to a meeting to place an article on the warrant because it is politically correct is simply plain wrong.  If there was a real need, it existed prior to the storm, it existed prior to the deadline for articles to be submitted.

How in the name of sanity does a problem that existed prior to an event only become a problem after the event?  Tell me, did everyone simply wait until the emergency to actually try and set up cots, only to discover the cots didn't work?

But for this STM it appears that everyone would be waiting until the next one to deal with the issue.  If that is the case, if that is what would happen, then there is no real need now.  I will be doing so much more ranting on this one folks.

We have three selectmen, each with varying talent, political savvy, skill and potential. 

As often as I continue to be amazed, dazed, stunned, and a few other things, I am never truly surprised. I am neither awed nor inspired.  I am never disappointed in having made a guess at to how a vote will come out.  

The change needed in this town is so much more than what will be proposed under one article, which will deal with the Director of Finance position.  Exactly what the article is, who knows.  We as a town are waiting on a DOR report.  

Truthfully, at this point we should.  Just as truthfully, it shouldn't have taken the DOR to come in to highlight issues that have existed and been ignored for years.  

Just as no one should be expecting a decision based on a report that comes out at a point in time where we as a town will have three weeks or less to study and digest the recommendations.  Is it possible that something can be done in that time frame, certainly.  The caveat is depending on the depth of the recommendations, it is just as likely a piece meal approach to implementing such recommendations will do absolutely no good.

I for one, as a resident and as a Town Meeting Member am not going to simply accept an administration recommendation.  I am long past the stage of voting broad authority.

Proactive rather than reactive is a concept much bigger then isolating and dealing with one problem at a time.  Unless the there is a concept as to how to put together the whole puzzles, trying to fit one piece in doesn't complete the big picture.

Being proactive involves more than transferring funds from a capital outlay account to a purchase of service account.  The arguments I heard last night in support of that matter completely ignored the fact as to how we ended up with a surplus in the capital out lay account to begin with.  There will be more on that one.  

There is absolutely nothing proactive about transferring more money into an account to meet a need you aren't even sure exists.  Perhaps it escaped everyone's thought process, but the Town appropriates a big chunk of change every year to meet shortfalls in operating budgets.  Give me more money for just in case is not a proactive approach.   Taking money designated for capital outlay, is not.  

It is amazing how just when you think the fire has died out, a little spark can reignite the whole thing.