2009 Town Meeting plus Video

First of all, I intend to provide live video updates to tonight's town meeting. I am not promising 100% coverage, but I will be able to post short video clips from my phone during the meeting, so residents can check back here on the blog to see whether they should leap into their cars and drive down to the High School...

As Abby noted in the Hometown Weekly last week, tonight's town meeting is devoid of what had become a famiiar refrain of Westwood-station related crisis legislation. Instead, we have have a number of funding issues and the uncertain fate of some attempts to modify the town charter through petition articles.

• Article 10 concerns authorizing money to construct a cemetery barn--using funds restricted to cemetery uses.
• Article 11 authorizes $60,000 to be spent on design and planning of a new Library. 
• Articles 17, 18, and 19 are the Petition articles discussed and opposed by FinCom.

Cemetery and Library

The principal concern of opponents to these issues seems to be timing. An alternative view is that difficult economic times are the best time to make investments in the future.

Petition Articles

The Petition articles are imperfect but they will not even be discussed unless the FinComm recommendation against them is rejected.

I believe the proposal to expand the Board of Selectmen has much merit and should be discussed. It could be pushed off to a Charter commission, but why is it so difficult to discuss the pros and cons of increasing the size of the Board at a public forum where, hopefully, hundreds of residents will turn out? As a petition article related to fundamental rights of civic participation, the opinion of FinCom is certainly relevent because members of FinCom have more insight into active participation in Town affairs than most residents. But Town meeting is most residents' only opportunity for participation, and the only forum where those who are not already connected but have the wherewithall to show up in person on a weeknight for 3 hours can have a say.

One argument against discussing the articles is that they fail to follow proper procedure. This could be remedied by a motion to amend and insert the words "That the town should petition the legislature to grant a change in the Town Charter to effect the following:" before each article.

The other objections go to the substance of the articles and should be discussed so that if the articles have some merit but need reforming, there can be a public discussion now. Ultimately, it is up to the Moderator to rule on whether amendments are germane...but we will not hear any arguments unless the motion is allowed to be considered at all.

The Override Next Year

Finally, in case you did not notice how this topic has evolved, I quote from the Annual Report:

...the Finance Commission anticipates that the budgeting process next year will be extremely difficult and virtually impossible to sustain services in another year without growth in revenues. As a result, it is quite likely that an operational override will be considered and eventually proposed to voters.

So next year's Town Election will probably draw more than 15% turnout...