Since someone in Town hall really hates this blog, here's to it:
Article IV – Advisory Committee
Section 1. There shall be an Advisory Committee consisting of seven legal voters of the town
who shall be appointed by the Moderator as hereinafter provided. No elective or
appointive town officer or town employee shall be eligible to serve on said
committee, except that a representative from the Advisory Committee shall be
entitled to serve as a member of the Capital Planning Committee and the Insurance
Committee.
Amended 5-13-03 & 5-11-11
The above is from Templeton General by-laws, and there in lies the problem, seems like the Massachusetts General laws now say something different:
MGL, chapter 32B, section 3:
Said committee shall consist of eight members as follows: seven persons to be duly elected or appointed to membership on such committee by organizations of the employees affected, and one person who shall be a retiree of a governmental unit who shall be duly appointed to membership on said committee by the appropriate public authority.
I was going to serve on insurance committee until a "discussion" came up as to how I was appointed to the insurance committee, hey, some people in Town Hall do not like me, but hey, who cares. During this "discussion" it was noted that the law said something else which contradicts the Town by-law so the Advisory Committee requested an article for the special town meeting in October to have 3 words removed from that by-law section. That would make the by law follow state law. Seems simple and logical, until it reaches the selectmen, who, voted to not place this item on the warrant. They stated they wished to wait until they bring in a consultant, for a fee, to have all the by-laws looked at and changed, eliminated so as to be compliant with current law. I agree with the concept, but why wait to remove 3 words which does what they say they wish to do.
from my personal opinion: "Perhaps they do not like Advisory Committee bringing something up that may derail their school project. Since the Town would be getting very close, if not passing, what is the allowable debt limit for the Town, and to allow the Town to get word on the condition of it's fiance, it does not seem to be a bad thing to do, to put the brakes on the project. The Town will be able to go into 47 million dollar debt later. So the beat goes on and it seems that this board of selectmen still has advisory Committee on its target deck and wants to go around it and not follow Town by-laws, they still feel like they are the superior board." You can make the call as to how you see it.
posted by Jeff Bennett
What is the old saying, What you do comes back to you, Well I do think the moves the "superior board" are making will come back to them, but not in a good way. Selectmen are voted in by the voters with the hope that they will do what is right for the residents of this Town of Templeton. Trying to hide the financial mess this Town is in does no one any good. These problems will not go away by them selves, and they are so big no nickel and diming will fix this. Moving money from one account to another will not make any difference. The only solution is to sit down and figure out what we really have to spend in a year on our government and stick to that. No matter how you look at it, we can only spend what we have and that will never change.
ReplyDeleteI have given some thought to how the Selectmen behaved at their Monday night meeting. Sorry I was not there, but I have heard enough, and this game has been played before. So now it's them against us ?? Why, because we are working for the Town's people ? Why throw away a three word change ? If it is no good the A.G. will not accept it ! Where is the money coming from to hire a person to look at our by-laws ? How can these people even think about spending a dime we do not have ? I am sorry, but they just don't get it !! No way, no how !
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