Annual Town Meeting on May 12, 2021 - article 22, town meeting voted to keep current budget format, which is not a line item budget. Advisory Committee recommending the separation of articles appears to be an attempt to push selectmen (whom control the warrant) towards a more line item format, which the people have already voted, on multiple occasions, they do not want. If an advisory committee has done it's job, their recommendations and report (again, required by town meeting vote) would provide an explanation to town meeting on all articles, in enough detail, that there would be few, if any questions on what is being proposed and town meeting being asked to approve. While the current chair of advisory does a good job of trying to keep the committee focused and on point, it is also up to members to speak to the subject in front of them. One of the stated reasons for the existence of an advisory committee is that it is hard for the average citizen to keep up with all that goes on in their local government, so we have the advisory committee (we are required by state law to have said committee) which is suppose to inform town meeting of all that is before them at a town meeting. The responsibility of selectmen is to call a town meeting with a properly posted and executed warrant. According to town meeting times, the warrant does not have to contain verbatim language on what town meeting is to vote on. That is one of the reasons we have an advisory committee, to provide a detailed explanation to town meeting on what they are being asked to vote on - my opinion on this is if the Advisory Committee does their job and does it well, there is no need to break articles down on the warrant, advisory will have done this on their report to the meeting, now that would be working for the residents / taxpayers.

So, as a private town resident, who in another time, serves and has served on a few town boards / committees and as a private resident who tries to keep up, article 1 asks town meeting to transfer funds (money) from free cash to various departments so work can be done for the benefit of town residents. Increase in money to pay for heating in town owned buildings, to pay for software program to aid elected cemetery commissioners in managing the town's cemeteries ( no longer efficient to do things the same way as 100 years ago with a typewriter) They would no longer have to rely on just paper records. So, elected commissioners come up with a plan and a cost and pass that onto a town department which carries out the physical part of the plan and passes it up the chain to the manager of the department, DPW director, who passes it along to the town administrator who in turn brings it to the selectmen, who approve town meeting warrant. Article 1 also contains 2 more transfers of funds to help cover costs of work that was not planned and unknown at the last annual town meeting. The two items directly benefit residents, traversing the town roads. A 4th item in article 1 covers an increase cost (can you say inflation) that was not foreseen when town budget was before the last annual town meeting - painting of lines on a road way and I do not now about others, but sometimes, especially at night, those yellow and white lines on the road are very much relied on for a travel guide, not to mention informing drivers where it is legal to pass or not, where the turning travel lane is, etc. See, rather than a critique on how selectmen present warrant, advisory could work for the people and provide a clear explanation on each article; after all, how does the complaint aid you at town meeting?