In case you missed it, at town meeting held November 3, 2021, it was stated by member of advisory committee that advisory is the only group who works for taxpayer, the only group who looks out for them. Why was there an item under article 1 for $4,500.00 to pay for road repair, because advisory had already voted against a transfer from town reserve fund, which they oversee per MGL. in advisory reserve fund transfer, one criteria for approval is To approve a transfer request, "the Advisory Committee should be of the opinion the request would be approved by a Town Meeting." Well, the spending of $4,500.00 was approved by town meeting vote (original reserve fund request was $4,000.00) Advisory was wrong in their conclusion that the taxpayer money was not needed and town meeting would not approve. One conclusion of this situation could be advisory (at least some members) are out of touch with town residents.

Also, as a result of article 4, amend town bylaw regarding advisory committee, it was made public that advisory had been discussing things outside of a public meeting and appeared to be trying to convince a town elected official to do their bidding, that is deny appointing a town resident to advisory because either advisory members do not like the resident, did not trust resident or whatever combinations of reasons they came up with, the committee was still talking amongst themselves on how to keep a resident off the advisory committee, even as it is touted as the only group that works for residents, interesting view, work for residents, looking for volunteers and when volunteer residents come forward, advisory tries to find ways to keep them off based on what? Time for some serious changes?

 Since recommendations of DOR matter in the instance of say a PILOT, then recommendation concerning size of advisory should be considered and perhaps it is time, go from 7 to 5 members, once upon a time, there were 9 members of planning board, but due to being hard to find members to run for election, number was reduced to 7. Advisory once upon a time had 9 members, reduced to 7 because difficulty in getting enough members for a quorum. Considering what happened right after our last annual town meeting, not enough members to have a quorum for a 7 member group, maybe time to consider going to 5, there are many communities with 5 member advisory committees. By the way, state law and our town bylaws state we have an advisory committee, NOT an advisory board, sometimes facts matter!

1951 town bylaw, there shall be an advisory committee of 9 legal voters . . . . section 1 of article IV in 2010 Templeton town bylaw book, sections 1-4, 5, 6 passed 3-5-1951. Massachusetts General Law chapter 39, section 16, advisory, finance or warrant committee, so fact is from 1951, town bylaw and state law cited it as advisory committee, some people just decided to call it something else, sort of the cemetery and parks commission, town never accepted MGL on parks commission - facts do matter.

Then - Annual Town Meeting, May 2011.

Article 28. To see if the Town will vote to amend Article IV – Advisory Committee,

Section 1., first sentence, and Section 2., first sentence: as follows the text to be deleted stricken and the text to be inserted underlined as follows:

“Section 1. There shall be an Advisory Committee consisting of seven ( strike nine) legal voters of the town who shall be appointed by the Moderator as hereinafter provided.”

“Section 2. The Moderator of the town meeting when this By-Law is adopted shall, within thirty days after such by-law becomes effective, appoint 2 (strike 3) members of said committee for a term of one year, 2 (strike 3) members for terms of two years, and 3 members for terms of three years.”

or to take any other action relative thereto