Sunday, April 30, 2023

 Let us talk Town Meeting in Templeton.

Our by-laws state Town Meeting times is our guidebook for the meeting.
Articles, page 67: Since the purpose of a warrant is to apprise the voters of the subject matter to be considered at the meeting, all that is necessary is for the article to include a sufficient description of the subject matter to provide the voters with substantial and intelligent notice of the nature of the business to be acted upon. The article need not contain details or "an accurate forecast of the precise action which the meeting will take."
On amending main motions: page 96, "The moderator must maintain a careful record of the motions that are pending and put them to a vote in the proper order. Action must be taken on every motion. A common fault is the failure to put a main motion to a vote after action on a hotly-debated motion to amend when it is clear that the only real question is whether the meeting desires the original or the amended form. The main motion, however must be put to a vote whether amended or not.
So, if a motion is before town meeting including a dollar figure and an amendment is proposed to change the dollar amount, either up or down, once that amendment on the dollar figure is voted on, then the original or main motion with the new dollar amount in place must be voted on. Just so there is no confusion on that in case this comes up at the next annual town meeting.
Again, this information comes from Town Meeting Times, which is the town's official guidebook for our town meeting.

1 comment:

  1. You referring to Article 14? Article 14 in it's final version voted on by Town Meeting was not a "Seconded" motion.

    No second was made on the motion to increase funding to the Selectboard. They were notified, but didn't seem to care.
    Appparently following the procedure is just to dang much for this TA and Crew. I believe the response was "really, people knew the intent".

    How things change, but stay the same, huh? We've been told year after year that "intent" doesn't matter, its what is written in the Article.

    Maybe we need to get $16,250 back from the "overpaid" (technically provable on video) Selectman who refuse to abide by the Policies and Procedures before them.

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