2017 Town Meeting - Night Three

Another fun night at Town Hall.  I had my son with me again tonight to help with the voting system handsets.  Since we were there early, I got a far better seat than last Wednesday.  We started on time with the singing of the national anthem.  We then acknowledged the visiting students from Arlington's sister city in Japan, Nagaokakyo.  The leader of their school board give a few remarks, and they stayed for a while to watch democracy in action.

I wish it could have been more interesting.  We had around twenty minutes of announcements and reports from various groups.  I thought we had a time limit on those, but I guess we don't.  Once those were done, we tabled a number of articles to bring up the appropriation vote for Minuteman Tech.  Their superintendent, Dr. Bouquillon has to appear at ten town meetings around the district, so we try to be accommodating.  This was the first meeting after the ratification of the new district agreement and the subsequent reduction in the number of partner towns.  There are now only ten district towns.  The overall budget was down, but due to Arlington's historically high participation, our contribution was way up.  We actually had  a very positive discussion about the school, the programs, the philosophy, and the construction of the new building.  There was no acrimony as we've often had in the past.  I don't know if it was softened by the school's culinary arts students providing the freshly baked snacks for break.  The appropriation was easily approved.  I'm glad this has stopped being such an acrimonious topic.

We reserved the acrimony for when we picked back up the discussion on the treasurer.  Arlington has an elected town treasurer, but there is a movement to make it an appointed position.  The current treasurer is in favor of the change. The immediate past treasurer is vehemently opposed, and his predecessor is for the change.  A lot of the discussion focused on the independence of the elected treasurer being a foil to the appointed town manager.  There was also an interesting point about the elected treasurer being more invested in the position because they are a resident, and they have a desire to do what's best for the town.  Those were portrayed as lacking in an appointed treasurer.  Another point of discussion was whether the town could rely on quality candidates running, and what would happen if someone unqualified were elected.  This opened debate about whether elected officials trust the electorate enough to let them vote.

For me, this finally got to the heart of the matter.  The actual vote we were discussing was whether to put on the April 2018 ballot the question of whether to change the treasurer's position from elected to appointed.  For me, I was swayed by Mr. Gilligan's argument for independence and keeping an elected treasurer.  However, I also think this is a decision that should be made by the town, not just by town meeting.  I voted for the article to put the question before the voters.  This was the prevailing side by a wide margin.  However, I fully intend to vote against it at the polls.

The next four articles were all efforts to decrease the tax burden on our senior and veteran citizens.  The state had passed several laws in the previous session that would allow communities to provide some options to their citizens.  The first article would allow seniors to volunteer for the town in exchange for up to $1500 off their tax liability.  The second would do the same for veterans with a $1000 cap.  (The cap limit is set by the state.)  In either case, if the taxpayer was unable to work, they would be allowed to to have an able-bodied proxy volunteer in their stead. The third article would allow the creation of a fund to collect donations towards offsetting the tax burden of the elderly and disabled.  The last would allow the town to vary payments to the elderly to better track with inflation.  All four articles provide necessary relief for some of our vulnerable citizens.  We voted in all four measures.

The last article of the night was in regards to establishing a parking benefit district.  This is legislation approved at the state level which allows the creation of local districts to directly benefit from the addition of parking meters by keeping the additional funds in the area.   There are two other related articles, and sometimes the topic open for debate seemed a little confused between the articles.  This mostly took the form of how much money and how should it be expended.  Right before eleven, we had the question called and debate was ended.  We voted very strongly for the article.  We should get to the how much question on Wednesday.

My guess is we have two more nights before we are done.  We only have twenty or so articles left to debate and vote.  Some of the appropriation ones can go expediently, but we never know intil we're in the thick of it.  In the meantime, I need to get some sleep.