Selectmen's Meeting - 11/28/07
UPDATE: apologies to Jim Mull - bad name spelling earlier!
FPC, Library, Outside agencies, and Selectmen meetings times - I got to listen to them all!
Selectmen Meetings:
Normally, the Selectmen meet at times during the day that prevents normal working schlubs from attending. Today, having a day off, I finally had the chance to go to one, and I'm glad I did. Frankly, I wish more people would go - remember, government is supposed to be for OUR benefit; local government exists to make townfolk's lives easier, to do things in the aggregate that would be all but impossible for each of us to do individually. Therefore, local government should cater to those that give it raison d'etre and not to itself (be it elected or appointed officials or employees).
And that's the concern that Gus Benevides tried to remedy today. Following up on an item tabled 6 months ago, he made a motion to change the meeting time to the evening time for a trial period of 6 weeks. I thought that the proposal was great - I understand that generally Selectmen meetings in the past have been ill attended. Thus, if in 6 weeks attendance flops again, move it back, but at least it would have given the townfolk a chance.
However, Chairwoman Boucher immediately made it quite clear that for the remainder of her term, she is absolutely against moving the time to allow that. While she rightfully pointed out that the meetings will be taped (with a big shoutout to Evans for pursuing this - the Gilford Channel beginnings!!!), they are TAPED - with that format, one only finds out what happens AFTER the fact and not having the opportunity to be part of the fact. She complained, once again, that a change would force the town employees to either stay late or come back again. Also, given what I heard at the meeting, it seems that her personal life as the newly appointed position District Governor with Rotary would come before making it possible for citizens to try tom come (Citizen):
"I'm going to be a district governor for Rotary," explained Boucher in explaining her decision. "That will take up a lot of my time."
Thus...
...in order to participate real time in our town's governance, you have to be retired or self-employed due to Ms. Boucher's adamant tone in this regard. This may sound a tad snarky (but is not meant to be such; merely an observation) but if it is the case that Chairwoman Ms. Boucher's new duties with Rotary are more important than her Selectman responsibilities to those that voted for her (and I am one) from even a trial chance at allowing us to attend her meetings, she should rethink on holding onto one of her positions.
Library:
I previously posted about what to do with the money from the sale of the land that was bought by the town for a new library. It seems from Deb Shackett's conversation with the State DRA that if the land is sold, the $40K given by donors should get their money returned. The money that was taken from a Capital Reserve fund ($100K) has to be returned to that fund. Any money above the original purchase price must go into the General Fund.
The Selectmen will then have to decide to either close the Capital Reserve (money goes into the General fund - the equivalent of returning it back to the taxpayers) or just let it sit there for a time when an even newer Library will be needed (THAT would be a while) or create a Warrant Article that would just give the $100K to the Library Trustees.
Stay tuned.
FPC:
After a formal presentation, a lull in the activities, a quick "out in the corridor meeting with Jim Mull, Evans Juris, and I don't know who else", and Evans asking a few questions when the FPC Chair was invited back to the podium so that the Selectmen could hear some answers, the Selectmen authorized the FPC to continue discussing details and $$ with Horne Construction of Rochester. This as out of the 5 RFPs that went out and 3 came back, they were the only one that met all of the specification. No contracts to be signed but just trying to get all of the info for the Selectmen so that a Warrant could be ready for voting time.
Outside Agencies:
Gus brought up a request by Doug to have the Selectmen delete the NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations; you know, the charities that want town tax monies) from the budget and submit them to the townfolk on Warrants - one Warrant for each NGO. To be brief, they punted on the motion, saying that they wanted to hear from the BudComm first. I thought it a bit odd, seeing that I and John O'Brian (both of us are on the BudComm AND on the Sub-Committee for the NGOs) were in the room (heck, all three Selectmen looked at me during their discussion) but neither of us were asked for any comment.
So, I guess we'll address it at the BudComm level first!. And if things go well, I'll live stream the meeting (or at least record it myself and put it up here if not).
