EDDINGTON SELECTMEN'S MEETING - TOWN MEETING VOTE IGNORED

I'll admit I haven't been at the last one or two meetings of the Eddington Board of Selectmen. But it's a good thing I was in attendance last night. Otherwise there would probably have been no notification to Eddington voters and taxpayers that the Board unanimously elected to ignore the vote and will of the people who attended the Annual Town Meeting last March. I say this based on the principle that the people's vote IS the governing authority and not the will of the elected body.

In case you weren't at that Town Meeting - and particularly if you were - Article 11, as originally written for the people's vote, was amended and passed. I wrote about the event on this blog following the Town Meeting. The following is what I wrote:

Article 11: generated discussion resulting in a motion for an Amendment which passed 25/21 (with a requested hand count). The issue had to do with the Selectmen applying for and/or accepting state and federal grants and nonprofit organization grants and having the authority to accept same and the conditions that come along with them as well as appropriating and expending the grant funds. The Amendment, which was added to the end of the article, reads as follows: "with the understanding that no grants may be accepted or applied for which will obligate the residents to long-term commitments unless approved by the town at a specially called town meeting in advance." The Article was Passed with the Amendment.

So it was with interest that I listened to Fire Chief Ellis's report during which he stated that he had, at some point in the past, submitted a grant proposal to Americorp on behalf of the towns of Holden and Eddington for sufficient funding for a firefighter position (per town) and that both towns had been chosen to be recipients of Americorp grants. The grant (per town) is for an 11 month position with funding for 40 hour weeks plus workers compensation and other benefits. However, the recipients of the grants are required to provide a matching amount of funding which the Fire Chief stated would total $8,900. According to Eddington's Town Manager, the position would begin effective October 2009, which means only four months of the position will be funded out of the current town budget and seven months will be required to be funded from the 2010-2011 budget. That budget has not even been reviewed or approved by the townspeople.

I would not like to think it was because I was sitting there in plain view of the entire Board (or because it was a member of my family who proposed that particular amendment or because I was the individual who ended up writing the final version of the approved amendment) that the Chair of the Board, with a less than respectful tone, asked if the Board would have to call a special meeting of the town to accept the grant.

The Town Manager stated that there are sufficient funds in the current fiscal year's year's budget Reserve to pay for the first four months (October - January). He further stated, because he did not consider the seven months in fiscal year 2010-2011 "a long-term commitment", he did not believe there was any need to call the required special town meeting. And so, all five members of the Board voted to accept the Americorp grant.

My issues:

1.It is unlikely that the Fire Chief failed to communicate with the Board of Selectmen some time ago that he intended to apply for the Americorp grant. Under the terms of Article 11, the special town meeting should have been called prior to any submission of the grant request. Some might say that Chief Ellis was not aware of the Article 11 requirement; however, the Eddington Deputy Fire Chief should have been aware. He was in attendance at the March Town Meeting. And it is reasonable to expect the Fire Chief spoke with either the Deputy Chief and/or the Town Manager and/or the Board of Selectmen prior to submitting the grant proposal, if only to obtain a signature representing the town.

2. Perhaps seven months of the next fiscal year does not constitute a "long-term commitment" except -when September 2010 comes along, does the Fire Chief and/or the Board of Selectmen plan to terminate/eliminate that firefighter position? Because, unless they do, this is exactly what the discussion was about at the town meeting.

The discussion at the town meeting began with one other individual pointing out that frequently the state or federal government or some other organization which may or may not be government-based in nature (and Americorp is government based) will provide seed money for a position. But the recipient of the seed money is then expected to continue to fund the position long after the seed money has been spent. And so a local budget grows and grows and therefore so do the taxes. Hence the amendment was offered and passed.

Therefore, unless the Eddington Board of Selectmen officially states that it will not include the additional firefighter position in the 2010-2011 budget other than for the seven months of matching funds, they have violated Article 11 as passed by the Eddington voters.

3. Given the inclination of the majority of Eddington residents to avoid attending even the once-a-year town meeting, it is quite likely that a simple Public Notice of a Special Town Meeting to Discuss .... would have been sufficient. The Board of Selectmen could have even scheduled it in accordance with a regularly scheduled Board Meeting, just as they schedule other Public Notices (and few if any people ever show other than the specific people being effected). It is quite likely that any people who did respond to the notification (by attending the meeting) would have approved the proposal submission even under the terms. But the people were never notified. And that is the issue.

The Chair's comments last night seemed a bit late in the process, if the Board ever had the intent to comply with the people's vote. But some form of notification would have shown the Board's respect for the vote of the people (under Article 11). As it turns out, it was business as usual, getting through the agenda as fast as possible (meeting was over in 30 minutes flat!) and no one would have ever known (or been advised) if yours truly hadn't been in attendance last night at the "Okey-Doke Corral."

This is your local elected government in action, Eddington, (with the American flag in the background).