|
Other Lynnfield News:
Board reappoints town officials
Vandals target LHS grounds
No surprises at 'canceled' meeting
by Robert Curtin
LYNNFIELD – How many Lynnfield residents can you get to come to
town meeting when you want them to come?
That all depends on a number of factors, including the amount of controversy
surrounding the issues that would be placed before voters. But the annual
spring town meeting twice failed to draw the requisite 175 voters to attain
a quorum, despite $30 million in spending that was at issue, before reaching
the figure on a third attempt.
How many will show up when you tell them not to bother? The answer to
that was determined last week.
Last week on Wednesday, a special town meeting provided an interesting
test, as the Board of Selectmen and Town Administrator William Gustus
advised voters through the press that the selectmen planned not go forward
on any of the items on the warrant.
The meeting had been set to take up three issues — amending the
budget adopted at the annual town meeting to cope with losses in local
aid, considering whether to adopt a local meals tax, and considering whether
to take the chief of police position out of Civil Service. But as the
appointed meeting time approached, the selectmen and Gustus became concerned
that state government would not have wrapped up its budget in time to
give clarity to the local aid picture, and the House and Senate had not
yet agreed on whether to authorize the local meals tax. In addition, the
selectmen agreed that as they had just hired a consultant to assist them
with the police chief search process, it would be premature to ask voters
to take the position out of the state civil service system.
However, once posted, a town meeting cannot be canceled. News reports
indicated that if a quorum showed up at the meeting, the meeting would
go forward — although in that case, the selectmen were prepared
to ask voters to adjourn the meeting without any action taken on the articles.
Moderator David Miller attended last week’s Board of Selectmen meeting,
held two days prior to the special town meeting, to express his concern
that voters may have been given the wrong impression — that the
meeting had been canceled.
He said he had encountered “a certain amount of confusion”
about the issue.
“As you know, only the people can terminate” a meeting once
the quorum has been achieved, he said.
“My worry is that there may be a sufficient number of people”
in attendance to meet the quorum requirement, he told the selectmen.
Those who stayed away because they did not understand this “could
be very bent out of shape” if this transpired, he said.
He asked the selectmen to notify people that “there is going to
be a special town meeting” on Wednesday through whatever means are
available.
“It’s not a fait accompli” that the meeting will not
go forward, he said.
The selectmen, however, did not ask the School Department to use its emergency
notification system that the meeting would go forward.
Gustus said he had spoken to Town Counsel Thomas Mullen about the issue,
and said that Miller was correct in his interpretation of the law, but
said it is within the right of the Board of Selectmen to ask voters to
pass over articles. Even if the articles were indefinitely postponed at
the meeting, nothing in state law or the local charter would prevent them
from being taken up again in October, when the Board of Selectmen intends
to address the budgetary issues, at least, during the regularly scheduled
fall town meeting, he said.
Chairman of the Board of Selectmen Robert MacKendrick said that the board’s
position was clear that they did not want to move forward on any of the
three articles.
If a quorum arrives, MacKendrick said, the selectmen would move to adjourn
the meeting with no action taken.
Selectman Arthur Bourque commented that “hindsight is 20/20,”
and said that the selectmen believed the budget issues facing the own
would be more dire when the special town meeting was originally scheduled.
“We’re just not ready to move these things forward,”
he said.
As the selectmen’s meeting adjourned on Monday night, the monitor
in the selectmen’s meeting room at Town Hall, tuned to the local
cable channel, flashed the message that town meeting was not canceled.
“Come one, come all,” the screen read.
In the final result, only 57 registered voters signed in for the special
town meeting, which was adjourned at about 7:30 p.m.
|
