{"id":40428,"date":"2017-03-07T23:04:06","date_gmt":"2017-03-08T03:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/?p=40428"},"modified":"2017-03-07T23:04:06","modified_gmt":"2017-03-08T03:04:06","slug":"tuesday-night-town-meeting-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/2017\/03\/07\/tuesday-night-town-meeting-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday night – Town Meeting !"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first Tuesday in March is a sacred day here in Vermont. Schools are off, Some businesses close.. and many folks cram into school gyms, grange halls, and churches for the purest form of democracy left in the USA.. Town Meeting. I’ve been going to Richmond’s Town Meeting every year I was in town for the last 35 years. Same people.. just\u00a0\u00a0a little bit older.. Issues\u00a0\u00a0change, but the love and pride for our town has not.<\/p>\n

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just walkign into the middle school brings back memories of our three kids time here..<\/p>\n

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It’s definitely a Vermont expereince<\/p>\n

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first job when you arrive is to vote. \u00a0THey are abliged ot ask your name.. but everyone knows everyone..<\/p>\n

so it’s almost an inside joke<\/p>\n

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I always stand in the back so I can exchange wisecracks with my old friends.. there are lots of folks doing the same thing..\u00a0\"\"<\/p>\n

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this year the ‘warning’ \u00a0ie the booklet of the stuff to be covered is pretty spiffy.. it has a color cover !<\/p>\n

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This issue is dedicated to our good freind Patt who died lasrt year.. it was so nice to see him grinding meet in the town report<\/p>\n

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reading the Richmond Town Report<\/a> is always fun. Take a look if you want to really understand\u00a0life in our small town I particularly recommend the police report on Page 31. jumping out of the trunks of cars, ranting and raving at the top of their lungs, \u00a0 getting ‘dope sick’ (yes.. even here) .. Seriously.. give it a read… !<\/p>\n

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when I got there it was in the middle of a\u00a0discussion of town water and sewer.. which is only an issue for folks who actually live ‘in tonwn’.. not lie most of us way outside the range of pipes..<\/p>\n

Most of the conversation is about the budget.. there’s always\u00a0\u00a0some interesting discussion. The high point today was a budget amendment put in by my friend Jane to raise the salary of our town clerk, Linda Parent by $3000. \u00a0 Jane had done her homework and told a great set of stories of Linda’s value to the town. Then Bruce Labounty stood up and amended Jane’s amendment to make it $6000.. \u00a0Clint, \u00a0the meeting moderator \u00a0(and our good friend) asked Jane if that was ok.. she answered ‘when it’s appropriate to do so’.. \u00a0 which turned out to be a an interesting answer \u00a0For the next 20 minutes or so people of all political persuasions stood up and attested to the great job Linda has done for our town. there was not a word of dissent.. and .. thats saying something in these politically charged times..<\/p>\n

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After about 20 minutes of this, Donna Sax made a move to ‘call’ the vote.. ie .. stop the debate.. though there was no disagreement. Clint asked for a voice vote on closing the discussion and the Ays had it.. but when he read back the amendment it was still at $3000 raise.. not $6000. He explained that Jane’s answer of ‘when it’s appropriate to do so’ had\u00a0not constituted a ‘yes’ .. There was a great deal of consternation.. should we amend to cancel that amendment and revote it at the larger number ? should we just keep it at $3000 ? .. what to do ?!?!?<\/p>\n

at that moment my neighbor Francis Churchill grabbed the mike and pointed out that no one had ‘seconded’ \u00a0Donna’s original move to ‘call’ the\u00a0\u00a0vote 5 minutes earlier . \u00a0that meant the debate was still in play. Clint deftly apologized and asked for\u00a0\u00a0a second.. , got one.. then asked for a vice vote.. this time the ‘No’s’ had it.. which meant the debate was still open. Jane stood up and accepted Bruce’s amendment to $6000, Donna again called the vote, Clint asked for a voice vote, the Ays hd it, the debate was stopped. Clint then called for a vote on the amendment.. and it passed almost unanimously by voice vote.. and Linda salary was $6000 more.<\/p>\n

It was so much fun to watch !<\/p>\n

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thank goodness Marshall was there with his Robert’s rules !\"\"<\/p>\n

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other hilights, icluded my freind Jeff’s non binding resolution in response to the lack of civility in US politics.. on our towns values regarding acceptance of people of all economic, religious,, sexual identify, etc.. \u00a0 It passed almost unanimously<\/p>\n

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There was \u00a0similar\u00a0 another non binding resolution in response to the Syran crisis offered by this guy.. (whom I didn’t know)<\/p>\n

recommending that the select board create a liaison to groups of underrepresented people.\"\"<\/p>\n

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then a commission on the new proposed police and fire station.My friend Gary cautioned the town about the large number of big spending projects we had in the last couple of years.. I had to agree.. I think it was the first moment in my adult life that I stood back and thought like a fiscal conservative.<\/p>\n

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when meeting broke up , we all wandered out in the hall to mingle.. and buy girl scout cookies.\u00a0\"\"<\/p>\n

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I looked in on the grangerl ladies lunch.. but needed to get home for work.. so said my goodbyes and headed home..<\/p>\n

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And these two girls were waiting for me…. now thats a good day !<\/p>\n

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nite all, nite sam<\/p>\n

-me<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first Tuesday in March is a sacred day here in Vermont. Schools are off, Some businesses close.. and many folks cram into school gyms, grange halls, and churches for the purest form of democracy left in the USA.. Town Meeting. I’ve been going to Richmond’s Town Meeting every year I was in town for … Continue reading Tuesday night – Town Meeting !<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40472,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40428\/revisions\/40472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}