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April 28, 2005
More Local Government Fun
I suspect Public Meetings would be shorter if people only paid attention to one another.
On Monday night the RTM met with a very full agenda, highlighted by the first public comments on the Town Budget. In Connecticut, the Board of Ed sets their own budget which we on the town side may cut but cannot alter line items or add to their request. The education budget represents something like 63% of the total budget so is always under scrutiny.
Our Moderator asked the RTM to come prepared to announce any line item a member intended to ask be reduced so at next week’s final budget meeting, the affected department could come and discuss the cut. When we got to the budget, our Moderator dutifully asked if anyone on the RTM intended to propose any cuts.
Not a single cut was suggested.
Then the floor was opened to public comment. The room was packed, with about half the room filled with school administrators, principals, deans, and Board of Ed members. The other half were parents and concerned citizens on other topics.
Well, despite our proclaimed intentions not to cut the Budget, we then had to sit through over 18 people, all representing various PTA and PTA-related organizations begging us not to cut the budget. All came prepared with notes and all exceeded the two minute time limit. And they all said the same thing.
Until one of the final speakers reached the mike. He was a parent and addressed a line item on page 205. He knew it was too late for this year but made a passionate, well-reasoned plea for consideration of additional funding for the line. It involved early education and intervention for 3-5 year olds. If passed, it would be too late for his son, diagnosed as autistic, but maybe others could be identified and better programs instituted.
Finally, someone who used his time wisely and for the public good. Everyone else spoke, wasting our time with unnecessary pleas just to be on the record as saying they supported the budget.
And not a single person came to speak out in favor of or against a single item in the town side of the budget. I’m told this was a fairly typical budget session and I think this is troublesome.
The rest of the meeting was filled with routine business but the orderly manner in which we conducted affairs, all according to Robert’s Rules of Order, probably added an hour to the proceedings. Two resolutions, for example, was to authorize our First Selectman to accept money from the government. Don’t ask me why something so bleeding obvious required to be on the agenda at all. The money was earmarked for the town, we were getting it anyway, but rules are rules.
We did get bogged down, though, with amendments and amendments to amendments all in a clumsy effort to accept a donation of property that the neighbors wanted to turn into a park. People debated it the language was right, if the terms of the donation were alterable, which department should get the land to see to it that the neighbors got their park and in the end, approved a resolution accepting the donation and giving it to a department for management. Our Town Attorney then spoke up and said that legally, the resolution didn’t work – we misnamed the department. We then had to redraft the resolution and revote so the department became a commission.
Our 8 p.m. meeting was adjourned at about 11:55, this following an hour’s caucus. And I get the privilege of doing this all over again next Monday when we approve the budget – still without changes to the education figures – and watch everyone complain when their taxes rise.
Posted by Bob Greenberger at April 28, 2005 09:19 AM
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