14 items tonight...and 2 hours and 45 minutes later, our new five member board finished the business they got down to.
A little slow getting out of the starting gate, though. There was immediate insistence - 8 minutes and 40 seconds of it, all told - from one selectman, that state statute required electing of a chair and vice chair before going another single step. "... it's something we're required by law to do at this meeting."
This from the selectman who has a previous interest in when the term begins and ends for a newly elected selectboard members. Was this an effort to sway thinking to his bias?
That, contrary to the choice made by Paris voters in 1999 - that life of the selectboard should begin on or after July 1 - the board before us tonight was starting its new life right now, its new members having been sworn in right after the town meeting in the 12th of June?
MRSA 2526 Choice and qualifications of town officials, especially subsection 4D that talks about term of office, was cited. More than once...However, when two other selectboard members looked at the statute for themselves, there was no concurrence with his interpretation of the statute . [ editor's note: TPR readers may come to their own conclusion; subsection 4D is highlighted in the link above..]
Chairman Glover settled the discussion by saying that the board would go by past practice and vote for chairman and vice chairman at the close of the last meeting in June. Curiously, this past practice seems closer to the wishes of the 1999 voters....
*Bills were paid; civil engineer Robert Prue presented plans that will allow work on Oxford Street and East Oxford Road;
*It had become apparent that medical leave as a policy was (a) already in place in the Employee Handbook, and (b) under revision by the Policy and Procedure Committee and so there would be no discussion tonight;
*Fire Chief Frost accepted the bid for the company who will build the tank truck.
And there was a brand new item for the town of Paris to consider: Patricia Pelletier, a local teacher at OHCHS, presented a detailed description of her request to establish a dispensary for (and thereby the growing of) medical marijuana. Even though Pelletier is faced with an approaching deadline, no decision could be made on the part of the town tonight because there were simply so many unknowns. It is likely a moratorium will be proposed to the voters, and an educational effort made on all fronts.
The selectboard (and audience) looked at some sample ordinances gathered ahead of time by Town Manager Tarr on how a moratorium on such a proposed project might work.
And then an interesting, rather informal conversation sprang up.
Mgr. Tarr: Will you look at the two sample ordinances that you have and tell me what you like?
Ch. Glover: Yep.
Mgr. Tarr: ...wordage...
Ch. Glover: We can be looking at these...
Selectman Kurtz: (addressing Mgr. Tarr) I like the second one...
Mgr. Tarr: ....versions....
Sel. K: (continuing to focus on Mgr. Tarr) Well, y'know, in terms of our dialog over the weekend, and today, I mean....and that came out from the first to the second...
Mgr. Tarr: Yeah. That was clarified today.
[editor's note: what was clarified is that over the weekend and today there was some private conferring; but, more importantly, this is not the first time there was a specific comment directed, in public, to Mgr. Tarr from this selectman, making very clear that there had been a private conversation between the two of them.]
Is that a problem? Do you wonder?
And then this, in a last item, under "Selectmen concerns":
Sel. Kurtz: I've been trying for the last month or so to sort out the legal issues involved in these questions.....something that would be extremely helpful to me would be to pick up the phone and call MMA...and have them talk to me.
...I did that, I was informed that the town of Paris has a kind of unusual arrangement with them, which is that only the town manager and the chairman of the selectboard... have access to them.
...I'd just like to raise this as a question, and ask why this is so? And, can we change it?
And these would be questions for our readers from TPR:
Do you remember what TPR asked over and over during the disasterous 7 month fiasco of last year? We asked: "Who's running this town?" Do you remember?
