... and 10 thousand words later... and not to mention an executive session of approximately 25 minutes to approve Paris Police Department's Teamsters Union contract, Monday's selectboard meeting finally crawled to a close.
Long agenda? Critical discussions? Disagreements? Information gathering? Public discord?
Not a particularly long agenda...on paper.
In addition to the earlier post, below, re. the accounting of the aftermath of the 6-22-09 firing of our former town manager, there was an issue or two that resulted in critical discussions, even some disagreement, e.g., Paris Fire Department's looking for approval for an additional piece of equipment - as well as the funding for some full-time, paid coverage to supplement our volunteer fire fighting force.
NPCTV stayed to record the whole meeting. Thank you, Steve Galvin! It is TPR's understanding that the audio portion of the recording is fully functional this time -a battery malfunctioned last meeting. Regular viewing time begins Sunday at 6:30 pm. Three hours plus is a long time to sit; if you have limited time, TPR suggests tuning in about 9 pm and watching 'til the end, for a hard-to-beat snapshot of how this current board conducts itself.
A fair amount of unscheduled time was occupied with chastisements, judgments, and directives for how individuals approaching the bench...oops... the selectboard should prepare themselves and their documents. Any possible hints that could facilitate functioning of any process or procedure were lost in the arrogance and hostility of delivery by the individual selectman in question.
The words are different, the time is different, but the feel is reminiscent of a board chairman not so long ago whose ultimatum of choice was "You're Done!" The individual in question this time around is not even chairman. Yet....
Another considerable chunk of time was focused on one warrant item for the 5 item warrant special town meeting coming up July 26. The warrant came (or was asked to be sent) unfinished, evidently, to the selectboard from the town manager, presumably; and not less than 1 hour and 15 minutes were spent "word-smithing," suggesting sub-paragraphs, debating brackets vs. parentheses, sending the town clerk (who acts as secretary for the board meetings) out of the room at least 3 times to the word processor and printer for re-dos.
Why is the selectboard spending all this time on just mechanics? For one article? Is this not what we pay staff (including the town manager) for? In the days before town managers, perhaps things had to be done this way.
TPR gets it that selectmen can run things pretty much as they choose, but was this just a preening session for a marathon involving essentially 2 selectmen with many words,( or, perhaps, one selectman with many words countered by the other with equally many words) ending with Article 4, as readers will see printed on the warrant referred to above? The version that is almost verbatim to what was proposed one hour earlier by another selectperson, but totally disregarded?
