Monday 10-25-10 Paris Selectboard will meet at 7 PM in the town office. Public is welcome. Agenda here.
*The long awaited public discussion by the selectboard re. ATV use of certain public roads as connectors for some of their trails has been under small group discussion and negotiation. The expectation for this regularly scheduled meeting is to include an open discussion between board members, and to conclude with a final decision on the issue.
The original suggestion by some on the board was to wait and make a final decision at their regular December 13 meeting; but there were land owners who felt that the matter was more urgent, and needed to be dealt with before the ATV season was effectively over in December anyway.
*The Northern Border Grant, authorized in the 2008 Farm Bill, addresses job creation, infrastructure improvements, and efforts to strengthen rural economy. It is designed to bring regional support to economically distressed areas; 12 of the 16 counties in Maine are eligible, including Oxford.
The topic is on the agenda to be presented by Linda Walbridge from Community Concepts. For more information, see press releases from Senator Olympia Snowe, and Maine Dept. of Economic Development.
*[editor's note on Town Manager's report, which, as is usually the case until the actual day of a meeting, has not yet been specified:
While the public does appreciate being reminded of upcoming events, deadlines, a new hiring, new rules and laws to consider, perhaps - the public does not wish, every meeting, a 20-30 minute session of accomplishments, new ideas and possibilities, or items that more than once have lead to board discussion and the need for action. If the manager has such items to present, they belong on the regular agenda.]
*Selectmen concerns. Paris citizens value their elected officials' ideas and perspectives. There must indeed be a venue for those concerns/thoughts/questions to be brought into the public view. It is realistic to have a catch-all sort of category in an agenda for last minute items - though it might more realistically be called "other."
Consider, however:
Items of importance, to the speaker, similar to Citizen Comments - though under the title of "Selectman Concerns" - have, more than once, been brought up under this umbrella, at the very end of the agenda, 2 1/2 or 3 hours in - and more - for a cable TV viewer, or after most of a live audience - often including the press - has gone home....
If an issue is important enough to be brought up at all, why is it not on the agenda proper? Or, at the very least, why is "selectmen concerns" not earlier in the agenda? When it would receive more attention? Surely this is not to sneak things in when no one notices? Nor could it be that our elected officials - also citizens - do not deserve prime time billing?
The devil is in the details.... How things are presented, how they are worded, how they are disclosed...all make a difference in how they are received/perceived by the public, and how they will be responded to. How things are presented affects the interaction between citizens, including elected officials, which, in itself, becomes part of the life force in any town.
