Town Manager & Select Board get to sit at the head table
The Select Board signed the warrant last night and Amherst police posted copies this morning at all the precincts in town so there's no turning back now. The 257th annual Amherst Town Meeting starts April 27 and runs for as long as it takes (usually two meetings per week) to get through all 30 articles.
A significant reduction from the 42 articles appearing on the warrant last year, which prompted a much talked about editorial in the Springfield Sunday Republican criticizing the molasses like pace of Amherst Town Meeting.
Click to enlarge/read
That year we finished up on June 2nd. 2013 was even worse with 45 articles on the warrant and a dissolving date of June 10th.30 is not a new record for least amount but it shares that distinction with 2012 and 2009. At the opposite end of the spectrum 2008 was the largest over the past ten years with 47 articles.
Our $70 million budget is balanced so not much controversy to be generated there. Additionally, last night the Finance Director told the Select Board that enough savings had been found in health insurance and long term debt payments to cover the cost of the Town Manager's pet project: A new Economic Development Director.
Police will see a paltry increase of one position but the beleagured Fire Department got burned with no additional staffing.
8 of the 30 articles are via "citizen petition" (it only takes 10 signatures to get on the warrant) and three of the eight are zoning related so they will require a two-thirds vote of Town Meeting to pass.
Tedious standing vote
One thing that takes up tremendous time every meeting is the procedural process. Standing votes and tally votes can require 10 or 15 minutes each, and some nights we can have nearly a half-dozen.
Although not in the budget for this year's annual meeting, Finance Director Sandy Pooler did set aside $25,000 for the Fall Town Meeting to buy electronic voting devices for the entire 240 member body.
Which should help speed things up.
Of course the best solution is to reduce the size of the legislative body by 75% and hope some of the more loquacious members do not survive a competitive election.