By Barbara Smith,
Blogger and Social Justice Activist,
https://www.facebook.com/HWdemocrats/
Changing an article right before a town meeting is confusing and unnecessary….
The below article relates to the last minute article changes in Ipswich at the recent all town meeting. But this has also happened in Hamilton, and the process needs to be transparent. According to the Salem News article about Ipswich… “Some Town Meeting members took issue with how late part one of Article 9 had changed before the meeting. As did Finance Committee member Jamie Fay, who said the committee did not see this change until a few hours before Town Meeting.
In Hamilton’s last month’s All Town Meeting, voters were told of a last minute change involving School funding. Residents who diligently read the articles were confused when asked to vote on changed language.
This seems like a way of tricking people into voting for things that some individuals want, but might not be good for the Town as a whole. This was happening on a regular basis before Select Board members Rosemary Kennedy and Darcy Dale got into office and then they made it stop. It’s great that Ipswich saw this and acted on it by putting it out there in the Salem News.
Maybe Hamilton can do something similar to make our government more democratic and accountable to the residents…
