Organization meeting of the 19th Council
We had the Council organizational meeting tonight. It was fairly straightforward. We start out with the Town Clerk, Carolyn Soltis, asking for a vote for Chairman. Matt Hall and Tim Slocum were both nominated. It was a party line vote with Matt being reelected Chairman. Then Mike Ecke and Jim Sima were nominated for Vice Chair... again a party line vote with Mike being reelected Vice Chair. Congratulations to both Matt and Mike, though... I don't think they were too surprised by their reelection.
Next we voted on "Council rules." We made a few changes and unanimously adopted the rules that were used for the past two years.
Then Matt Hall announced everyone's roles in the Council. And everything turned out as predicted by the MRJ (by Leslie Hutchison)! Finally, we got a quick recap from the Town Attorney on Freedom of Information rules, including when executive session is appropriate.
After the meeting adjourned I had a moment to ask Matt Altieri if he supported my call for a nonpartisan cost/benefit analysis of the rainy day fund. But I wouldn't want to inadvertently mischaracterize anything he said, so I won't discuss our conversation here.
Tim White
6 comments:
Surprise, surprise on the council chair and vice chair. Seems like a silly waste of time when you know how the vote will turn out.
Don't understand that if you made a few changes in the "council rules" but unanimously voted to use the rules of the past two years, isn't there a contradiction there? Are these written rules? Are they online or up at the town hall for anyone to read?
oh... sorry... I wrote a convaluted post.
The change in Council Rules to which I referred was this...
Rules are different for "regular meetings" and "special meetings."
Regular meetings are the second tuesday of every month. Special meetings are basically every other meeting.
The change I mentioned was to change the format of "special meeting agendas" to be in sync with "regular meeting agendas."
I simply pointed out that while we say the Pledge of Allegiance at both Regular and Special meetings... the Council Rules included the Pledge for only Regular meetings. So I suggested that we add it for Special meetings... I mean, we say the Pledge at all meetings. So it made sense to include in the rules.
I just didn't really feel like writing all that in my post and figured no one would ask. But since you asked, you deserved an explanation...
In my opinion, there were no substantive changes to the rules that we used for the past two years. Sorry for the confusion.
I hope MH will stay awake and show some interest the next two years. If the vote is going to go 5 to 4 on important issues all the time, no wonder only 39% of the people turn out to vote. Give us our tax dollars worth please....
What is wrong with 5-4?
It's great for the special interests. Don't need any discussion just need a
MOTION
A Second and
Yes Yes
yes Yes
yes
Passed. Bada Bing!
Anon 12:00 Nothing is wrong with a 5 to 4 vote. I would like to see some discussion and for example 3D's + 2R's=5 and 2D's + 2R's =4. If these elected official are elected to represent all the citizens of Cheshire how could you explain how it's 5 to 4 in favor of whatever majority party is in power?
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