town-meeting-2010

The budget challenges the town faced this year translated into a higher than attendance at the annual town meeting. On the first night of town meeting, 377 residents filled the seats at Trottier. The second night, which traditionally has a much lower attendance rate, saw 244 residents turn out. Read the full article → from Town meeting attendance relatively high this year

If you weren’t able to attend town meeting this year — or if you were and you just want to relive all the fun — you can catch a reply either online or on public access cable. Read the full article → from Catch the replay of town meeting

At town meeting this year, I sat near a town meeting virgin. This person has lived in Southborough for many years, but this was his first time attending town meeting. I suspect many of you were in the same boat. Read the full article → from Annual town meeting: What did you think?

From Southborough photographer Chris Wraight, here is a collection of photos from Southborough’s town meeting this week. Read the full article → from Photos: Southborough town meeting

There was a bit of procedural drama at town meeting last night just to keep things interesting. You may remember me mentioning that just because a budget is approved on the first night of town meeting doesn’t mean it can’t be reopened on subsequent nights. And that’s exactly what one resident attempted to do. Read the full article → from Town meeting day 2: Voters stand by decision to reduce Quinn Bill funding

It’s a debate that’s taken place every year for at least the past five years, so when it came time to talk about spending down the town’s stabilization fund, town meeting voters knew the drill. With limited discussion to supplement presentations by the Selectmen and Advisory Committee, Town Meeting voted overwhelmingly to use $417K from stabilization to fund town budgets. Read the full article → from Town meeting day 2: Voters approve $43M budget, dip into rainy day fund

We actually got through more of the warrant last night than I thought we might, but there are still plenty of questions left on the table when town meeting continues tonight. While it’s historically less well attended, day two is just as important as day one, and this year is no exception. Read the full article → from Town meeting continues tonight – what’s on tap

Town Meeting last night voted to approve the K-8 and regional school budgets at their full amount, and defeated a motion that would have cut the library budget by 4%. On the flip side, voters decided to reduce the proposed police budget by an additional $50K. Read the full article → from Town meeting day 1: School, library budgets approved; police budget cut

I originally ran this post in the run-up to last year’s annual town meeting. Since I know many of you will be attending town meeting for the first time, I thought it might be helpful to run it again. Read the full article → from Repost: A newbie’s guide to town meeting

It’s rained quite a bit this year, both literally and figuratively. So it seems only appropriate that one of the big questions at town meeting next week will be whether to tap into the town’s rainy day fund to help offset the tax burden. Read the full article → from Countdown to town meeting: Should the town tap into its rainy day funds?

For the past several months, the Board of Selectmen and the Advisory Committee have been working largely independently to come up with a set of budget recommendations to present to voters at town meeting next week. Tonight they’ll sit down to talk about their recommendations and, where there are differences, attempt to reach common ground. Read the full article → from Town boards look for common ground on budgets tonight

The Advisory Committee is one of two groups that recommend a budget for town meeting voters to consider (the other is the Board of Selectmen). Yesterday Advisory Committee member Al Hamilton posted a comment about the state of the budget from his committee’s perspective. Since some of you may have missed it in the comments, I’m reprinting it here. Read the full article → from Advisory Committee: Town budget would call for 2.9% tax increase but no override