So it’s safe to say nobody in the 250-year history of Amherst, has absorbed and wasted more time on the floor of Town Meeting than Vince O’Connor. But tonight was a new low, ironically enough, fairly brief.
When Article #13--Vince’s advisory article championing Governor Cadillac’s 19 cent per gallon gas tax increase--came up in normal rotation about an hour into Town Meeting, Mr. O’Connor did not have the exact wording of the motion because he has been “busy" and did not “have the time,” so he asked Town Meeting to postpone the article to come up after #20 next week.
Hmmm…So Mr. O’Connor’s time (and it's not like he has a dayjob) is more valuable than the 150 or so Town Meeting members in the room trying to get through the Warrant as quickly and efficiently as possible?
Gotta wonder if it had anything to do with PR. Next week is, after all, national bike week.
When you're an aristocrat, you don't have to worry about the time of the little people, those poor schmucks in the seats with jobs.
ReplyDeleteBut Vince is more than an aristocrat, he is the absolute center of his universe and everything in the universe revolves around him.
So the Town Meeting membership will just have to patiently and humbly wait until he gets the stone tablets ready, and then boldly leads us out of the desert of our ignorance.
Remember what the opponents of the Charter told us several years ago: government is most democratic when it wastes the most time of the most people possible.
Bike breakfast in Amherst on Friday 15 May at the
ReplyDeleteTown Common, and the full schedule of events at:
pvbikeweek.com
See you on your bike, Larry
Yes, Mr. Kusner you will indeed (with camera of course)
ReplyDeleteI do not ride on the road anymore to many teenagers texting whilst driving. Not as safe as it was say ten years ago.
ReplyDelete-Ryan Willey
The fact of the matter is that Town Meeting should have debated and voted on the Gas Tax article on Wednesday. Delaying Town Meeting due to one persons inability to follow through sends a bad message to petitioners in the future.
ReplyDeleteHarrison should bring the article forward on Monday and call for a discussion and vote.
So, exactly what is your complaint? He asked to bring up after #20 next week? Big deal.
ReplyDeleteMy complaint is he's asking for (and received) special treatment. His article should have come up last night.
ReplyDeleteHow hard is it to write up a single paragraph or two for a warrant article when you have had almost six weeks or so?
The bottom line problem is the state law that mandates town meeting warrant articles with only 10 signatures.
ReplyDeleteThis should be something for each city and town to decide for itself.
My complaint, Anon 4:35 is that he had two months to write his new language. Also, the moderator has said that he would not allow a vote without Town Meeting getting a chance to look at the new language, and the Moderator said that looking at it right before the vote was not long enough. This means that this article, if it isn't stopped, will be held over into June when we will be discussing the budget. Adding in an article that has no power, doesn't contain anything of importance to the town and being an article that the Governor and Federal Government will not listen to anyway is foolish. Let us vote on Monday with the current language. Vince O'Connor should not be allowed to manipulate Town Meeting like this.
ReplyDeleteto much acid in his early days?
ReplyDeleteor not enough in his later days?
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