Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Rental Registration Sabotage



The new Rental Registration Bylaw, overwhelmingly passed by Amherst Town Meeting last spring with a start date of January 1st, would come to a screeching halt if this "citizens petition" article is passed by Town Meeting this coming spring.

"Death by delay" is a tactic commonly used by NIMBYs and other parties with vested interests -- and there's no interest like self interest. 

Of course this article, even though it only took ten signatures to make the Annual Warrant, would still require a majority of Town Meeting support to pass.

And since the original article passed resoundingly on a voice vote (so no standing count was needed), what sounded to me like two-thirds, it's hard to imagine so many would now backtrack to support this obstructionism.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Surely the signed petition is a public document.

Who are the 10 signers, Larry?

Larry Kelley said...

The original documents were up in the Select Board's office and the Town Clerk only had the copies without signatures.

I'll maybe go back tomorrow and shoot the originals.

I was pressed for time yesterday (as you can tell by the quality of the photos).

Anonymous said...

Today's Gazette says Vince O'Connor submitted this and most of the other petition articles.

http://www.gazettenet.com/home/10995959-95/amherst-town-meeting-to-consider-housing-drones

Larry Kelley said...

Yeah, all you need is ten signatures and you can get the same ten people to sign 5 or 6 petitions.

Anonymous said...

Who are the ten signers on the Rental Registration petition, which is surely a public document?

There will be time after Blarney Blowout to find out.