March 28, 2024

Special Town Meeting on July 16th

Posted

This has been a year to remember for the budget process and there’s been a whole lot to take in over the last month and a half or so. There’s been lunatic talk of shadowy puppet masters and evil empires from our Superintendent of the schools, an extremely foolish Selectman from Dighton weighing in with falsehoods and wild accusations and claims against the elected and appointed officials of this town, and the School Committee saying that a record turnout of 700 voters at the May 28th Annual Town Meeting was undemocratic. What a number of interesting ways to show our children by example how difficult problems should be handled when they come across them.

On the note of the May 28th vote I feel it’s extremely important for all in town to know that there is another upcoming vote on July 16th at a Special Town Meeting. I have heard from many that they’re unaware of it and what it is for, so I want to provide an answer to that. What we’re voting for on July 16th is the exact same vote that we made on May 28th. The immediate question that you’ll have reading this is “how and why is it that we have to go back and vote on the exact same thing?” The answer is that Massachusetts law allows that when a budget in a school district isn’t passed, the School Committee has 30 days to reconsider, amend, and resubmit a budget back to the town. In this case they decided not to reconsider or amend, and just went straight to resubmitting the exact same unaffordable assessment that was already voted down by a vast majority of the voters in attendance. They did this at their very first meeting after the May 28th vote without using any of the allotted 30 days to consider otherwise.

I feel it’s highly important to say right now that even if I agreed with everything that the School Committee wants and does, I could not stand for this as it is nothing less than the subversion of the votes that the people of this town took the time out of their lives to come make on May 28th. The fact that there is not one penny changed over what was voted on May 28th and that they’re hoping that the people just won’t show up to vote again this time I find unconscionable and unacceptable as an American.

I will be there on July 16th to do my part to stand against this subversion and make sure that the will of the people as voted upon is upheld. I hope to see you all there to join me in doing the same.

-Michael Fleming

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