Arlington Town Meeting

I’m surprised at how little discussion about the upcoming election (now only three days away) there has been. So I’m going to throw my SWAGs out there for people to dissect.

I may know my stuff on how TM works, but rest assured that I have zero insider knowledge about the campaigns. This is all gut feelings and guesses, so I disclaim responsibility for what happens if you rely on it :-)

Anyways…

SchoolComm:
I think Thielman will easily be the ticket-topper. He’s an incumbent, he’s the chair (which makes him even more visible), and to the extent you can ascribe any meaning to “I’m voting for Foo” letters, many of them say “I’m voting for Thielman and XXXX”. I haven’t seen any saying “I’m voting for Candelas and Sheffler”.

I think the race for the other seat will be tight, but think Sheffler will take it. She’s an incumbent and (I believe) this is the first time Candelas has run for anything in town.

Selectmen:
I think this one is going to go to the wire and no one is safe, though I think Hurd is the least at risk of the three. It’s true that the Establishment is all about Hurd and Rowe, so that’ll definitely help them. But it could hurt them, too, especially among those dissatisfied with the tax load, and Doherty’s very clear on his feelings there.

But I’m not being not paid to not name names :-), so I’ll say that Hurd will (narrowly) finish first. Inbumbency will help in this one. I think the endorsement of virtually all the town insiders will (barely) push Rowe over the top for the other seat, but I would not at all be surprised to see Doherty take it. I think turnout will be key, with higher turnout favoring Doherty.

Alcohol:
I realize these questions got on the ballot very late, but I’m still amazed at how little discussion there’s been of them, especially of the packie questions.

I think the question to expand the number of all-alchol restaurant liquor licenses will pass. I think the beer&wine store question will pass. But I think the all-alcohol store question will fail.

Fire away in the comments!

Here’s the archive page of the old blog.

As for the pre-2003 notes, I have no idea if they still exist anywhere. They might be buried on the town’s website somewhere or they may still be reachable in the ArlList’s archives.

As you may know, there’s an article (number 67, I believe) in this year’s warrant to ask TM to vote to resolve that spanking children is bad.

I want to start by pointing out to anyone who read the story on this issue in today’s Globe NorthWest section, that I did not say what the article said I did. Somehow Mr. Joseph Tully’s remarks ended up with my name on them. The reporter has already apologized personally to me and says a correction will be run.

For the record, my position is almost exactly opposite to Mr. Tully’s. I do not think the article is appropriate for Town Meeting (especially a Representative Town Meeting, such as Arlington’s). As a TMM, I resent advocacy groups attempting to use TM a a prop in their PR stunts.

I’m also against the resolution on the merits. I believe the proponents are quite disingenous when they attempt to link all corporal punishment with criminal child abuse. I also believe the government already intrudes far too much in our personal lives and that encouraging further interference (even if only a “resolution”) is bad policy.

So for both of these reasons, I plan to vote against the resolution.

Here’s the information on how to purchase Town Meeting Time, an eminently readable and sometimes even (dryly) humorous parliamentary guide. It is the official rulebook of Arlington’s Town Meeting except to the extent that the Town by-laws and state law provide to the contrary.

It’s almost Town Meeting season. The annual election is Saturday, 1 April (hmm… :-)) and TM will start on 24 April. You all should have received your warrants by now. Only 67 articles this year, so one of the shorter ones. Ought to be interesting to see how long it takes this time.

Remember to check the ballot for your precincts — many precincts have open slots, so consider running as a write-in!

The Arlington TM blog has moved. I hope you all find this site easier to deal with than the old blogspot site. Like before, I’d like to see people (besides me) posting their takes on TM here. I also plan to have open commenting on as well (unless comment spam becomes too much of an issue). Content will gradually be added as we move closer to the 2006 TM. RSS feeds for both the posts and the comments are available. Enjoy (and participate)!