Arlington Town Meeting

I would like to thank my fellow Town Meeting Members for tonight electing me as their Assistant Moderator.

Thank you!

Some people have been wondering how Town Meeting will get going, as it is expected that the new Town Moderator, John Leone, will (understandably!!) miss some initial sessions due to what has happened.

According to an e-mail sent out by BoS Chair Annie LaCourt, Massachusetts law states that the old Moderator’s term does not end until the new Moderator is “elected and qualified”. Here, “qualified” means “sworn in”. So without any action needed from anyone, John Worden will simply continue in the chair and will run the Meeting until Mr. Leone is ready. When he is ready, Mr. Leone needs only show up before the Clerk and be sworn. At that moment he will automatically become Moderator.

Some people have also discussed delaying the start of Town Meeting out of respect to Mr. Leone. The aforementioned e-mail from Ms. LaCourt also said that Town Meeting would not be delayed and this was in accordance with Mr. Leone’s wishes.

As you may have heard/noticed, I’m running for Moderator.

It’s not too late to help, and just some of the ways you can help are:

• Holding signs.
• Displaying yard signs
• Making endorsements
• Telling friends and neighbors you support me.
• Making contributions to defray campaign costs.

If you’re interested in any of these or have any questions about what you can do to help, send an email to volunteer@richformoderator.org. If you have any general questions, email rich@richformoderator.org.

Thank you, and please vote for me on April 14th!

I just received an e-mail from Town Counsel telling me that the “missing” revolving funds aren’t really missing and did not need to be in the vote. He said that state law has changed in the past year and that persuant to the change SchoolComm has taken direct control of those four funds. Accordingly, they did not have to be in the Article 35 vote.

I suggest when the school budget comes up that SchoolComm report on the balances, revenues, and expenditures of those funds it took control of, if it was not already planning to do that.

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!