Editorial, Letters to the Editor

Beginning Australian Ballot Procedure

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To the editor:

The select board has been under pressure to bring the town hall redevelopment proposal to a vote and we have repeatedly told people we planned to be able to do that by town meeting. We have also been under pressure by some to have the vote be by Australian ballot and we said we planned to do that as well. When we reviewed these plans with our town attorney, we were told the select board does not have the power to authorize an Australian ballot vote. That has to be done with a town meeting by the entire electorate.

That left us with three choices: 1. try to rush a special town meeting before the regular town meeting; 2. go ahead with a traditional vote at our regular town meeting; 3. vote at our regular town meeting to authorize an Australian ballot for a later special town meeting.

The sense of a majority of people on the board was that trying to rush a special town meeting before the regular Town meeting was not fair to office staff and would be fraught with difficulty. The board also felt that if the vote is close under any scenario, there will be a petition for a revote. If we authorized an Australian ballot at our regular town meeting, then we would have had to schedule a special meeting for the vote on the redevelopment project and that vote would not have been able to take place until sometime in April. A petition for a revote would put us into May or June.

Under the circumstances the majority decided to go ahead and bring the matter to a vote in the traditional way at our regular town meeting.

Dave Kelley

Greensboro

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