Post date: Jun 29, 2020 6:4:41 PM
Recommend setting Town Meeting for Tuesday August 18 at 7 pm at an outdoor location.
See below for note from Town Counsel regarding the window for acceptance of citizen petitions. Based on this guidance, I would recommend Board set deadline of July 24th for submission.
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The relevant section of the Code states:
Any article to be inserted in the warrant for the Annual Town Meeting must be submitted to the Selectmen on or before the 45th day preceding said meeting, signed by the required number of petitioners who must be voters of the Town, and all such petitions shall be placed in the warrant as presented. (s. 4.3)
I read this section as imposing an obligation on potential petitioners, i.e., not the Board of Selectmen, to meet this 45-deadline. A voter or voters wishing to get an article on the warrant for the Annual TM must file it 45 days in advance. If a petition is timely filed, the Board is then obligated to place the article on the warrant. Of course, the bylaw is premised on the predictable, regular cycle where the annual town meeting is held on the third Tuesday in May, or some other pre-arranged date. In my opinion, this bylaw does not prevent the Board from accepting articles from voters closer to the date of Town Meeting. Especially in this unprecedented year, should you and the Board pick a date for the Annual Town Meeting which does not allow residents time to meet the 45-day deadline, the Board can announce that petitioned articles will be accepted, say, up to 20 or 30 days, before Town Meeting. Those articles would be treated as regular petitioners’ articles, not selectmen’s articles.
I will be happy to answer any other questions.
Thank you.
Joel