Town Meeting Notes

More action here from Town Meeting. Phil Curtis of the Warrant Committee just gave a run-down on the state of the town’s budget. Long and short: 2009 will be bad, but a lot better for the federal stimulus money. 2010: worse, and 2011 and 2012 could be even worse, barring a big correction on Wall Street, an influx (unlikely) in state aid or new revenue. Now TM is being given the opportunity to ask questions. Question 1: Given that services will be cut, what will the cuts be on Town/School side. Tom Younger basically responded that many cuts to Town Services have already been made. Chairwoman Rittenburg from SC is saying that the hope is that stimulus funds will be used to restore around 14 full time positions.

Update: Long and rambling Q&A with Phil on the role of the Warrant Committee. It’s on the Web page – along with descriptions of the role/purpose of other town departments and committees. Check it out.

Don Mercier (fellow Precinct 8 TM member) gets the (moderator’s)  hammer dropped on him by Mr. Widmer. Woot!

Update: TM torpedos effort to disband the Belmont Youth Commission and pass its responsibilities to the Rec Dept. Score one for Belmont Youth. Now we’re hung up on a rather technical question about whether or not School Committee and Board of Selectmen chairs can delegate to other members to represent the SC and BOS on the Warrant Committee. This is just straight forward enough for people to sink their teeth into…we almost go down the rabbit hole, but ultimately vote in favor of the change.