From an anonymous guestblogger:
Then finally at 8:15pm we began the charter amendments discussion...

Mr. McIntyre had no proposed amendment as his "childless" lawyers apparently rethought. Ms. Gleason finally had her amendment all ready with several copies to hand out to the audience (but they weren't available at the beginning of the meeting at the podium) I was lucky enough to get one of the last copies...so I don't believe folks behind me were able to view what we were talking about.

Mr. Canario began the discussion with his thoughts about tagging a charter item to a state law and we went from there. Mr. Katzman spoke as did Sal Carceller and others and the discussion centered on how can you choose just one part of the state law RIGL 44-5-2 (b) only and not concern yourself with the other 5 parts of that law, as well as the fact that the Gleason proposal only addressed cutting the budget should it exceed the cap. What if people felt the budget and it's tax rate were too high but it didn't exceed the cap, or if however unlikely, the people felt the budget wasn't meeting their needs and it should be raised to say meet the cap? No provisions for those scenarios or others.

Ms. Gleason announced in the beginning that she requested input to this proposal and received it from Eugene Love. So Mr. Love felt he needed to stand up and defend his part in it and then launch a salvo about how we need a charter review committee, this is verging on illegal action, what are we trying to do here? Mr. Katzman had earlier stated that the majority if not all of the council members had run on a platform of getting rid of the tent meeting so that's what they were doing. Mr. Love said proudly that he was alone among the candidates (participating in the candidate forum) in not endorsing removal of the tent meeting say that indeed he ran on having a full charter review done, etc. Interestingly no one pointed out that could be one reason he was not elected to the council.

There were attacks, stalling tactics, revisiting the "Carceller Amendment" as if Mr. Carceller wrote it on a napkin and it's being pinned to the ballot. Mr. Canario gave Larry Fitzmorris the opportunity to speak to his Charter Amendment proposal so Mr. Fitzmorris came to the podium and got right to attacking the council, Mr. Carceller's Amendment, the haste we were moving at, the legality of the whole process and how unethical the council is etc. etc. etc. He DEMANDED a vote then and there from the council as to whether they were thowing out the whole charter review process. Mr. Canario again asked if he'd like to speak about his amendment proposal, to which Mr. Fitzmorris replied, "on behalf of the PCC I withdraw" it.

Before being seated Mr. Fitzmorris managed to tell us that the PCC is a group with 415 members. Then a member of the audience requested clarification as to how to vote if they don't want the charter changed. Vote "no" to the amendment(s), reject them, says Mr. Canario and we are back to where we are now. Simple, easy, and apparently what will be their tactic if they really don't want the "Carceller Amendment" to the Charter.

Sal Carceller made some more excellent points about how little the amendment will really change things, simply getting the vote out of the tent and into a booth. Another woman spoke well about how appalled she was by the Tent meeting and finds the council to be indeed acting in the interests of the people etc.

Finallly Mr. Canario recognized Vern Gorton to come to the podium. Mr. Gorton introduced himself as an attorney with children in school, so knowing his words will be somehow suspicious he'll say them anyway (chuckle from Councilman McIntyre). He reminded us all that the "Carceller Amendment" while representing a lot of thought and hard work by Mr. Carceller and others was indeed a legally drafted document by the Town's Solicitor with aid and input from the Town's Registrar of Voters and and was duly discussed, debated and voted on by the council. (Mr. McIntyre had earlier tried the tactic that because the original agenda the night they voted didn't say they were going to vote on it only that we were requesting the next step, that the vote was illegal and they had no right to do it. — That got about 5 minutes and then was put to sleep)

So after approximately 1.5 additional hours of debate and discussion on this charter amendment issue, a vote was taken and Ms. Gleason's amendment did not pass to be put forth to the public for a vote. Therefore as it stands the charter change amendment vote will be either yes change the charter to reflect moving the voting to a special election style vote with all day voting booths and absentee ballots or reject it and keep the status quo.

The vote to put the special election for this amendment up ASAP was shot down for a few reasons. The figure stated for a special election is now $25K. We didn't have enough in the budget to give $100 to the PHS Prom Committee to aid in the after prom party so we had no money for a special election until the new budget cycle. Then in the new budget there is money specified for 2 special elections (anything before Nov. would be 3) so once Mr. West pointed that out, he couldn't support Mr. Katzman in trying to push it earlier than Nov.

Other notes — Mr. Seveney tried to get Finance Director Faucher to take some of his "lofty salary" as a councilmen to give to the Prom Committee. And while at first Mr. Faucher seemed to think this was fine, Town Administrator Driscoll said it could not be done. Councilors were encouraged to make private donations, as was the general public when Mr. Katzman read the letter from PHS Prom Committee into the record.

Most of the people had by now left but item #3 of new business kept us riveted to our seats expecting fireworks.

"Request Authorization: To Exceed the Tax Levy Cap fr FY 2007 - 08 Budget" — It was surprisingly smooth. Mr. Canario said a few times about how this wasn't a vote to exceed the cap but a vote to seek authorization from the State as part of the process required should we need to look at exceeding it. Mr. Seveney talked a bit about the $400K for town-wide revaluation that's going on and how the state was considering removing that from the figuring of our levy and other things that just weren't going to be moved on by the State House until it was too late for our budget process by the look of it and so we'd need to proceed with a step like this.

No discussion from the audience, the vote was taken and passed, 6-1 with Ms.Gleason voting nay.

It was late, I'd had enough and that's all folks.

As soon as I'm back in town I'll find and post contact info to send donations to the PHS Prom Committee (if anyone reading this knows, just send me feedback with the link at left and I'll post. Thanks.)