Proposal to come before Lexington Town Meeting

I was wondering about the enhanced security. It certainly plays to the be afraid mentality. Who is actually recommending this and why? How can it not affect the mindset of the TMM.
 
42! said:
I was wondering about the enhanced security. It certainly plays to the be afraid mentality. Who is actually recommending this and why? How can it not affect the mindset of the TMM.
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It's the police chief, but he came out strongly against the by-law, so on balance big plus.
 
Read this in an article posted by GOAL:

"Lexington is not the only area Town Meeting taking up the issue of gun control. The March 19 Town Meeting in Lincoln is scheduled to vote on a resolution asking Congress to adopt “a uniform national gun safety law applying equally to all fifty states” modeled after Massachusetts gun laws."

What the actual Hell is wrong with these simpletons trying to push our state's idiotic rules on the other 49??
 
StevieP said:
Read this in an article posted by GOAL:

"Lexington is not the only area Town Meeting taking up the issue of gun control. The March 19 Town Meeting in Lincoln is scheduled to vote on a resolution asking Congress to adopt “a uniform national gun safety law applying equally to all fifty states” modeled after Massachusetts gun laws."

What the actual Hell is wrong with these simpletons trying to push our state's idiotic rules on the other 49??
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It's called "knowing what's best."

Like a parent with a child.....


Remember, Lincoln tried to outlaw cell towers as not being in keeping with Lincolnians' aesthetic, and they wanted to put potholes in the roads, to slow down out-of-towners ("Lincolnians Drive 25 In Lincoln)
 
swordsman said:
Someone even said this, regarding the article being stopped in its tracks:
"I fear the real reasons are threats and intimidation"
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lolwat?

Here's another gem,
"I sense that the reason we don't want to see this at the town meeting is that we are afraid of the NRA.

If they mean to have a war, let it begin here."
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Thankfully, it appears there are more and more logical town meeting members with cooler heads that have become vocal against the proposal. Either way, I think it's really important to show up in even greater numbers at the April meeting...
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Wait. Isn't THEIR last sentence the ACTUAL "threats and intimidation"? How they twist things around!
 
WOW
I just talked to a buddy of mine from Billerica and mentioned about Lex and Longmeadow. He is a black rifle guy but evidently a fudd. He said he wasn't going to worry about it or pay any attention to it until it comes to his town. I tried to tell him that would be too late, like trying to keep the water out of his stateroom on the Titanic! But again he said there is nothing you can do about it in another town and if it comes to Billerica he would worry about it.

What an A$$, By the time it comes to his town it will be too late. It is the old Jews in Germany thing "first they came for..." I told him that he should watch what the Selectmen are doing and watch their agenda's, he said you cannot attend a Selectmen s meeting but I told him about the open meeting laws and that you have a right under open meeting to be there and even ask questions and give opinions. I may not have alot of scary black guns but "black guns matter"
I am walking the walk, being a RTM and watching the agenda's.

But these people who don't worry until it is in their backyard drive me crazy.
 
I mean, he is from Billerica...what do you expect?

Ben Cartwright SASS said:
WOW
I just talked to a buddy of mine from Billerica and mentioned about Lex and Longmeadow. He is a black rifle guy but evidently a fudd. He said he wasn't going to worry about it or pay any attention to it until it comes to his town. I tried to tell him that would be too late, like trying to keep the water out of his stateroom on the Titanic! But again he said there is nothing you can do about it in another town and if it comes to Billerica he would worry about it.

What an A$$, By the time it comes to his town it will be too late. It is the old Jews in Germany thing "first they came for..." I told him that he should watch what the Selectmen are doing and watch their agenda's, he said you cannot attend a Selectmen s meeting but I told him about the open meeting laws and that you have a right under open meeting to be there and even ask questions and give opinions. I may not have alot of scary black guns but "black guns matter"
I am walking the walk, being a RTM and watching the agenda's.

But these people who don't worry until it is in their backyard drive me crazy.
Click to expand...
 
How ironic, that Dec 8th,1941 was the last time the "militia", every able body man came out to defend the USA. Meat cleavers and all! Some even brought their .22's! God Bless them all!
 
Nice write up from the Globe of all places, pretty much paints Rotberg as a fool...

Lexington gun proposal called an affront to liberty

LEXINGTON — Gun rights advocates spoke out last week against a proposal to ban certain types of semiautomatic weapons in Lexington, calling it an affront to the very principles on which the town and the nation were founded.

“The birthplace of American liberty is not going to be its gravesite,” said Michael Barg, a lifelong resident of Lexington. “This will accomplish nothing other than to glorify the proponents’ phony dogma and misinformed political ideals.”

Barg was one of about 150 gun rights advocates, including many from as far away as Lowell and Ashburnham, who appeared Tuesday night before the Board of Selectmen in opposition to a citizen’s petition that would create a town bylaw prohibiting the manufacture, sale, ownership, or possession of specific weapons in town.

That proposal was filed by town resident Robert Rotberg, the founding director of Harvard Kennedy School’s Program on Intrastate Conflict and president emeritus of the World Peace Foundation.

“It is time as citizens, and citizens of Lexington, that we attempt to remove assault weapons from the inventory of town residents,” Rotberg said in front of the overwhelmingly pro-gun crowd of mostly men.
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https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/r...ont-liberty/uXnbnVftaoTXPytmKI4xAK/story.html
 
Interesting map (compiled by Lexington Minuteman/Wicked Local) about the prevalence of gun licenses in eastern Massachusetts.
The lack of information (or lack of licenses) in the Dorchester, Roxbury and New Bedford areas is quite striking. Again the presence of licensed owners has no positive (increasing) effect on violence rates.
Map of gun licenses by region.
 
Ben Cartwright SASS said:
WOW
I just talked to a buddy of mine from Billerica and mentioned about Lex and Longmeadow. He is a black rifle guy but evidently a fudd. He said he wasn't going to worry about it or pay any attention to it until it comes to his town. I tried to tell him that would be too late, like trying to keep the water out of his stateroom on the Titanic! But again he said there is nothing you can do about it in another town and if it comes to Billerica he would worry about it.

What an A$$, By the time it comes to his town it will be too late. It is the old Jews in Germany thing "first they came for..." I told him that he should watch what the Selectmen are doing and watch their agenda's, he said you cannot attend a Selectmen s meeting but I told him about the open meeting laws and that you have a right under open meeting to be there and even ask questions and give opinions. I may not have alot of scary black guns but "black guns matter"
I am walking the walk, being a RTM and watching the agenda's.

But these people who don't worry until it is in their backyard drive me crazy.
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To a certain extent, he's right. Often, out-of-towners have no standing. That said, we're screwed as long as we fail to recognize that it's ALL OUR BACKYARD.

Check your Town's TM Warrant ( I skimmed mine, looks safe). The Antis are not doing well at the National level; time to think smaller....Let's try at the State level. Hmmm.....that's a no-go. Wait..."All politics is local!" Go that route. Hey....can't get the by-law changed? Well. let's keep the "Discussion About Dangerous Weapons Threatening Our Town's Children" going with a non-binding resolution.

True Believers will keep the faith; the others have to be constantly reminded of the Truth. That's why these people never, never quit. And neither can we.

Instead of likening it to the Titanic, but to a brush fire. Easier to stomp out when it's tiny, but not in your yard, than when it's a conflagration.
 
This resolution reminds of the overrides in Walpole for a new $12 million library (when the old one could have been redone for about 500K. They kept bringing it to Town Meeting and to the voters for an override, it failed 3 times with no's before they managed to sneak it through.

Remember a no is not the last word and will come back again and again but a yes is cast in stone.
 
Was just reading a post on the Lexington Google forum for their TM members.....one of their ilk is now floating the idea of "secret ballots" at the town meeting so they won't be intimidated.
 
MachineHead said:
Hmmm, sounds legal. /s
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It's perfectly legal in open town meetings. For representative town meetings MGL Part I, Title VII, Chapter 39, Section 15 applies:
In any town having a representative town meeting form of government the town meeting members shall not use the secret ballot when voting in the exercise of the corporate powers of said town or on any motion unless two thirds of the town meeting members present and voting thereon vote that a secret ballot be used.
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They can, but they have to vote by 2/3 majority to do so first.
 
Ben Cartwright SASS said:
This resolution reminds of the overrides in Walpole for a new $12 million library (when the old one could have been redone for about 500K. They kept bringing it to Town Meeting and to the voters for an override, it failed 3 times with no's before they managed to sneak it through.

Remember a no is not the last word and will come back again and again but a yes is cast in stone.
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Oh really. Was it a secret election day that they did not advertise?
 
This is why its important for people to participate in town meetings.

"Government of the people, by the people, and for the people" - well, only the people who decide it's worth their time to show up.
"We get the government we deserve" - if you neglect to participate this is true.

Unfortunately, too many people decide that "someone else will do it". It can also be time consuming and people that work or have family obligations might not really have time for it. That leaves it to the busybodies with too much spare time on their hands. If you can participate in your town meetings, please do. In my town there are open seats in town meeting because not enough people decide to do it in certain precincts.
 
free said:
Oh really. Was it a secret election day that they did not advertise?
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I can't speak for Walpole, but here in this "little" (13,000 soul) town in Connecticut, one of the shenanigans we've seen in the past is the combo: (a) post a flurry of town meetings, i.e. a week or two apart, mostly dealing with administrivia, and (b) post the legal of the meeting with the shenanigans in Paper X (which legally qualifies, since several including X have "general circulation of the area") instead of Paper Y (where legals are published on every other occasion).

Another: the old "pack the meeting & have friendly moderator" strategy. I've seen a few of those. Nobody gets to speak unless it's been prearranged. Someone calls the question, voice vote, done.

We have a charter provision allowing for a petition for sending a town meeting item to referendum, but petitions are work, and people tire (both of petitioning, and even of signing) when the repetition is ad nauseam.
 
Other strategies I've seen are to take articles (or motions) out of order (sooner than is on the agenda), or to postpone an article then reconsider it later.

The first is used to get an article passed before opponents may show up. I see it used during board meetings more than TMs because it works best when there is a formal agenda with times listed.

The second is to postpone an article indefinitely because the opposition clearly has numbers, and then motion for reconsideration later in the meeting when the numbers may have changed. This one is particularly used when opponents have packed a meeting with single-issue members who aren't interested in any other articles, don't know any better, and leave once the article is postponed thinking it's killed.

Honestly, these rarely happen, but they do, and it's sneaky town politics. Moral of the story is to stay to the end of the meeting if you care about a particular issue.
 
Silly question: are Massachusetts towns under a restriction on how town meetings are called? Here in Connecticut, "towns*" I believe are required to have at least one per year (to receive the Annual Report - honestly a handful of people show up), but MAY be called from time to time as required, and as may be spelled out in the Town Charter. For us locally, this means willy-nilly, per the Board of Selectmen. The Charter requires the legislature (i.e. the Town Meeting) approve certain things, such as some town budgetary transfers, or large capital projects, so we have a dozen or better a year, depending on what's happening. The Selectmen are permitted to summon the Town Meeting to do so, at their pleasure. Technically, members of the Town Meeting can petition for one, but there's a provision that allows the Selectmen to review it and decide if it's a "proper cause" for a meeting. (Surprise! If they don't like it, it isn't.)

I know other states do this differently: some have a once-a-year Town Meeting Day, and having other meetings requires court intervention.

(* This only applies to small towns typically where the Selectmen/TownMeeting/BoardOfFinance form of government is in effect. Many municipalities here operate under different forms of government, such as Mayor/CityCouncil or TownManager/TownCouncil)
 
SpaceCritter said:
Silly question: are Massachusetts towns under a restriction on how town meetings are called?
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There is no restriction on how many can be called. MA towns must hold an annual town meeting, but can hold other town meetings as needed.

A warrant is required to be publicly available for viewing at least 7 days before an annual town meeting, and 14 days for other town meetings. Many town charters require longer viewing/posting. Only articles on the warrant may be considered at a town meeting. Citizens can have an article placed on the warrant with 10 voter signatures.

Here's more info than you probably care to read: http://www.sec.state.ma.us/cis/cistwn/twnidx.htm

Edit: *no restriction on how many can be called, but the calling of the meeting must follow certain rules
 
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JJ4 said:
There is no restriction. MA towns must hold an annual town meeting, but can hold other town meetings as needed.

A warrant is required to be publicly available for viewing at least 7 days before an annual town meeting, and 14 days for other town meetings. Many town charters require longer viewing. Only articles on the warrant may be considered at a town meeting. Citizens can have an article placed on the warrant with 10 voter signatures.

Here's more info than you probably care to read: http://www.sec.state.ma.us/cis/cistwn/twnidx.htm
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Good info, thanks.

We should also note that in addition to Citizens Petitions (10 voter sigs) being able to be placed as articles on the warrant, citizens can also force a Special Town Meeting to be called. Needs 200 voters signatures or 20% of voters, whichever is less.
 
This is second hand but I trust the source, who is a former long time resident of Lexington, implicitly. He told me he discussed the issue with a friend who is a Lexington TM member and the TM member said that while he is not a pro gun person, he doesn't think this would be a good idea for Lexington so he is leaning towards not supporting it. However, he went on to say that he is getting a lot of pressure from other TM members and others parties within Lexington to pass something so he is not sure what he's going to do.
 

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