If you're curious about what takes place, there are several places you can go.
This is especially relevant if you just can't wait to find out what happened, as I am not a night person.
When I get home I don't sit down and write up a blog-post, I go to bed. Town Meeting adjourns after my bed-time.
But even if you are patient enough to wait for me to get around to writing up a post, you should visit the sites I'm about to list anyway.
They give more perspectives on what has taken place.
While I try to argue fairly, what I write here is opinion.
So if you're interested enough to read this blog, you'll be interested in what others have to say too:
- blog: Christian's Town Meeting Notes
- blog: Dan Dunn (the unofficial "minutes" of Town Meeting)
- news: ACMI Video On Demand, Town Meeting Page
- news: YourArlington.com's Town Meeting Page
- official: Town Meeting Information from the Town of Arlington
Last night we conducted "Electronic Voting" at Town Meeting.
That's right: Town Meeting has charged forward to the year 1993 or so.
All kidding aside, I was especially pleased to see this in action, as for the past two years I've served on the committee responsible for bringing it about.
If the nuts and bolts of our committee's work really intrigues you, on this page you can find our reports, agendas and minutes:
http://www.arlingtonma.gov/Public_Documents/ArlingtonMA_BComm/electronicvoting/index
For our first time out, I thought things ran pretty smoothly.
There are a few things people are finding confusing, but these are simple things like why there are two Robert Tosi's listed as voting on the display screen (need to enter a Jr. and Sr. there), why someone named VACANCY voted (new appointee who's name isn't entered in the system yet) and that sort of thing.
These are the sorts of things I can live with people being confused about on night one.
It's not 9:00 a.m. yet, so there's no information up just now, but later today the details of all electronic votes taken will be available for all to see here:
http://www.arlingtonma.gov/public_documents/ArlingtonMA_TownMeet/2014ATM/voting/index
That little web address is the real fruit of our committee's labor.
It may not look like much, but I believe it will significantly change the relationship between residents of Arlington and their government, and it's why I have been pleased to go to so many evening meetings over the past two years, and help work to bring this about.
Last night we passed a couple articles: one established zoning for medical marijuana dispensaries, one that protects residential property from excess lighting, and a clean-up article dealing with when we must display the results of electronic voting on screen as a result of a close vote.
I will attempt to post again before Wednesday's meeting and give more discussion to the articles discussed last night.
Till then, I'm going to spend some time hitting refresh on the Town Meeting Voting link on the town's website.
No comments:
Post a Comment