Finance Committee Appointment
On June 19th the Town Moderator formally reappointed me to the Finance Committee after the town hall was closed. Before town hall opened the following day on June 23rd the Finance Director emailed the Town Moderator to unilateral veto my reappointment with The Town Administrator copied on the email. A few moments after town hall opened that same day - the town moderator emailed the town clerk to put my appointment on hold.
Think about that - I was shocked that the Finance Director has the full authority to pick and choose who is on the committee that oversees the Finance Department. These actions question the independence of the finance committee and may have violated the separations of power. This action should also question the integrity of the current Town Moderator and the Town Administrator who was also copied on the email below.
People often ask me why many of the warrant articles are unanimous – so here’s a few examples:
1. The Finance Director tried to prevent me from writing minority discussions on multiple warrant articles.
2. In another case The finance director later told me I didn’t know the facts about a warrant article giving a multimillion dollar tax break to a large publicly traded company – IT turns out I was right and the article was removed from the warrant and an apology was issued to me by the chair of the Finance Committee.
3. The finance director told us we couldn’t do the police audit because the appropriation would interfere with the towns ability to send out tax bills in a timely manner. I pressed him on this and advised him he was incorrect during deliberations. The audit passed and the tax bills were never delayed and this was an attempt to reject any dissent on the committee and the audit.
4. The finance director appointed the police audit chair and decided to keep him on his other committee appointments while removing me.
5. I challenged very conservative revenue projections which left a lot of revenue on the table for the town to spend. For example the FY Top Golf opened the Finance Director projected lower local receipt revenue then the prior fiscal year. I challenged him on this and advised the revenue projection should be much higher and it turned out we had over a $4M surplus at the end of the year due to Top Golf. The town is leaving money on the table each fiscal year by with these ultra conservative revenue projections. This is a Select Board Policy that will need to review.
6. When I abstained on a high profile warrant article because the committee never had a chance to review the contract. The Finance Director immediate said we couldn’t publish abstentions in the warrant anymore – which was a historic practice of the finance committee.
7. The Finance director truncated videos of public meetings to remove dissent on warrant articles that did not fit his narrative. I made the Finance Director restore transparency and the full video was later published.
I wrote the most persuasive dissenting warrant articles over the last 6 years. Many of these articles ended up being very close votes or voted down. The real reason that Finance Director wanted to veto my appointment is that he’s fearful that my opinions are too persuasive to the residents of Canton.
The town should encourage an open debate on the merits as done in a democracy - The town should not oppress minority or dissenting opinions.
To all of the residents be careful when you read the warrant this year and do your own due diligence when voting at Town Meeting.
