Comments and conversations overheard at last week’s Annual Town Meeting, collected by the Harvard Press staff
There was a lot of fun at the expense of Rick Maiore. After the standing ovation and the lovely scene with his family on stage, people couldn’t wait to weave “citizen of note” into their speeches.
A coup for Maiore, besides his time on stage, was the laughter he got when asked if he would like to speak to Article 14. “I think it speaks for itself,” he said. “We’d simply like to know where our water and sewer are.”
Selectwoman Lucy Wallace, speaking of the town’s computer servers, Article 11:
“They are older than my car.”
Paul Green, offering an amendment to Article 11:
“For those of you with my name on your bingo card, you can cross it off now.”
Billy Salter, speaking of software engineers in connection with Article 11 about the municipal servers:
“As you see, they can make you crazy …”
Bruce Dolimount, speaking of the need to repave the cemetery roads, Article 30
“There are holes in it big enough to bury bodies in, deeper than the graves.”
While Planning Board Chairwoman Kara Minar was reading an article, an audience member sneezed, and Minar, without missing a beat, read “Bless you” into the text. When she finished, Moderator Bob Eubank, explaining that everyone who took the microphone was, according to “Robert’s Rules of Order,” addressing the moderator, thanked Minar. “That’s the first time I’ve been blessed outright at a town meeting,” he said.
(Editor’s note: What a travesty! Eubank should be blessed multiple times every year for patiently, intelligently, supportively guiding us through our messy process of democracy.)
Billy Salter, getting to the mic before the moderator could call for a vote:
“I’m surprisingly quick.”
Mario Cardenas of Oak Hill Road struggling with the wording of a friendly amendment:
“I’m no Thomas Jefferson.”
Selectman Stu Sklar, on Article 34:
“I’m going to phone a friend.”
Sklar’s “phone call” was answered by Mark Lanza, town counsel. Several selectmen and others made the same remark when confronted with questions they could not answer.
Only Tim Clark could have read the Warner Free Lecture article with just the right lilt to “three ladies and three gentlemen” so as to slightly mock but not offend founder Henry Warner and elicit giggles from the audience as he sought to remedy the unenlightened notion of gender balance.
Moderator Bob Eubank:
“Well, that’s one way of doing it. Break the microphone. That will move the question.”
Ron Ostberg, speaking on Article 23:
“The existing elementary school is a model of ice dams.”
Bob Eubank, to Conservation Commisioner Don Ritchie:
“Are you speaking for or against the article?”
Ritchie:
“I was hoping I was speaking around it.”
Stu Sklar responding to the idea that Article 34 would allow the selectmen to blame the town administrator instead of being accountable themselves:
“We already blame Tim anyway.”
