Health & Fitness
Town Meeting on the Council's WPCA Vote
These are the facts to consider when you cast your vote on Monday night, March19, 2012.
The Town Council recently passed an ordinance regarding the WPCA that has created a stir among a vocal minority who are opposed to it. This is nothing new and is actually a healthy thing because it makes sure that everyone's voice and point of view is heard. However they were so upset with the council vote that they started a petition drive to hold a town meeting to overturn the Council decision. Again, that is how our democracy works and is to be respected. That town meeting will be held next Monday night, March 19th at the High School.
Please be sure to come and express your opinion and cast your vote. But there are a few things you need to know before you come out. Please, be an informed voter. These are the facts in this matter.
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The Council vote was based on what the Town Charter says, not some new language to get around the Charter or to grant new authority to the WPCA.
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The Council vote is NOT delegating any authority to the WPCA.
The question of WPCA autonomy was settled by a vote of the town's people, at a town-wide vote on the language of the Town Charter in 1995. The town's people approved the language of the charter specifically providing the WPCA (not the water) with autonomy.
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What is that autonomy? Well, per the Charter that the Town's people approved:
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The WPCA will have the authority to govern its own employment personnel. It will decide who works for it.
The WPCA will create and manage its own budget but it may only spend what it takes in.
The WPCA autonomy is tempered by having a member of the Town Council on its board, with voting authority. It does not operate in a vacuum out of Town Council oversight.
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Almost as soon as the Charter Revision was passed by the people of the town, the Council of that time usurped the Charter and took upon itself those provisions of the Charter that were reserved for the WPCA board alone. Why they did that is a different matter. The fact that they did that is not in dispute.
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Subsequent legal investigation of this situation has confirmed that the Charter reserves to the WPCA alone authority over its own personnel and its own budget and that the Council was wrong in taking that authority away.
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Still, some people remain opposed to the provisions of the Charter and want the Town Council to continue its illegal running of the WPCA budgets and personnel rosters.
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Therefore, based on legal advice from 2 different attorneys, this new Town Council passed an ordinance to clarify the situation.
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The ordinance restates what WPCA autonomy means, based on legal opinion.
The ordinance did NOT give the WPCA autonomy. The WPCA already has that per the Town Charter. What the ordinance DOES do is to restate clearly the meaning of the Town Charter language with regard to the WPCA, nothing more.
The people who are heading up this town meeting are the same ones that opposed the Town Charter WPCA vote in the first place, the same ones that approved of usurping the WPCA authority granted in the Town Charter. They were unwilling to accept the vote of the town's people back then so why are they asking for this now? The town's people already voted on this. The bottom line is that they don't like the Town Charter. But the Charter is what it is. It's the legal document that governs how our town is run and it's the people of Montville that approved it. It is the Town Council's legal obligation to uphold it and that's exactly what this latest ordinance does.
Town meetings are a normal part of our democratic way of life, and I respect and participate in every one that comes along. But I have the right to expect, and you have the right to expect, that the people who come to our doors to get a petition signature for a town meeting will tell us the truth, because what they say will determine in large part whether we sign the petition or not. And in this case they did not do that – they lied at our doors.
How do I know this? Because they came to my door. The canvasser did not know whose house he was at or he may have said something different. What he said was:
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That the Town Council was delegating its WPCA authority to the WPCA board.
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The Town Council had passed an ordinance that would spin off the WPCA as a separate commercial company.
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That as a result our sewer rates were going to double.
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One person was told that the head of the WPCA was going to get a $10,000 raise as a result.
All four of these things are complete fabrications. If you are one of the people who were visited by this canvasser and were told any of those things, you were lied to. If you signed the petition based on any of those lies then you were defrauded.
This experience makes me wonder just how much respect these people actually have for our democracy. They have a right to their opinion, and they have a right to express that opinion and they have a right to expect that when the Town Council votes that their opinions were taken into consideration. What they don't have the right to do is to lie to you and me in order to influence how we will vote.
Please be sure to come to the High School next Monday night, March 19th. The vote will be whether or not to overturn the Town Council's decision that upholds the Town Charter that the Town's people have already approved. There are a lot of disconnects between what the Charter says should be done and what is actually being done. We are working hard to clear them away and streamline our Town government. This Council vote was one of those efforts. I urge you to support the Town Council that you put in place, and vote to keep the Council decision intact.
