You be the judge as to what really took place, was this a legal, by the book Deliberative Session of the School warrants under the SB2 rule; or something else entirely. Please take special notice of attorney Matt Uptown's comments to Tom O'Connor that everything will be straightened out in the minutes. (
Will this be another case of minutes written not to reflect what was actually said or what actually transpired; but that will cover the derrieres of those who would otherwise be caught distorting the truth to cover up the facts? You be the judge. )
The Moderator for the School Deliberative, Henry Parkhurst, began the evening by introducing the school board members seated in the front, the staff members and the elected officials (2 Selectmen & 5 Budget Committee Members) present. He then asked for a show of hands of parents in attendance. He proceeded to explain the etiquette of the evening, before stating,
“Now, this can be a quick meeting. If you vote yes we can be out of here in three minutes. If you vote no, we will be here longer discussing it.” ( Don't know about you; but this sounds like this meeting was orchestrated in advance )
No sooner had he finished reading the first warrant article than School Board member, Colleen Duquette, raised her hand and stated, “I move that we accept this warrant as written.” Kevan Whippie (or the “young whipper snapper” that Ms. Pat Kassal fondly referred to him as), raised his hand to second her motion. There was no vote or discussion on this motion. Coleen then asked if this was the appropriate time to ad an amendment to the article. The moderator informed her that it was and Kevan Whippie stood up, walked up to the microphone and started to read his amendment.
"Point Of Order" The moderator interrupted him and informed him that Ms. Duquette had the floor. She then stated, “Oh, that’s OK, he can read it for me.”
( now does this sound like a complete set-up, a conspiracy to create mischief or an attempt to take complete control of the meeting? ) The moderator then acknowledged Mr. Whippie as having the floor. Already two signs that the entire meeting was being orchestrated by their script. Fortunately for them, they had a small audience, since only approximately 40 town’s people bothered to show.
Mr. Whippie amended the first warrant’s dollar amount from the Budget Committee’s $9,747,111.00 back to the School’s original amount of $10,006,293.00. He then gave an passionate speech about all of the long hours spent creating this budget and he wanted to honor the School for a job well done. He felt it was a slap in the face not to use the school’s budget as originally requested. He sat down and new resident Ms. Pat Kassal came to the microphone to give a speech about how wrong it was of the Town's Budget Committee to take away any programs or supplies from the teachers. (
This was not the purpose or intent of the reduction by the Town's Budget Committee .. read on ) She held back tears (
crocodile perhaps ) and apologized for her emotional outburst. Mr. Parkhurst informed her that we should never apologize for our emotions.
(
What a performance, you'd have thought you were attending a school play, not a serious meeting )
Budget Committee member, Richard Horton, stood up to defend the amount of $259,182., that they came up with as only being an
estimated figure of “fat” that the School Board padded the budget with each year and “returned” to the town every year.
Technically this amount never comes back, but is deducted from the following year’s budget. The committee agreed that it was not necessary to continually give them an interest free loan of the tax payers money. But his comments were lost on Middle School teacher, Ms. Stephanie Tommilla who stood up next and said that all she needed this year was rulers for her students and to please allow this amount to go through, so she could get her rulers. (
These are going to be very expensive rulers, I hope the students take very good care of them. )
Selectman Sherman Tedford, asked if the school board had met and discussed, how they voted on the Budget Committee’s amount. Colleen stated
that they had not and the rest completely skirted the issue and started to provide answers to his question that had nothing to do with the question.
School board member, Brian Moser, held up his hand the entire time to respond and be acknowledged but
was completely ignored. The moderator then had SAU 38 Tom O’Connor respond and then asked Mr. Tedford if his question had been answered adequately, and he mumbled,
“No. They completely skirted the question.” The moderator finally allowed Mr. Moser to speak,
“We voted 4-1 against the Budget Committees amount, with me in favor of it.” The Chairman of the Board, Gary O’Neal then grabbed his microphone and corrected him by saying, “We strongly voted it down.” Hard to give up free money, especially when you already have your greedy hands on it and spent some of it.
Theresa Sepe then inquired about the
Special Education funds and
how much money was deposited this year into that account - she wanted to know so that she could make an educated vote on Warrant Article No. 4.
Colleen Duquette did not know what the exact amount was, but thought that it was around $100,000.
Mr. O’Connor also did not know what the exact amount was - all the while the
Budget Committee members (who appeared to have spent more time studying the numbers)
said that it was $150,000.
Town Clerk, James Tetreault, took the floor to ask if there were any purchases made in June of 2009. He was informed that fuel was pre-purchased for this year and the 39 computers purchased. He asked if the budget then showed a surplus for the fuel. He too received a run around to finally hear that NO there was not a surplus. He then went to explain his reason for the questions and was cut short by the Moderator,
“we are not here for your opinion. Please sit down.” He respectfully obliged.
The moderator became incensed with Mr. Horton when he stepped up to the microphone to say that the amounts they had given were a lie and that the amount was $150,000. Parkhurst informed him that he was not following the etiquette and to avoid using such language.
Colleen then moved that the public input be closed and proceed to vote on the issues. ( This was illegal, there was already a motion on the floor to amend and seconded; but no vote taken, you can't make another motion until you vote on the one already before you ) There were three votes (
illegal ) and a great deal of
confusion on what was being voted on. In the end, Mr. Whippie/Colleen Duquette’s amendment passed and the
meeting was suddenly over with no one ever discussing the remaining seven (7) warrant articles.
Questions have been raised that the vote was illegal and the other warrants can not be on the ballot because they were not allowed to be discussed. The attorney, Matt Uptown will have some explaining to do. According to his conversation with Tom O’Connor, everything will be straightened out in the minutes.
( If no motion was made to accept and none to second, then they are null and void and will not be on the ballot. That is if these conspirators follow the written law )
When asked about the closed call on the last vote, Mr. Parkhurst explained that he never makes that call, he looks to the lawyer. Several budget committee members spoke with
Kevan following the proceedings and learned that he
had no idea what the money he added was for (other than Colleen had asked him to present it for him). He received kudos from the moderator on a job well done.
So there you have it folk, the whole meeting was pre-orchestrated by Colleen Duquette, Kevan Whippie and Moderator Henry Parkhurst who screwed up right from the beginning when he let the cat out of the bag with his comments that " we'll be out of here in 3 minutes" That this crap was condoned by the board's attorney and a member of SAU 38 makes this smell even worse.
Are you going to stand for this kind of crap when it comes to spending your money? This has nothing to do with the education of your children, this is a fleecing of the taxpayer and a mockery of our rules of democracy.
Voting "NO" on the School Board budget warrant, will only cost us more money in the long run as the default budget that's over 10.6 million will kick in giving them even more of our tax dollars to spend on whatever they deem needed. Democracy is surely dead when tactics like this are used to get what you want .. more money.
