To the Editor:

Thanks for coming together for what you believe will help this town to be the place you love.

For those of you who feel like you are the only ones speaking up and are tired of being worn down, democracy is a process that takes a painfully long time. It is so important you are heard. The incumbent heard over half the voters aren’t happy with continuing as usual, because 88 people to Jim’s 80 people said so. The selectmen were made aware that you aren’t happy with the rising taxes and spending out of control. For those of you who voted for the budget as it stands, the taxes will go up.

The selectmen chose to give away many of the duties that you voted them in to do. “The board of selectmen and the personnel board may delegate to the town administrator any of their responsibilities or authority under this bylaw or any applicable General Law with the exception of the actual appointment or termination of an employee.” That means picking the applicants for jobs. “By way of example, this delegation may but is not limited to the following:” By putting in not limited to, it gives the administrator the CEO position of our town. We vote in three different selectmen to have the voice of a diversity of different members of our town. If we were running a corporation, we would not need to vote in selectmen.

Many ideas were brought to light on how to remedy the financial shortfalls and planning challenges. The selectmen can fight for you in negotiations for impact aid, fair shares of Tri-Town Ambulance, and not regionalizing police force and assessors.

The finance committee, who met with the assessing board one time, could have told us they didn’t support us. They met with us last, and insisted we have a full board present, which they didn’t require of any other board. If they had let us know what they were confused about, we would have had the chance to explain to them again why we had no choice in this matter. In order to continue our work, which brings in 99 percent of the funds to support the budget, we need what we asked for. The Vision system is ending. The assessors must change to another operating system to continue working, and we need a new computer by law to archive our old work.

To make town meeting more comfortable for people speaking, we could easily mount permanent microphones to the ceiling, so we don’t need to walk to the microphone. We can get electronic voting at meetings so people can vote without being judged.

Thanks to those who voted to stop the madness of giving our town and its resources away. Thanks to you who voted to live within our means and not spend our hard-earned money and savings. Don’t give up. Volunteer to be on as many boards as you can. This is your town. Thanks for your support and coming out to be heard.

Elise LeBovit
Aquinnah