To the Editor,
I just watched the webinar of the special meeting May 5th, of the BET, which was requested by the democrats. They wanted to revisit the budget passed a week before. It is clear that the democrats do not understand or respect Robert’s Rules of Order, which is the bible of how government meetings proceed. They presented a motion that was out of order, the chairman ruled it out of order, the democrats appealed to the full board, and lost the vote. The ruling of the chairman and the vote were in line with guidance given at the meeting by the town attorney.
Unfortunately about 300 people were on the webinar and may not have understood the process. That is unfortunate. But the simple reason the motion to reconsider was out of order is that it was not presented by a member of the board who voted for the budget. The democrats could have foreseen this and had one of their members vote for the budget on April 26th.
The republicans followed the rules and the democrats tried to circumvent them. The public was not well served by democrats grandstanding.
Harry Fisher
Former Vice Chairman of the BET
