Budget Committee Meeting, January 12, 2023

Failed motion to unseat a committee member. Analysis of the school warrants.

[Unlike past years, no candidate night has been scheduled. I’ve created a list of candidate questions for the contested positions of school board, selectman, and budget committee. I will be publishing candidate responses in upcoming issues. One candidate I’ve not been able to reach is Roger Romeo Richard. If you know him, please ask him to contact me.

The election is on March 14. Here is the town’s voter guide. ]

Motion to Unseat Owen Friend-Gray

At the beginning of the meeting Tom Butkiewicz moved to invoke the provisions of RSA 32:15 VI to immediately unseat Owen Friend-Gray on the grounds that Owen Friend-Gray was not in attendance and had failed to attend the prior three meetings. Jeffry Morrison complained that the committee had chosen Owen Friend-Gray over two other candidates whom he felt confident would have attended faithfully had the committee selected one of them instead.  Tom Butkiewicz said that in the meeting in which Owen Friend-Gray was appointed that concerns were expressed that he did not have enough spare time to attend the meetings. 

Immediately following this, at the 0:3:12 mark in the video, Owen Friend-Gray walks into the room and proceeds to sit at the table. Tom Butkiewicz says to him, “I don’t know if you’re on this board right now.” John Morin says, “yes he is.” Tom Butkiewicz  then argues that by the provisions of the RSA that because Owen wasn’t there at the start of the meeting that Owen was automatically and immediately removed from the committee. John Decker pointed out that the RSA has an exception for excused absences. Michele King pointed out that one of the absences was excused. Tom demanded to know the excuse. This argument went back and forth for several minutes until the chairman, Michele King, directed the committee to open its public hearing and to attend to the first subject on its agenda. 

The rest of the meeting was devoted to the school warrant articles, with a lengthy analysis of the proposed school budget.

Debate on Article 3: Collective Bargaining Agreement

There was a brief heated debate about the collective bargaining agreement. This debate begins at 2:30 on the video with a discussion of a motion to table consideration of the article due to insufficient information provided and the lateness of what information was provided. This motion failed. 

At 2:33 Tom Butkiewciz argues that the budget committee should not recommend this article because it doesn’t know how the contract was negotiated. There is no information on any details negotiated, not even the initial proposals. 

The budget committee ended up very divided on this issue, with 4 in favor of the article, 3 opposed, and 3 abstaining. 

Watch the video: