The League of Women Voters of Sudbury will offer amendments to Warrant Articles 2 and 4 at the Sudbury Special Town Meeting Monday, Oct. 23. (See the warrant here.)
The amendments would remove provisions from those two articles which change the authority to set specified fees and fines from Town Meeting, the town’s legislative branch of government, to designated boards or officials in the executive branch.
The League asks in its amendments that these provisions be removed from Articles 2 and 4, which are described in the Warrant as “housekeeping articles,” dealing primarily with editorial changes in the general town bylaws and zoning bylaw, and be presented in a separate article at a future Town Meeting for discussion and a vote.
“There is a difference in changing the amounts of fees and fines and changing the authority to set them. We ask that these provisions be offered in a separate article at a future Town Meeting. The pros and cons of changing the authority should be debated and a vote specifically taken on that change, rather than dealing with this change embedded in the broad housekeeping context” of these two articles, the League said in its statement filed with the amendments.
In its review of the Special Town Meeting Warrant, the League decided to support Article 14, a resolution giving the town’s support to the state effort to change the Massachusetts official seal and motto.
The League is taking no stand on the other 13 articles in the Warrant, either because it does not have positions on which to base a stand or because it felt the information available in the Warrant was insufficient.
The League urges Sudbury voters to attend the Special Town Meeting and participate as citizen legislators. Town meeting starts Monday, Oct. 23, at 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School. Details about the meeting, including information on the new clicker voting system, are on the Town website here.