[Rich, 11:24]
I had hoped to have more of a chance for personal notes and not merely be limited to summaries, but time has conspired against that more than I have liked. In any event, some thoughts about the past week in no particular order.

I was glad to see the Moderator tightly interpreted points of personal privilege both on Monday and last night. In my seven years as a TMM I have seen far too many people, especially long-time TMMs who really should know better, try to use points of information, order, or privilege to attempt to continue the debate. The Moderator is pretty good at shooting them down, though he is better at it some times than others. This week he was particularly good.

That brings to mind another point -- that while what we do at TM is called "debate," it is not "debate" as the term is colloquially used. There is no real-time give-and-take or charge and rebuttal. TM "debate" (perhaps "deliberations" are a better term) is really a series of mini-speeches. Perhaps this is the reason for the continued attempts at abusing points of order, etc.? That people feel they should be able to immediately rebut instead of having to get back on the list and give their rebuttal in turn?

I think TMMs would do well to follow the admonishment in the "Decorum" section of Town Meeting Time that while it is perfectly acceptible to heap scorn on a proposed motion, one should not, in TM debate, impugn the motives of the advocates of a motion.

While I appreciate Mr. Bernardin's passion and sincerity, I think his proposal was extremely badly done. Making an amendment to the capital budget when it was not even clear if capital work was involved was not a great start. Trying to insert an item to cover nebulously defined work when the items he cited (the Thompson/Stratton item) as justification for his amendment has been spec'ed out, evaluated, and priced did not improve the situation. I would have had more sympathy for Mr. Bernardin's amendment if he had gone through the standard channels (such as bringing it up with the School Committee back when SchoolComm was formulating its capital requests) and was rejected, vs. bypassing the entire process and making a hasty amendment. I think TM was right to defeat the amendment overwhelmingly and make (I believe) a statement against abuse of process.

I do not believe Mr. Tosti was on the most solid of ground when he cited the major drop in major crimes in Arlington over the past twenty years as evidence of why it would be OK to temporarily drop below "minimum manning" levels. That is not to say he was necessarily wrong. But cause and effect are so intertwined in those types of statistics that I do not think people on either side of the argument can really claim any support from them. I think he was on more solid ground attacking the study which claimed the police department (before the current cuts) was understaffed. If it really did compare Arlington to Chelsea, Everett, Leominster, Haverhill, etc., that seems very odd. And I would definitely like to see someone answer Mr. Roselli's question of why we keep commissioning studies whose conclusions we ignore.

Do advocates of any particular motion or cause really think anyone is fooled into believing there is more support than there really is due to obvious, exaggerated applause on their part? It is particularly amusing when the applause is very scattered and overwrought clapping of a few individuals becomes exceedingly obvious. I noticed this a few times, particularly when the override was mentioned.

Speaking of the override, does anyone else think the pre-campaign for another override (i.e. after this one) has begun? I thought it was telling that in his statements against the CPA substitute motion Mr. Greeley brought up the possibility of further overrides and debt exclusions in the near future (to negative-sounding grumbles from the floor). The possibility is certainly no secret -- anyone who has looked at the budget forecasts over the next few years knows that. But I am trying to remember if a public figure had prominently mentioned the possibility before that.

Speaking of Mr. Greeley, what was the deal with that police and overtime amendment? While he had the $85,000 offset from reduced tip fees handy right away, the "I don't know" for the rest of it managed to turn into "from the stabilization fund" within a few speakers' turns. There really is no excuse for an answer (or lack thereof) like that. The BoS had apparently approved the amendment well over a week ago. Did they really think that no TMM (let alone a FinComm member) would not ask what the proposed offset would be? They had plenty of time to come up with some concrete proposals for offsets. Yes, it is true that it is ultimately TM's job to make the final budget decisions. But that fact does not get the BoS off the hook on providing TM guidance and options on what they think should be cut to pay for a spending increase they proposed on their own initiative. And I do not think fobbing it off on the Town Manager is a terribly acceptible answer, either.

Since we only have three hours a night to work with, and since overhead eats up a non-trivial fraction of that, would it not be possible to have events like the Ottoson singers (which was very nice) be before the session starts, so that the mini-concert could end at 20:00? Have the Moderator announce at the session prior to the planned appearance that [whoever] would be performing at 19:45 and that TMMs were strongly encouraged to show up a few minutes early to hear it.