Barnstable Town Charter:
Section 3-2 Eligibility
"Any voter shall be eligible to hold any elective town office provided that, no person shall simultaneously hold more than one elective town office."
Dictionary.com
e·lec·tive -adjective
1. pertaining to the principle of electing to an office, position, etc.
of·fice –noun
5. a position of duty, trust, or authority, esp. in the government, a corporation, a society, or the like: She was elected twice to the office of president.
There has been a lot of discussion on Greg Milne's attempts to serve on both the Town Council AND the Charter Commission. While some people see the obvious clarity in our town's charter - that you cannot be elected to two town wide positions - others try to play games with words.
The town charter says ONE "elective town office" per person (at a time). It is obvious that "town" means town-wide, and courtesy of dictionary.com we see that "elective" refers to an election and "office" is a "position of duty, trust or authority, esp. in the government". I think it would be VERY fair to define the Charter Commission as a "town-wide elected position of authority in and/or over the government".
Serving in both positions would not only be a violation of the town charter, but it would also be a direct conflict of interest. Charter Commissioner Milne would have the ability to directly impact his position as Town Councilor Milne. Whether sabotaging the effort to maintain his Council seat, determining a number of Councilors that makes his reelection easier, changing the term limits for Town Councilors, or a whole host of other options, Milne could have direct access to change the power a Councilor has (albeit subject to voter approval).
Frankly, this issue is only brought up by the town's costly vocal minority. By playing with words and saying that "other towns do it, so it must be OK", they have tried to place their friend onto a board that they could not be voted onto. Enough is enough with them and the Milne situation. It's time we stopped listening to the advice of COGers - they are the same group who tried to force people to create an "elected" position out of thin air by signing their flawed and illegal Meeting of the Voters petition.
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2 comments:
I couldn't agree more. Greg Milne needed to make a choice between the two positions to which he was elected. He made his choice - end of story. Now he should be making his best efforts to represent his precinct and not waste the town's money defending itself against another frivolous lawsuit. The voters in his precinct must be terribly disappointed to be represented by someone so disinterested in their concerns.
And if I have it correct, didn't he win town councilor because he was unopposed? So the voters did not vote him in on both! Many people vote on name recognition. 9 people out of 22? People picked randomly unless they are into politics.
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