Calling Civic Minded Residents: Town Meeting has Open Seats

Town Clerk Amy Warfield said this week that there are vacancies in three Town Meeting precincts that need to be filled and the town will hold a meeting of for anyone nominated by a sitting member for the purpose of filling the seats on Monday April, 30 at 6:30 p.m. at the .

Warfield said that Precinct 2 has two vacancies, Precinct 5 has one vacancy and Precinct 7 has two open seats. In order for a resident of one of those districts to be considered for the seat, he or she must be nominated by a current Town Meeting members. Anyone interested in contacting a member from their precinct can find the complete list with contact information in the attached PDF (at right) provided by the Town Clerk's office.

"If they want to participate in Town Government this is a good way to do it," Warfield said. "If they want to get one of the open positions they should call a member from their precinct to be nominated."

Once people are nominated by a Town Meeting member they should come to the April 30 meeting. Town Meeting members of their precinct will vote to appoint those interested to one of the open seats. The appointment will be for one year, Warfield said, and then all appointed members will have to be on the official ballot in 2013 if they wish to run to maintain the seat.

In Precincts 2 and 5, Warfield said, the open seats are a result of not enough people running to be on the ballot during last Saturday's . The two seats in Precinct 7 belonged to John Kelly and Barbara L'Heureux, both of whom were elected last Saturday to the Planning Board.

There was also a tie among write-in candidates for other seats in Precinct 7. Warfield said other Town Meeting members in Precinct 7 will vote on who fills those positions but since there were write-in candidates they are not open for the process described above.