My wife and I last night finally looked into the candidates for the upcoming special U.S. Senate election. Our choice is Scott Brown. While we wish he were even more conservative, perhaps that means that he’s actually electable in this state. Perhaps thinking that someone even somewhat conservative is electable in this state is too much to hope for. My dad says that he was impressed when meeting him while working with the Chernisky campaign, which is an endorsement that means a lot to me.

For those who see when I mentioned it on Twitter, I made the front page of this week’s Charlton Villager (9.1 MB PDF) due to voting at last month’s Town Meeting.

Basically, the Moderator generally only votes if his vote would change the outcome. (Since if it wouldn’t change the outcome, there’s no point in making an appearance of being non-neutral on a vote, since the Moderator should moderate impartially.) But, the Moderator is a registered voter just like everyone else, with just as much of a say.

I’ve been spending a good chunk of my non-work time this month preparing for moderating the Special Town Meeting coming up in Charlton on Tuesday. There are several million dollars worth of spending up for voting, as well as different town boards that may want to amend each other’s motions, plus the possibility of a secret ballot vote. All sorts of excitement, and I’m very much looking forward to it.

This week’s Charlton Villager (8.5 MB PDF) features pictures of Hannah, Jessi, and me at Charlton History Day on page 8.

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What do you think about secret ballots?

(I’m intentionally making the question rather open-ended, although the inspiration for it is somewhat specific.)

• 10/4: Helped out at the Charlton Historical Society‘s Charlton History Day on the Militia Lot by the Rider Tavern.
• 10/6: Attending tonight’s Board of Selectmen Meeting to ensure I know what’s coming up at the Special Town Meeting.
• 10/7: Attending a Charlton Finance Committee meeting to ensure I know what’s coming up at the Special Town Meeting. (Plus, if I’m elected Moderator in May, I’d be responsible for more appointments to the Finance Committee, so it’d be nice to attend some meetings to ensure I know what’s going on.)
• There will likely be additional Selectmen and Finance Committee meetings throughout the month as well.
• 10/10: Judging at a Magic PTQ at TJ Collectibles.
• 10/12 (tentative): Creating a video introducing the articles at the Special Town Meeting, to be played on local cable access television.
• 10/16–10/18: Jessi’s going on the church Women’s Retreat, so I get to take care of Hannah all by myself all weekend.
• 10/27: Moderating the Charlton Special Town Meeting.
• 10/29 (tentative): Attending a class on using new studio equipment for making local cable access videos, or something like that.
• 10/30: Attending the Massachusetts Moderators Association annual meeting.

There was a very amusing column in the Opinion section of today’s Southbridge Evening News, reprinted on the author’s blog. It very much describes what it feels like to live in this part of the state sometimes.

A long time ago, likely when I was complaining about how generally every candidate I vote for in an election loses, consoled me a bit by suggesting that I think of representatives from other areas as representing me. That is, I still have some representation at the state and national level, even if those representatives aren’t the ones assigned to my geographic area. I thought that it was a nifty way of thinking about things.

The Town of Charlton fiscal year (like for all MA towns) is from July 1 through June 30. So, FY09 was from July 1, 2008 through June 30, 2009, and recently ended.

Property taxes for FY09 are based on the assessed value of property as of January 1, 2008, and were due on August 1, 2008, November 3, 2008, February 2, 2009, and May 1, 2009. The two payments in 2008 are “estimated” based on a guess as to what the taxes would be, and then the estimates are made up for on the two 2009 dates once that actual tax rate data is known, such that the total tax for the year ends up being correct. For FY09, the total was $9.05 per $1,000 assessed value of property.