Town Politics

The Charlton town elections were this past Saturday, with some surprising results.

There were three contested races listed on the ballot. In each of them, the incumbent won. None of that was particularly surprising, although in a couple cases I personally found it disappointing.

In addition, there was a debt exclusion question to spend more money on schools. That was defeated, which was also not surprising.

In addition, there was a race for Water/Sewer Commissioner. There were two available seats, and two people were on the ballot: an incumbent, and a newcomer. Sounds like it’d be an easy win for both of them.

On Tuesday, the Charlton Board of Selectmen discussed briefly the possibility of an access road going through Charlton (including our land) to the Southbridge Landfill. They seemed generally supportive of the idea, which makes sense because it would significantly increase Charlton’s tax base without significantly increasing its expenses. So, that’s a good sign.

Yesterday (Thursday), there was the first of the restarted public hearings on Casella‘s new site assignment request, to change from taking in construction debris and start taking in municipal solid waste. Apparently, there was quite a crowd protesting the change. I certainly want there to be some regulation and oversight that Casella is doing what they are supposed to be, but conditions at the landfill have improved immensely since they took over from the previous owner, so I’m thinking that they want to be good corporate citizens, if only so that MassDEP isn’t always breathing down their necks. I think I’m hoping that the change happens, with correct oversight, such that Casella builds the access road, and living half a mile from the dump doesn’t become a nightmare. So, let’s hope that we can, in fact, get both.

I stopped by the Town Clerk’s office after work today to be sworn in as a member of the Charlton Republican Town Committee.

I called the Town Clerk’s office today, and apparently the Republican Town Committee is in fact a real entity, but they didn’t get their list of nominees for the positions to the state by the deadline, so that’s why all the positions on the ballot were blank. That is, all the positions were filled via write-ins, and I was one of the top 35 vote getters. The person I spoke with couldn’t tell me exactly how many votes I got since that information wasn’t readily available, but said that she would call me back tomorrow with that, and said that she knew that some people made it in with only 1 or 2 votes.

Letter received today from the Charlton Town Clerk’s office (with the official embossed seal and everything):

This is to certify that Peter Cooper Jr.
Was duly elected to the REPUBLICAN TOWN COMMITTEE
at the 2008 Presidential Primary held February 5, 2008 at the
Heritage School, 34 Oxford Road, Charlton.

Please appear at the Town Clerk’s Office to be sworn into office at your earliest convenience

Jessi wrote me in on one of the 35 blank lines for Town Committee, and apparently that was enough.

I’ve decided not to run for Charlton Town Moderator. While I think I could do a fine job, the current office holder is also doing a fine job, and he is planning on running again. Also, the election and May Annual Town Meeting would be the same month as the expected arrival of Baby, so it might be a good plan to leave that month rather open for now.

Maybe in 2011.

The time has come once again.

Do I want to run for Charlton Town Moderator?

The trouble with elections like this is that I don’t want to run against the current holder. I like him, and he does a fine job. But I am interested in having the job. So I’m kind of unsure what to do.

Interesting events in January, past and present:

• January 1: While at the annual New Year’s party and my aunt and uncle’s large house in Middlefield, MA, my wife tumbles down a flight of stairs while carrying our luggage. “Luckily”, she landed mainly on her head and shoulders. She and Baby seem to be doing just fine despite the experience, although Jessi did suffer a pulled rotator cuff in her right shoulder which is slowly healing.
• January 8: I stopped by the town hall on my way home from work to get information on an upcoming public hearing on the town’s contact with Charter Communications. I would like to send in my comments ahead of time, as well as attend the hearing. I may even try to get on one of the Cable Committees in town at some point.
• January 19-20: The Morningtide Prerelease. I’m scheduled to be the Head Judge on Day 2, which will be the largest number of players I’ve ever head judged for at once.
• January 29: The aforementioned public hearing on Charter.

“A motion to open the budget and consider it by line item, rather than as a whole, failed to gain majority support.” — Worcester Telegram & Gazette, on the one motion at last night’s Town Meeting that failed.

I was the one at Town Meeting that offered that motion.

I’ve decided not to run for Town Moderator. I don’t want to run as a write-in candidate against somebody who’d I’d be happy to have in there.

In other news, I drew a network diagram today, just to make sure I knew what IPs were where in our increasingly-complicated home network. (The router for VoIP adds another layer of NATing, and there’s now the cable-modem-to-phone-router subnet, the phone-router-to-PCPC subnet, and the main home subnet.)