Tuesday March 9th Town Elections
The election of Selectman (2), School Board Members (2), Budget Committee Members (2), Library Trustees and other elected positions. I am up for reelection to the Select Board and would appreciate your vote.
The one election that has controversy is for School Board. Mr. Coe is a candidate for a three year term on the School Board. Mr. Coe’s wife is the Dean of Humanities at Bow High School. I have heard from several people in town who believe this is an obvious conflict of interest.
Voting will take place from 7AM to 7PM on at the fire station
Wednesday March 10th – Town Meeting
At this meeting registered voters decide the town budget and every other warrant article, one article at a time.
There is likely to be an extended discussion over the warrant to rescind any unused funds from the $12 million dollar Water and Sewer Bond.
The town budget itself calls for less spending then this year and both the Select Board and the Budget Committee are in complete agreement.
There are more then two dozen warrant articles dealing with issues like new trucks and putting additional money into the town’s multimillion dollar Capital Reserve Fund.
I suspect voters will hear impassioned discussions on the need to reduce spending given the economy, loss of jobs and home foreclosures.
Voting will take place at the High School
The meeting begins at 7PM
Friday March 12 – Annual School District Town Meeting
This is the meeting where voters decide the size of the Bow School District’s annual budget.
This is likely to be the most divisive meeting this year.
Issue 1: Will there be a secret ballot? The answer is yes. Last year both registered and non registered/non-resident people were allowed to sit together throughout the audience. The problem occurred on both voice votes and show of hand votes. There was no way of verifying only legal voters were voting. The process produce many angry residents.
Issue 2: Both the School Board and the Budget Committee voted to adopt a budget that holds the line on increased spending.
The School Board looked at current and projected declines in school enrollment and determined that a teacher reduction was prudent. The board decided to increase core class sizes from around 17 to 22. The Budget Committee agreed with the School Board and defeated several motions by committee members Dee Treybig and Kally Abrams to avoid lay offs by increasing the budget more then a quarter million dollars. This issue will be decided by those registered voter who attend this year School District Annual Meeting.
Voting will take place at the High School
The meeting begins at 7PM
Wow, Dee Treybig is a huge disappointment as she votes for everything. Kally Abrams is no surprise as it seems she votes to spend for anything that sounds good. Now in light of declining enrollments they both are trying to add back into the budget a quarter of a million dollars to keep 4 teachers with benefits.
That is $66.61 per year on a $300,000 property.
I also understand that as the proposed budget is decreasing teachers by 7 positions, special ed is increasing positions by 4? Is this correct? Nobody is broadcasting that item. This needs to be brought out into the public eye.
Ought to be an intersting school meeting. I am glad to see that there will be a secret ballot at the town and school meetings.
RLB,
Last year at the school meeting there were kids with signs surrounding the voters with signs promoting a pro-spending agenda. The moderator allowed this form of intimidation. I have a son in High school who plays on a sports team so I get very nervous when we vote in public. I know people are watching how I vote.
You mentioned that there will be a secret ballot at the school meeting. That will be great. How do you know that there will be a secret ballot. If people knew that there would be a secret ballot I think they would be more likely to go to the meeting.
What do others think?
Bow sports fan-If you knew that there were going to be secret ballots on the major money questions would you be more likely to go to the meetings?
Paul, I will answer that question. I think a lot of people who don’t usually go to the meetings would go if they knew in advance that their vote would be able to be cast in private.
I know people who don’t go to the meetings because their vote is not private most of the time. They usually go to the big bond votes where it requires a secret ballot vote. If there are people in Bow who are willing to take the abuse of putting their names on a ballot petition before the meeting. I for one would appreciate their efforts.
I truly believe there are people in town who don’t want certain people to come to the meetings and they are going to make a big fuss about a ballot vote. I say too bad.
Got my packet of people not to vote for today. I hope everyone is seeing the pattern from past years. The Harry Judd machine community organizer or should I say destroyer has sent out his next group of big spenders. Look for the different colored fliers stapled together always arriving the weekend 9-10 days before election day.
Pansy Bloomfield<–Big Spenders are us. "Who cares about the poor guy who is barely scraping by: Pansy.
Shawn Coe-Married to an school employee but says he doesn't have a conflict of interest if he gets elected. I don't believe it.
Colleen Hunter-As a previous poster mention that Colleen is Co-founder Celebrating Children a pre-school for children is being run out of Bow town offices. If she was selectman she would have a huge conflict of interest. Why are these people with conflict of interests running for office anyway?
Question does Bow have a conflict of interest policy?
Ginger Fraser-If she wants to be a Kally Abram clone I don't want her. Her flier was the most appealing of all the rest though.
Kally Abrams has anyone else seen her Budget Committee voting record. Spend spend, spend who cares about the taxpayers of Bow.
Norm Williams & Ingrid White both have a BS in Political Science. Why are Political Science Majors running for Library Trustees anyway?
Well that makes it easy on election day.
For all those folks who would like to see a secret ballot on all the important Warrant Articles, I will guarantee that there will be secret ballot votes.
The necessary petitions are already made up and we already have enough signatures to fill them with folks who are attending the Town and School District Meetings next week. I will be one of the signatures on those petitions as I have done in the past.
There will be secret ballot votes on all Warrant Articles so show up and not be afraid to vote the way you see fit.
Thanks Rick for standing up for the Taxpayers of Bow. You got my vote and my family’s vote for selectman. Where can I get a Hiland for Selectman sign?
http://www.utahsrepublic.org/news/asd-endorses-christ-was-vampire-author/
The stuff they are teaching these days!
Enculturating?
http://www.utahsrepublic.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/ASD-sign-sm.jpg
How will Mr. Imse enforce the non-voter segregation? Has he designated a person(s) to do this? What identification will he required to segregate and enforce this?
taxedout: Mr. Imse does a pretty good job running town meetings and has been fair to both sides of issues at all Town Meetings that I have attended in the past. With ballot votes there will be no need to segregate as you will have to register and get ballots on your way into the meeting and your vote will be only seen by you.
yeswecan: I am not a politician and do not wish to be. I believe in community service and volunteerism. I do not use signs in order to serve my community and anyone who knows me will know this. I stand on my record regarding my service on the Budget Committee, Business Developement Commission, etc. and other committees that I have served on in my 36 years as a resident. If you would like my continued service spead the word.
I think it is pretty clear for voters. You can vote for spenders or non-spenders. It is that simple. I am frugile with taxpayers hard earned money and bring my business experience and common sense to the table.
I am glad to hear that there will be secret ballots.
Secrets ballots on EVERY article, or just the ‘big impact’ articles?
I agree with Rick’s (can I call you Rick or would you prefer Mr. Hiland? I’m always unsure) take on Moderator Imse. He has always been an open and fair Moderator. Now, if we’re talking about Moderator Hatem, that man needs to go. He has ZERO sense of the rules of the meeting, often violates the rules that he came up with. I have almost wondered why we don’t push to use RRO to protect those at the SB meetings.
I really hope that we won’t have another “education” session like we did on PAYT last year. If we truly are going to have ballot votes on every article, I’m guessing we’ll be having another date for the meeting as well.
enoughalready: Rick is fine. We will have secret ballot votes for all major or controvercial votes. I agree with you on Mr Hatem.