TIVERTON — In a nearly packed Town Hall last Thursday night residents debated two budgets — their validity, not their numbers.
The occasion was a meeting of the Board of Canvassers (see separate story), which had to decide whether, under the town charter, an electors' petition budget should be placed on the ballot for the May 20 Financial Town Referendum.
In the end, the canvassers decided the petitioner's budget was invalid, and should not be placed on the budget.
"The charter is ambiguous" said Dr. Jerome Larkin, one of the two school committee petitioners. "We acted in good faith," and "we will suffer irreparable harm," if our budget isn't on the ballot. "We submitted petitioners' budget in compliance with the charter," he said.
"There's no requirement it be submitted at any particular hour or business hours. And if you disqualify the petitioners' budget, you must similarly disqualify the budget committee budget, which was submitted after hours," he said.
"It was the intent of the charter," Dr. Larkin said, "to make the petition unassailable as long as it has the requisite number of signatures."
"The charter is not ambiguous. It is very clear," said Justin Katz, a budget committee member, arguing against the petitioner's budget. "I'm asking you to acknowledge that the petition before you did not follow the rules and is invalid. ... The right ting to do here would be to hold the petition off the ballot."
"We did what everyone said to do," said Sally Black. "No one said anything until a few minutes after 12," the Saturday noon deadline past which a petitioner's budget filing would be considered tardy. "The main thing is to give people a choice. We worked hard. We're coming here to asking you to let the people decide on it," she said.
"Your job — and this is my opinion — is to cast sunshine on this process and to err on the side of allowing the voters to decide," Mike Burk told the canvassers. "If midnight is the deadline for one, it should be the deadline for the other."
Then addressing the Katz complaint, Mr. Burk said, "if the complaint before you is not before you properly, and if you accept it, you must accept another complaint. The budget committee budget came in after the close of business on a business day."
"The Financial Town Referendum came into existence to give ordinary citizens a way to participate," said Louise Durfee. "The charter says all petitions should appear on the ballot as long as they have 50 signatures. ... There's only one choice before the board, to let both budgets go forward."
Ambiguity, she said, should be resolved "in favor of the electors and the elector petition."
Jeff Caron, a member of the budget committee who wore a baseball cap that said "Make Skiing Great Again," went forward to the podium to comment, then stepped back to place his hat on his chair before speaking.
"This petition is defective on the merits for the reasons put forth by Mr. Katz," he said. "I urge the board to err on the side of caution."
Greg Jones, president of the library board of trustees, said, "There are people is this town who don't want the voters to have a choice."
"You can't publish a deadline that says 'noon' and have it not be noon" when the deadline is sought to be enforced, Robert Coulter, a former member of the budget committee and town councilor said.
"There has to be a line item in the budget or a remand in their paperwork, submitted with their petition," said Cecil Leonard, speaking against validating the petitioners’ budget. "The petition filed had neither a line item nor a remand," he said.