Reversing itself, the Windham Town Council rescinds finance committee appointments.
WINDHAM – The Windham Town Council reopened a contentious debate about the structure of the finance committee on Dec. 10, voting to effectively rescind several recent appointments to the influential subcommittee and to postpone further discussion until the council reviews and possibly amends its rules.
On Nov. 26, after a lengthy debate, the council voted 5-0 to appoint councilors Bob Muir, Tommy Gleason and Roy Moore to the finance committee, which governs the budget process. According to Tony Plante, Windham’s town manager, the council’s vote on Tuesday effectively nullified those appointments.
At the Nov. 26 meeting, councilors Muir and Donna Chapman expressed concerns that the entire council was not there to discuss the potential structure of the finance committee. Councilors David Nadeau and Dennis Welch did not attend that meeting.
Muir, in particular, championed the idea of incorporating a “council as a whole” approach to develop the budget, a structure in which each member of the council, not just three, goes through the budget with department heads line by line. The finance committee model, which is strongly favored by Councilor Matt Noel, calls for the three appointed councilors to go through the budget initially and send their recommendation to the full council, which has the final say. According to Plante, Windham councils have alternated between both models since the town charter was adopted in the 1970s. Since Plante became town manager in 1996, the council has primarily opted for the “council as a whole” model, he said.
With the full council on hand Tuesday, Gleason, the board chairman, Muir, Chapman and Welch voted to reconsider the Nov. 26 appointments. After about 30 minutes of debate, Gleason, Muir, Chapman and Welch voted to postpone the appointments until after the council reviews or amends the finance committee rules, which were changed in December 2009 to stipulate that “the finance committee shall consist of three members of the council.”
Moore and Noel voted against the motion, while Nadeau abstained.
“What I would like to see in the council rules is that that three-member thing get taken out so that future councils can do whatever they want,” Muir said.
“The finance committee is one of the most important ones because we’re handling town money, and there are people that I would like to have on that committee to be in on all of the discussions,” he said.
Arguing that the finance committee had worked “extremely well” since 2009, Noel questioned the need for more debate.
“We had a good discussion our last time and again we made progress on this,” Noel said. “I’m not sure why we want to delay progress, as I thought this was fairly well vetted during our last meeting. So, again, we’re stepping backward into time to discuss something that was thoroughly vetted in our last meeting.”
Gleason, who explained that he had voted to reconsider in order to allow the full council to discuss the issue, said that a three-person finance committee was more efficient, in his experience.
“It works both ways,” he said. “I remember the old meetings years back taking a long, long time to decide things; that I do remember. Things did move fairly better at this point when you had three members. But everybody was there, and when I was at those meetings, even before I was on the council I was allowed to sit right in front here and voice my opinion. But as a councilor when I was not on the committee itself I did get a lot of input.”
Toward the end of the discussion, Moore, who is new to the council, expressed disgust with the lengthy debate.
“I’m listening to something that we discussed heavily two weeks ago and voted on,” he said. “This is a gross waste of time. It’s horrible.”
In other committee-related business, the council also voted unanimously to appoint Reid Scher to the Zoning Board of Appeals, with Chuck Fleck as an alternate. Joanna Bridges was unanimously appointed to the Energy Advisory Committee, and Madeline Roberts, the former Windham Food Pantry director, was appointed to the Human Services Advisory Committee.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
