“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.” Laurence J. Peter, “The Peter Principle.”

I have high hopes, at least for the town of Windham, after the elections of Tuesday.

Two Town Council seats were to be decided of which one was contested and the other uncontested. It will be the first time in a couple of years that the council will once again have seven members, just like the town charter calls for.

What bothers me is that the town councilors should have either appointed someone to the vacant seat or called for a special election so that we, the citizens, could elect someone to fill that seat. They failed on both accounts and best I can see is they hold no remorse for breaking the provisions of the Windham Town Charter. That doesn’t come as any surprise to me because that has happened ever since my wife and I moved to Windham years ago.

Hopefully having a Town Council that has seven councilors means that more of them will be attending meetings. I am highly disappointed in the amount of vacant seats during council meetings in Windham, especially in the past year or so. I know that we are supposedly so busy nowadays but if someone wants to represent our town, then they should do it with the knowledge that they represent the residents of Windham and act accordingly. Hopefully this new council will improve on that.

Another reason I can think of having all seven councilors on board is the fact that something happened that most citizens in Windham never knew took place and that was the possibility of an illegal council meeting. If you really know me, I not only watch Town Council meetings, I go to the Windham website to see what future meetings are coming up as well as the information displayed for those meetings. I was surprised last week to see a special Town Council meeting to be held at 6 p.m. before the regular meeting scheduled for 7 p.m. This meeting was in an email to every councilor less than half an hour before the special meeting at 6 p.m., which tells me there is a good possibility it was never publicly announced, at least properly. Thank God some councilors with good minds made sure that meeting did not happen.

When I say size matters, one of the biggest problems I see for Windham is that the size of its population is growing but the capabilities of its leadership has not and that is a tremendous dilemma for the residents of this town. During a recent discussion with a couple of members of Windham’s fire department one possible solution was discussed which I believe is an honest one and that is that the Public Safety Department grows correspondingly as our population does. At least if Windham can get the jump on attracting new employees, we might not have a shortfall because what is scary is the ever-increasing lack of volunteers for the firefighters and EMTs.

I am not embarrassed to state that one of the best selling points when we purchased our house was the fact that there was a fire hydrant right across the street and the public safety building is right down the street. I am also not embarrassed to state that I have 10 areas of disability from the VA and some of those I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

I am sure that there are many people who have suggestions as to reducing the size and cost of government whether at the local, county, state and federal levels. My suggestion is to do away with Windham’s annual town meeting, which is the most redundant piece of waste I have ever seen. There’s nothing done in that meeting that can’t be accomplished another way. Attendance is miniscule and citizens feel intimidated by their government and its workers. Windham’s future shouldn’t be decided by such a small minority.

Lane Hiltunen of Windham hopes his town never adopts ranked choice voting, which punishes a party with the fewest candidates.

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