Constant Comment (2).
By Jim Conley • May 21st, 2007 • Email This Post to a Friend •
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I guess we should give the Brookline Selectmen credit for instituting a public comment item on their weekly agenda, but the rules are more complicated than those governing prize giveaways by a radio station.
The comment period proscribes that residents may speak for only three minutes…and only after three sessions have lapsed since the last time they spoke…and only after they have pre-registered to speak…and as long as speeches are on subjects not being considered by the Selectmen during that meeting. The Selectmen will not answer questions, nor will they ask them, or make any comment whatsoever.
Add this to larger contrivances like representative town meeting and closed debate during Brookline’s town meeting assembly and you get a pretty clear picture that Brookline Town Government is, at its core, a system that bastardizes the principle of participatory government.
Jim Conley is publisher of On Brookline.
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I posted the third comment at the first Constant Comment post which is relevant to this post. Eventually the BOS may come up with a “Catch-22″ that will impose still greater proscriptions upon citizen speakers. As they say, the devil is in the details.