By S.D. Plissken | February 11, 2021
At the conclusion of the Milton School Board’s Deliberative Session of Saturday, February 6, 2021, Budget Committeeman (and ZBA member, and Local Government Efficiency Task Force member) Lawrence D. “Larry” Brown put forward a last-minute resolution from the floor.
Moderator: Does anyone else wish to speak? … Larry Brown.
Larry Brown: This is a … at the end of the Deliberative Session for the Town, I decided we’d had enough and rather than spend more time there, a different meeting. This is the text of a resolution regarding consideration, it requires a simple vote, up or down, no seconds, no amendments:
Resolved. The 2021 Town of Milton School Board Deliberative Session opposes the diversion of public education funding to private purposes and requests their State Representatives to support that position in the debate and with their vote on the House floor.
Moderator: Larry … is that a question, or …?
Larry Brown: That is a resolution to be voted for or against by the Deliberative Session …
The Moderator seemed a bit nonplussed. He referred the request to the School Board’s lawyer, who said it lay within the Moderator’s discretion. The Moderator chose not to take up the resolution.
There were but fourteen voters present in the audience, including the two State Representatives mentioned in Mr. Brown’s proposed resolution – who could hardly instruct themselves – and including also not a few Town officials (apart from the School Board members, Selectmen, Budget Committee members, etc., officiating at the dais).
The voters present made up only 0.4% – i.e., less than half of one percent – of Milton’s electorate.
Had such a resolution actually been voted upon and passed, it might have conveyed some sense of the majority (eight voters or more) of those few present at an underattended meeting (fourteen voters), but could hardly have conveyed any true sense of Milton’s electorate, and none at all of Middleton’s electorate. (The representatives being responsible to both Milton and Middleton).
One is left to assume that Mr. Brown was attempting a little humor or, perhaps, was engaged in a bit of trolling, which some consider to be a form of humor. If so, it fell just a bit flat.
It is a curious fact that people are never so trivial as when they take themselves seriously. –Oscar Wilde
References:
Legiscan. (2021). NH HB20 | 2021 | Regular Session. Retrieved from legiscan.com/NH/bill/HB20/2021
Milton School Board. (2021). Deliberative Session – February 06, 2021. Retrieved from www.youtube.com/watch?v=UG_c76h4YWI&t=2528s
Milton Observer 
Should have put in a petition warrant article dealing with said subject. That way it would have been on the March 9th. Election Ballot. Would have had a broader view of the voters of Milton, not just 14 voters at the meeting. Would have signed the petition for Mr. Brown.
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