Request of Appointing Authority

[Guest Gary]

I serve on a Town Government Study Committee appointed by the Selectmen who asked us at a public meeting to research and provide recommendations on our Town Charter. During that meeting asked if the Selectmen would provide us access to Westlaw for legal research on Town Charters. A fellow GSC member interrupted my request and later claimed I acted without GSC approval, which I disagree with. Does RONR provide recommendation on this?  

[Dan Honemann]

1 hour ago, Guest Gary said:

I serve on a Town Government Study Committee appointed by the Selectmen who asked us at a public meeting to research and provide recommendations on our Town Charter. During that meeting asked if the Selectmen would provide us access to Westlaw for legal research on Town Charters. A fellow GSC member interrupted my request and later claimed I acted without GSC approval, which I disagree with. Does RONR provide recommendation on this?  

There is nothing in RONR which says that you, as a committee member, may not ask a question at a meeting of the Selectmen without committee approval, provided, of course, that you do not indicate that you have received such approval.

Come to think of it, I gather that you asked your question at the same meeting at which your committee was asked to undertake this assignment, and so it must have been obvious that you were asking your question on your own.

Edited December 26, 2016 at 03:14 PM by Daniel H. Honemann
Added the last sentence.

[Gary c Tesser]

4 hours ago, Daniel H. Honemann said:

"... later claimed I acted without GSC approval, which I disagree with ..."

Guest Gary, are you saying that the GSC already approved your request?  If so, how do you figure?

Edited December 26, 2016 at 07:39 PM by Gary c Tesser
change the verb, for clarity

[Transpower]

Guest Gary, can you provide the precise text of the motion which created your Government Study Committee and your appointment to it?

 

[Guest Gary]

Response to Gary c Tesser- My fellow GSC members argues that I should have asked for GSC consensus prior to asking the Selectmen if they would provide us access to Westlaw for research on our Town Charter.  I was asking for resources to accomplish the assignment they gave to us which is recommendations on Town Charter, which must comply with and be interpreted under State laws.  Does this clarify?

 

Response to Transpower-55 years ago, Town meeting voted to establish the GSC and appointments by the Selectmen who set the GSC agenda. In this cass a review of Town Charter. I requested and received Selectmen appointment to the GSC 6 months ago.

[Transpower]

Were there any resources allocated to the GSC to accomplish its purpose?

 

[Clurichan]

4 hours ago, Guest Gary said:

Response to Gary c Tesser- My fellow GSC members argues that I should have asked for GSC consensus prior to asking the Selectmen if they would provide us access to Westlaw for research on our Town Charter.  I was asking for resources to accomplish the assignment they gave to us which is recommendations on Town Charter, which must comply with and be interpreted under State laws.  Does this clarify?

He was just grammar national socializing, don't sweat it.

Unless your committee or parent body set up some requirements or duty of closed-mouthedness, there's absolutely nothing that I can think of that precludes you asking what is, in essence, the hypothetical, "Would you supply resource X, if the committee requests it?"

The guy is trying to justify timidity, if you ask me, unless there's some deep or hidden cross-agenda going on...

[Guest Gary]

No specific resource or budget are allocated to the GSC. We are expected to report back on Charter concerns raised by the selectmen after comprehensive research. Therefore, my request for access to Westlaw which has an associated expense, unless other Town Officials have access that we can share. But my fellow GSC member preempted discussion. 

[Transpower]

OK, so you were not granted any resources by the appointing body.  To get those resources, you will have to go back to the Town Officials and request a motion for such....

 

 

[Gary c Tesser]

On 12/26/2016 at 9:06 AM, Guest Gary said:

later claimed I acted without GSC approval, which I disagree with

So you  agree that you acted without GSC approval, yes?  And what you disagree with is the idiotic suggestion that it was improper for you to ask the Selectmen for the resources the GSC would use, to accomplish their assigned task, on your own?

On 12/27/2016 at 9:23 AM, Guest Gary said:

Response to Gary c Tesser- My fellow GSC members argues that I should have asked for GSC consensus prior to asking the Selectmen if they would provide us access to Westlaw

A ha.  Let me tell you a little story.  (You can skip it if you want.  Anyone can.  OK, then, anyone wants to read it forks up fifty cents for the privilege.  You all want to be that way, fine!  See if I care!)

(I just stepped away from the keyboard, came back to see Fluffy padding away from it.  Did he type anything when I was gone?  He likes to slip little digs in and I don't always catch them.)

For some years I was a member of the Lunarians - The New York Science-Fiction Society, who annually, usually around March, presented LunaCon, the annual regional science-fiction convention, held in a nearby hotel. (In the early years, the convention was held in Manhattan, often in the Commodore Hotel, which, as it aged badly, became known informally as the Commode d'Or; but since the late 1970's the convention got priced out of the city.)  The Lunarians elected the chairman for the convention, having adopted some rules and some guidelines in accordance with which the Lunacon Chairman and his appointed committee would run the show, but the club mostly kept our hands off.  One of the rules was that the "con chair" could not act as the head of any of the convention's departments (e.g. Programming, Registration, Logistics, Security, Publications, Dealers' ("Huckster") Room, Masquerade), as we had learned too often that an overambitious and overconfident convention chair would take on too much, since many of those jobs, including the chairmanship, could demand the time and dedication of a full-time job, too often resulting in disaster.

So this one year, I think in mid- to late-1990, with the convention to be in nearby Connecticut, at one of the monthly Lunarians meetings, a member, let's call him Stuart, brought up a grave matter:  the chairman of that coming convention, Dennis, say, had flagrantly and egregiously violated one of the cardinal rules that the Society, for the good of the convention, had imposed on the con and its chairman, namely, that the chair refrain from acting in any way as his convention's Hotel Liaison, and Stuart, reluctantly and painfully was proposing that the club remove Dennis from the chairmanship.

25 years later, I don't remember the details too well.  The issue was hotly debated; Dennis, I remember was conciliatory, even maybe apologetic (I remember at one point he allowed as some people might have "trouble with [his] managerial style"); no one (?) wanted to impose on Dennis the humiliation and ignominy of being removed as a con chair (this Wasn't Done, nowhere in the world, for any SF convention, ever).  But Stuart's concern was compelling, and it was clear from the debate, and the members's body language, for that matter, that everyone was deeply troubled and conflicted.  In the end, I think Dennis promised to toe the line (and maybe ate some crow in the process), and the matter was dropped, probably without formal disciplinary procedures even begun.

Oh ... And what was Dennis's infraction, we ask?  Well, he wanted to contact a few businesses in the hotel's neighborhood, to find facilities that would provide copy paper, food for the various hospitality facilities, tech equipment, and/or whatnot ...

... so he picked up the telephone, called the hotel, and asked his contact-person there to send him a local phone book.

-- Thereby violating the proscription against acting as committee's Hotel Liaison.

In retrospect, it's a supreme tribute to Stuart's awesome power of persuasion and ability to manipulate, as well as the limitless capacity for gullibility of supposedly intelligent and well-intentioned people, that such nonsense got as far as it did.

What, now, might this ancient kerfuffle have to do with Guest Gary's situation, you may ask.

Edited December 28, 2016 at 08:26 PM by Gary c Tesser
Throw in "just"

[Dan Honemann]

What, now, might this ancient kerfuffle have to do with Guest Gary's situation?

[Joshua Katz]

I'm starting to wonder what this entire thread has to do with Guest Gary's situation, which Mr. Honemann seemed to fully address in the first reply.

[Clurichan]

Le superflu, chose très nécessaire.

[George Mervosh]

32 minutes ago, Daniel H. Honemann said:

What, now, might this ancient kerfuffle have to do with Guest Gary's situation?

Was it worth the 50 cents you ponied up for the privilege of reading it?

[Gary c Tesser]

4 hours ago, Daniel H. Honemann said:

What, now, might this ancient kerfuffle have to do with Guest Gary's situation?

It's an earlier instance of an officious obstructionist misusing procedure, on a trivial and not even valid point, to gum up the works.

[Dan Honemann]

13 hours ago, Gary c Tesser said:

What, now, might this ancient kerfuffle have to do with Guest Gary's situation, you may ask.

 

13 hours ago, Daniel H. Honemann said:

What, now, might this ancient kerfuffle have to do with Guest Gary's situation?

 

8 hours ago, Gary c Tesser said:

It's an earlier instance of an officious obstructionist misusing procedure, on a trivial and not even valid point, to gum up the works.

Okay. Just thought I ought to ask.

[Gary c Tesser]

3 hours ago, Daniel H. Honemann said:

Okay. Just thought I ought to ask.

And how spectacularly, and stimulatingly, you did, too:  you woke George, Godelfan (whoever he is) and Clurichan (whatever he is,  I think he's a country southeast of the Ukraine -- aside from his name, you can tell from his quotation in a Slavic language) up all at the same time.

(What are you doing up at 4 in the morning?  You can type when fishing?)

Edited December 29, 2016 at 01:49 PM by Gary c Tesser
personal nagging on Dan, linguistic extrapolation, and oh, maybe my birthday while I'm at it

[Joshua Katz]

I can answer that one:  I am Godelfan.

[Gary Novosielski]

...formerly Gödelfan.

[Joshua Katz]

5 minutes ago, Gary Novosielski said:

...formerly Gödelfan.

Yep.  Once I got logged out, I couldn't log back in.  Tragic.