"FTR" REFERENDUM PLAN A CONFUSING EXPERIMENT

Tiverton voters are being asked to vote on a charter amendment this coming November that proposes a budget process that no other city or town uses. As we learned at the hearing, this is an experiment that was written just for Tiverton. I’m sorry, but I’m skeptical. And confused!

I have read the pages and pages of this cluttered amendment over and over. I consider myself intelligent, but it took me hours of study to even begin to understand it.

Here are just a few examples of the problems I see:

1. We have been told that we will receive all the information we need to vote two weeks before, but section 301 e) 5) states that attendance by budget proposal originators shall be optional and at his or her discretion. What?! The people recommending them do not have to tell us what they were thinking, what the consequences will be if we vote for it or even show up at the hearing? The charter will allow an unlimited number of budget proposals and no one has to defend or explain them? At least at the Financial Town Meeting we have the chance to hear explanations of budget items.

2. Looking at the time line in the back, it states the Budget Committee, schools and council must now have their budgets completed by April 10. “The second week of May is too early” was a common complaint at the FTM because the info is often preliminary as we are always waiting on the state. Now we are going to push it back to April making the numbers even less accurate. Why would we intentionally do that?

3. I have no idea, and I defy anyone to tell me, what section 301 c) 2) “access to ballot” means. Will the schools and Town Council have access or not?

I ask all Tiverton residents to go to the town website and read the FTR amendment and then answer these questions: Feel good? Understand it? Is this what the proponents are telling you? Is everything clear? Or like me, have you found it so wordy and vague that one can interpret it however one chooses.

I defy anyone to tell me – clearly - what a “yes” vote would unleash. For these reasons I am voting no for the FTR amendment in November, and I encourage all residents of Tiverton to join me.

Susan Krumholz
Tiverton, RI