{"id":2794,"date":"2023-03-24T06:45:31","date_gmt":"2023-03-24T10:45:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/?p=2794"},"modified":"2023-03-24T06:45:31","modified_gmt":"2023-03-24T10:45:31","slug":"no-voice-if-you-cannot-attend-a-town-council-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/?p=2794","title":{"rendered":"No Voice if You Cannot Attend A Town Council Meeting?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In other words if you do not attend a Town Council meeting in person or the Town Council Chairman does not consent to adding your correspondence to the meeting minutes you have no voice in Town Government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>From:<\/strong> Michael Malaguti<br><strong>Sent:<\/strong> Tuesday, March 7, 2023<br>Good evening,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is no statute, ordinance, or\u00a0charter provision governing any attachments required to be appended\u00a0to the Town Council&#8217;s minutes. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.londonderrynh.gov\/sites\/g\/files\/vyhlif4616\/f\/uploads\/fy12_council_rules_of_order.pdf\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.londonderrynh.gov\/sites\/g\/files\/vyhlif4616\/f\/uploads\/fy12_council_rules_of_order.pdf\">Council&#8217;s rules of procedure<\/a> also\u00a0do not\u00a0require this.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>In longstanding\u00a0practice, those wishing to address the Council and the public have been required to attend Council meetings and speak in public comment.<\/strong> The Town Council Chairman\u00a0has consistently and liberally permitted public comment, and has\u00a0often lifted or relaxed\u00a0time limitations in favor of full, meaningful public participation and input.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In extreme, extenuating circumstances, the Chairman, in his discretion, has relaxed this practice, as is his prerogative.\u00a0<strong>In general, however, communications included in the minutes are those which occur in the Town Council Chambers<\/strong>, during meetings that are noticed well in advance, and aired on local access television\u00a0and recorded for posterity.\u00a0Our form\u00a0of\u00a0government is designed to\u00a0occur in public\u00a0for all to see, not in the shadows of social media or via\u00a0email outside of public view.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you have an extreme, extenuating circumstance, I would be happy to convey it to the <strong>Chairman for his consideration.<\/strong> In the absence of such a request, the official minutes of the Londonderry Town Council will not include every\u00a0irrelevant, superfluous, inflammatory communication directed to this body.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While I recognize you may disagree with the Town&#8217;s position, this will be the Town&#8217;s only and final communication on this topic. You are of course free to revive the matter in public comment before the Town Council, but the Town will not be replying further.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><br>Sincerely,<br>Michael J. Malaguti<br>Town Manager<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Related Posts<br><a href=\"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/?p=2269\">Town Council Chair Does Not Read Letters Into The Record<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In other words if you do not attend a Town Council meeting in person or the Town Council Chairman does not consent to adding your correspondence to the meeting minutes you have no voice in Town Government. From: Michael MalagutiSent: Tuesday, March 7, 2023Good evening, There is no statute, ordinance,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2794\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}