Acton townwide ban on agenda for May 1 2023

[JJC]

Town Meeting | Acton, MA - Official Website

actonma.gov

Article 15. Same exact thing they are proposing in Sudbury tomorrow night. Sudbury is article 55 while Acton's is article 15. Sudbury might be voted on tomorrow but Acton will for sure. Call your neighbors and friends. Send a blast email to your range on the off chance other Acton citizens are members too. These things need a 2/3s vote and your vote and your spouse's vote matter.

 

[walter62]

If you live in one of the towns, PLEASE come to the meeting.

 

[Arto]

They woulda put Isaac Davis out of business

https://www.battlefields.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/Volume%2011%20Minutemen%20at%20Lexington%20and%20Concord.pdf

 

[76Too]

Wow…shit’s getting REAL back home I guess? I should be glad I left when I did.

Good luck fellas…you’re on the front lines.

 

[steve8140]

Bump for the dinner time crew.

 

[JJC]

My friend that lives in Acton says the vote got moved to tonight Tuesday May 2.

 

[RoterTeufel]

My friend that lives in Acton says the vote got moved to tonight Tuesday May 2.

Bump

 

[steve8140]

My friend that lives in Acton says the vote got moved to tonight Tuesday May 2.

That seems typical anytime a .gov entity wants to restrict something.

Schedule it with a date and time, wait for everyone to take time off work or away from their families to attend, then reschedule it last minute so less people show up next time.

 

[zboys]

That seems typical anytime a .gov entity wants to restrict something.

Schedule it with a date and time, wait for everyone to take time off work or away from their families to attend, then reschedule it last minute so less people show up next time.

Or more time to stack the meeting with more antis

 

[Asaltweapon]

Or more time to stack the meeting with more antis

Typically after the school expenditure items the room might get better. Wondering if all the East Asians will stick around?

 

[buckhunter]

These town Select Boards are following the type of politics going on in Washington and various statehouses. We have had the same issues with other town issues and it is obvious what their goal is,

 

[rali]

These town Select Boards are following the type of politics going on in Washington and various statehouses. We have had the same issues with other town issues and it is obvious what their goal is,

It’s NOT a select board meeting. It’s TOWN meeting. All voters can show.
Articles are discussed and voted in order listed in the warrant.

Acton has never gotten through the entire warrant in one night in my memory so this neither a surprise nor a a scheme.

 

[M1911]

That seems typical anytime a .gov entity wants to restrict something.

Schedule it with a date and time, wait for everyone to take time off work or away from their families to attend, then reschedule it last minute so less people show up next time.

No, it is just how town meetings work. They start at article 1 and keep going until they are finished. If they are not done by 10 or 11 pm, they adjourn and the remaining items are addressed the following evening.

 

[Dennis in MA]

It’s NOT a select board meeting. It’s TOWN meeting. All voters can show.
Articles are discussed and voted in order listed in the warrant.

Acton has never gotten through the entire warrant in one night in my memory so this neither a surprise nor a a scheme.

No town ever does. It can create some interesting gamesmanship. They push off items they don't want voted heavily to the end. I recall many moons ago in Easton, they didn't game it right, ran the meeting terribly wrong (hours spent on stupid issues) and the important budget vote was pushed off to another night and they were unable to meet quorum. Whoops.

 

[walter62]

To their credit, they were REALLY interested in making sure the cobalt for the mandated electric town
vehicles was ethically sourced. </sarc>

No mention of the Chinese or the Ugyhur's though

Nor did they have any issue w/ 100K to purchase cop-cams with 60% (60K) MAINTENANCE EVERY YEAR.
Just buy 'em and in 2 years throw it all away and start fresh. Bam! 20K saved.

 

[M1911]

Nor did they have any issue w/ 100K to purchase cop-cams with 60% (60K) MAINTENANCE EVERY YEAR.
Just buy 'em and in 2 years throw it all away and start fresh. Bam! 20K saved.

Nope, not that simple. Most likely a significant amount of the “maintenance” cost is for storing the video files. Video files are large, police departments have a lot of them, and they need to keep them for a long time. Typically they use a vendor that stores the files in a cloud service so backups are taken care of. Cloud storage can get pricey quickly when talking about large amounts of data.

 

[peterk123]

Nope, not that simple. Most likely a significant amount of the “maintenance” cost is for storing the video files. Video files are large, police departments have a lot of them, and they need to keep them for a long time. Typically they use a vendor that stores the files in a cloud service so backups are taken care of. Cloud storage can get pricey quickly when talking about large amounts of data.

Yikes. Is this a new trend?

 

[Rat187]

Wow…shit’s getting REAL back home I guess? I should be glad I left when I did.

Good luck fellas…you’re on the front lines.

 

[M1911]

Yikes. Is this a new trend?

What do you mean a “new trend”? It is simply how IT works. If you give every officer a body camera then you’ve got a bunch of video files per officer per day, and you need to keep those files around for a long time in case a complaint is filed. Video files are large. Storing them locally means you need significant IT resources and off-site backups, etc., which most smaller police departments simply don’t have.

I strongly suspect that most police agencies instead use a vendor that provides cloud storage (which gives you off-site backups, authorization/authentication, and automated retention policies), along with a simple web interface to retrieve videos by officer, date, time. All of that costs money — over time a lot more money than the body cameras themselves.

Any IT professional who has dealt with cloud computing can tell you that it is expensive. In this case, there is no way around the expense, other than not issuing body cameras.


Edited to add: If you mean are body cameras a new trend, then yes, they are, and it's a good thing IMO.

 

[walter62]

I question the need for it in a small town police force.

Maybe they do but what I didn't hear was anything like a cost/benefit analysis, how many
times in the last <N> years would it have been used (made a difference in a case) etc etc.

 

[JRLB]

No, it is just how town meetings work. They start at article 1 and keep going until they are finished. If they are not done by 10 or 11 pm, they adjourn and the remaining items are addressed the following evening.

You can always vote to take them out of order.

 

[M1911]

You can always vote to take them out of order.

True. But how often do such motions pass?

 

[free]

True. But how often do such motions pass?

Frequently.

 

[M1911]

Frequently.

Really? I haven't seen it in my limited experience, but admittedly I don't go to town meeting that often.

 

[pastera]

I question the need for it in a small town police force.

Maybe they do but what I didn't hear was anything like a cost/benefit analysis, how many
times in the last <N> years would it have been used (made a difference in a case) etc etc.

Cops word has always essentially been take as fact but that's proving to be detrimental to liberty in general.
We now have the technology to have a truly unbiased observer at each police interaction.
So, yes, every police department should have body cams

 

[free]

Really? I haven't seen it in my limited experience, but admittedly I don't go to town meeting that often.

Frequently may be too strong a word. It can and does happen often enough to say that it is not an arcane happening at a Town Meeting. Thanks

 

[JRLB]

True. But how often do such motions pass?

It’s happened before twice recently in my town. The select board put the controversial items at the end hoping people wouldn’t stay until the end. Proactive residents when In with a plan to move them up immediately.

 

[JJC]

Hiw did it go?

 

[milktree]

Edited to add: If you mean are body cameras a new trend, then yes, they are, and it's a good thing IMO.

It’s only a good thing if they’re required to keep them on and functional. If they can just turn them off or delete data when it suits them, the cameras become a bludgeon that can be used against the little people but aren’t used to force accountability of the cops. “Selective editing” (camera “failure”) can be used to incriminate the innocent. If you believe “drop guns” are real, but not this, you’re naïve.

 

[walter62]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ what the result of last night was (couldn't attend) but $20 says 'bylaw passed'