A Chichester resident wants a judge to force the town to pose a question to voters at the annual town meeting about government oversight.
A hearing was held on Monday in the two lawsuits Chris Weir filed against the town this fall after the board of selectmen first refused to respond to a citizen petitioned special town meeting and then canceled the meeting in December, saying it lacked the required number of signatures to be valid.
If a judge agrees, residents will consider requiring weekly meetings of the Board of Selectmen and a stricter attendance policy.
Monday’s court hearing was held to consider the town’s motion to dismiss Weir’s first suit, pertaining to the handling of the citizen petition, as well as a requested injunction in the second suit, which centers around the cancellation of the meeting.
“The voters have not been allowed to act, and that is the failure before the court today,” said Weir, who represented himself.
He asked the judge to consider allowing the selectmen weekly meeting article to be placed on the annual warrant, given that it’s too late to reschedule the special town meeting from December.
“I’m simply at this point requesting that the court order the article to be inserted on the warrant and let the citizens of Chichester decide in March, on March 14,” said Weir, a current candidate for selectman.
Town attorney Katie Cox Pelletier argued that the petition had 25 physical signatures and 25 e-signatures — and the latter needed to be agreed upon by both parties ahead of time. Beyond the question of signature validity, she said that mandating the selectmen meet weekly with all three present violated the legality of a quorum.
“That’s what we have here,” Cox Pelletier said. “We have a petition, even if it does meet the signature requirement, it’s limited in scope by statute.”
Weir first sued the town in October for the handling of the petition to hold the special town meeting. In his lawsuit, Weir stated that he handed Board of Selectmen Chair Richard Bouchard a petition in August to hold a special town meeting and that Bouchard responded by saying, “Any paperwork you hand me, I will throw in the trash.”
At an October Board of Selectmen meeting, Bouchard discussed the petition Weir had given him in August. The other two selectmen said they hadn’t seen the petition or any legal documents about it until that week.
The selectmen eventually did schedule the meeting, but the Tuesday before it was slated to take place, they canceled it, saying the petition and purpose were both invalid. That was when Weir filed the second lawsuit.
“No statute grants Selectmen the authority to cancel a lawfully warned citizen-petitioned Special Town Meeting,” Weir stated in his complaint.
Judge Daniel St. Hilaire, who presided over the hearing, wanted to know why Weir didn’t pursue other avenues of getting the article before the voters, especially now that the deadline to get it on the annual warrant has passed.
“Once you got some notice that you weren’t going to get anywhere, why not just submit the question you want to the town clerk in a timely manner?” he said. “Why are we here? Why do I have to answer all these questions of effectiveness, when you could have just filed something with the town clerk in September or October, asking that this be placed on the annual meeting questions?”
Weir, for his part, said he interpreted the law literally and that a petition for a special town meeting needed to be brought directly to the Board of Selectmen.
“When it was submitted, it became very, very clear very, very quickly that they were not going to insert this in any way, shape or form,” Weir said. “Filing further petitions with the town would have been a moot point.”
With town meeting steadily approaching, the time for resolution is dwindling. St. Hilaire said he will submit a written decision soon.
At a time when town finances have been cause for concern from many Chichester residents, the town has spent over $5,000 in legal fees on the lawsuits to Cox Pelletier’s law firm, Upton and Hatfield. This amount does not include billable hours from Monday’s hearing.
“I went to court to defend your rights as citizens to hold a meeting and discuss how you want your government to be controlled and directed,” Weir wrote to Chichester residents on Facebook after the hearing.