PSpan:
There are two seperate and distinct districts. If you belong to the Onset District then God Bless You! If you belong to the Wareham District you need to get to the meeting. A 5% salary increase for someone who hired someone else to do their job is the epitomy of arogance (seems to be genetic in the Donahue family).

P-Span, if you are registered voter from Onset you have the right to attend and vote at Meetings and to vote in the elections or run for a position yourself.
Both Districts have been separate for years, and as I have mentioned before, trying to get them to combine would be impossible.
It is the epitome of separation of Onset from Wareham.
It's always worked... so....

Good point. But keep in mind that the Wareham district has an ELECTED clerk/treasurer. She gets, I think, around $60,000.  But over the years, the bookkeeping was abysmal to the point of having major problems setting tax rate etc.

Sooooo, the clerk/treasurer hired an accountant for around $60,000 to straighten out the mess. I understand the mess was straightened out finally. The accountant still works for the Department even though we have a clerk/treasurer who is supposed to do the work.

Last year, we tried to change the position of clerk/treasurer from elected to appointed so that we could have a qualified accountant do the work, hence saving us, the taxpayers, an extra $60,000. This was the meeting that when John Donahue was voted down for moderator, he and Jane worked the phones like crazy. About 10 or 11 people came into the meeting which had been going on for an hour. When the article to change the position to appointed came up, the extras who came to the rescue voted AGAINST it, making sure that the clerk/treasurer position would remain elected.  Then those same people got up and left before the rest of the voters voted on the rest of the articles--the multi-million dollar budget articles. In this case, blind loyalty and doing favors for the Donahues cost the taxpayers big and these people could have cared less about what goes on in the district. (Did I mention the clerk/treasurer is the sister of our former moderator?)

This year, the clerk/treasurer is running unopposed. However, she has inserted into the budget a line that will give her a 5% raise. Need I say more???!!!! 

Even if you are not in the district, I believe you can attend the meeting, but like at town meeting, you can't vote. Not totally sure about it though. It usually has a very low turnout.

Report-- a motion was made by Mr. Barrett of the Prudential Committee to reduce the clerk/treasurer's raise to the same level as the rest of the administration's raises citing equity. The clerk/treasurer said she works really hard and deserved the increase.  Jane D took the  mike and said the clerk/treasurer should get the raise because "we all know what this is about."

In the end, she got the raise. It is not a huge amount of money when talking about the multi-million dollar budget, but it was the principle. By the way, the accountant's salary was ok'd around $64,000 as well.  That would have paid for the new response vehicle that we voted to purchase. It would have more than paid for the 15 new fire suits/gear that was voted on. It would have....oh well. At least we know that with a REAL accountant working for the district, the books will not return to the horror show from a few years back.

I say we try, once again to change the clerk/treasurer position from elected to appointed.

Also, Liz P was not in attendance even though she is an elected member of the Prudential Committee.

As one person was overheard upon leaving the meeting--the next time there is a water district meeting, I'm going to schedule a root canal!!!!!!!!

Please take 10 minutes of your Saturday and vote tomorrow, April 17th, 10 am to 4pm, in the Wareham District Election.  The vote is held at the District offices on Cranberry Hwy, directly across from the Tremont Nursing Home.

The Clerk/Treasurer has no opposition this year is clearly in over her head. As you may have read, she bounced the firefighers payroll this week.  Consider the alternative of  leaving her space blank and not voting for Ms Fernandes or writing in a candidate like Melodye J. Conway.