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Council President Steps Down |
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Thursday, 30 April 2009 |
By HANNAH CLARKIN
COVENTRY—When he took the position of Town Council President in January, he had a lot more free time on his hands than he does now, said Councilman Kenneth Cloutier as he prefaced his abdication of the role at Monday’s council meeting.
“I’ve been busy with my office,” Cloutier said echoing previous remarks. “I’ll still be participating in the council meetings but I don’t have the free time I had before. The appropriate thing at this time is to relinquish the position.”
In Cloutier’s place, Councilwoman Laura Flanagan nominated Raymond Spear to take the lead as president. Councilman Glenford Shibley seconded the motion and the council voted Spear in as president unanimously.
With the position of Vice-President Vacant, Shibley made a motion to appoint Flanagan to that position, seconded by Spear. Again, the motion passed unanimously.
He is confident that Spear will be an excellent council president, Cloutier said. When staffing problems came up at AllState “I asked Ray to step in and cover for me,” he related. “Ray was going through his own battles and could have easily said no. But he didn’t and he’s done a great job.”
The last meeting Cloutier attended was held on Feb. 23; Cloutier was at the town hall for the March 9 meeting but it was cancelled last-minute.
In the meantime, Cloutier had missed two regularly scheduled council meetings, a special meeting to engage a firm to find the town manager, a meeting to interview the firms for the search, the town manager’s budget presentation and two budget workshops—for a total of six meetings—as confirmed by Council Vice-President Raymond Spear.
Some unexpected circumstances relating to staffing at his full-time job have prevented him from attending the meetings, Cloutier said in a previous phone interview.
Now that he is not longer president, Cloutier said, his constituents can expect him to be present at the meetings to come and involved in the rest of the budget process, he said.
Spear anticipated that he would be appointed as president, he said Tuesday. “They didn’t do anything last night except take the vice off of my title. I was already [acting as president] and I accept the challenge.”
Going forward as president, reconciling the budget shortfall with future town expenses is the most serious problem facing the council, Spear said.
“I get a sense that some people just do not understand the quandary that we’re in,” he said. “They just don’t seem to understand that we have a shortfall in revenues. Money that we got this year that’s not available next year. When you get in a situation like that you either have to cut the things out of programs that cost the revenue that you lost or find new revenue. And when you’re looking at that and at the same time being faced with increased costs it’s a very, very difficult situation.”
She is honored to be the vice-president of the council, Flanagan said on Tuesday morning, but she has no illusions about the task ahead of her.
“I’m happy to serve with my President Mr. Spear,” Flanagan said, “and I think I will get a lot of things done. But it’s going to be hard work.”
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