Flawed Logic

I have recently read a letter to the editor about the recently past town meeting vote. And was appalled by the logic exhorted by this writer.
He claims that if there were just 142 more votes the new changes to the town charter would have passed. (Thankfully it did not btw) His thinking is flawed because you cannot count on the next 142 votes to be in the affirmative. Think about it this way, voter turnout was one third at best. One third out of a possible 17000 votes. Even if more turned out you cannot count on all of them to vote the way of the new town charter, and you cannot count on all them to vote against either.
Later in his letter he berates the people for not voting for the change, for the main reason of not allowing someone that does not live in town to run for elected office. Although this is a good thing, it cannot be the only reason to vote for this measure. There were many flaws in the changes to be made.
The first of the flaws in the new charter was the changes to the petition process. This change in essence limited the peoples voice in their government. It increased the signatures needed to introduce anything on the town meeting ballot. Very bad flaw indeed.
The next flaw was the shift of setting the budget from the board of selectmen to the budget committee. Why even have a board of selectmen? Yes he railed about the monopoly that the selectmen holds over the town. But is that a solution? I feel not. The best way to break their monopoly is to put forth better candidates for selectmen, and vote the old ones out of office.
All shifting power from one board to another does is establish another monopoly in another board.
The only thing I found good about the changes to the charter was the increasing of the board of selectmen, and increasing the number of elected members of the budget committee.
The changes to the town charter failed because the concerned people of this town saw that in order gain a couple of nice things they had to lose their voice in the process. Not at all a good thing.
To vote for a radical change in order to break a monopoly might be great in principle but not good in practice. The best way to effect change is to inject new blood into town hall. Elect people with new ideas, commonsense, and a genuine concern for the town as a whole.

More to come....