Dear Reading Votes,
The action-packed spring continues with Melissa Murphy’s first Select Board meeting tonight at 7:00. The agenda is here and includes a Killam building project update.
Bias from the Reading Post
In other (non) news, it’s been over a week, and the Reading Post has not responded to compelling allegations of bias against RV-endorsed candidates.
The Post consistently back-dated letters to the editor (LtEs) in support of Dana Guarino, Chris Haley, and Melissa Murphy so that they were pushed down in the content feed and lost visibility quickly. Letters in support of their opponents did not get the same treatment.
Given that The Reading Post claims to be unbiased, this open show of preference for certain views and candidates is inappropriate. We continue to press for a response.
Overreach from the Board of Health
The Covid debacle was a huge wake-up call for many of us to understand how much power unelected bureaucrats at all levels of government have. Particularly egregious was the behavior of local boards of health. BOH’s are empowered not only with enforcing the state’s health laws and regulations, but also to enact local regulations that are more stringent than existing state mandates. The state says that these regulations must be “reasonable” solutions to the problems they address. “Reasonable” is a subjective term—and Reading Votes encourages readers to consider whether what our Board of Health is planning to do is “reasonable.”
We saw with the pandemic that communities had varying interpretations of what a “reasonable” solution is. Some communities blocked off playgrounds while others left them open; some communities kept mask mandates going far longer than others, and some communities took many months before they would even hold in-person meetings. We realize now that many rules enacted by Boards of Health were based more on fear or whim than evidence-based science.
After the excesses of 2020, we must be eternally vigilant that the Board of Health stays in its lane and that regulations it enacts are “reasonable” solutions to problems.
This Thursday, May 23, the Board of Health will hold a public hearing on restricting cigarette and tobacco product purchases in Reading only to those born on or after January 1, 2004. This rule ensures that over time, even senior citizens would not be able to buy cigarettes.
It’s a de facto slow-moving ban on sales, with the goal of (eventually) ending all tobacco sales in Reading. Nothing will prohibit any Reading resident of legal age from traveling to a nearby town that does not have this restriction, purchasing tobacco products, and bringing them back to Reading. Nor will this prohibit residents of legal age from using tobacco products. All it seems to do is move legal sales of a legal product to other communities.
No one is arguing that smoking is healthy or desirable. However, most common-sense individuals support adults’ ability to make their own choices. Moreover, it is not clear that this regulation will reduce tobacco usage in Reading; rather, it will simply drive residents who want to purchase tobacco to go to a nearby town and purchase it there.
Worst of all, this measure is another strike against small businesses in Reading.
Whatever your thoughts, please make your voice heard on this issue.
- Attend the hearing on Thursday, May 23 at 7:00 pm. Location: The Select Board Meeting Room, 16 Lowell St.
- Submit written commentary to the Board of Health before May 23 at 2:00. Send to Ade Solarin: asolarin@ci.reading.ma.us
For more background information, here’s an article from The Daily Times Chronicle and the full text of the proposed regulation.
Finance Committee Meeting
Save the date: The FinComm meeting is scheduled for 7:00 PM next Tuesday, May 28, at the Reading Public Library or on Zoom:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88277621520
Meeting ID: 882 7762 1520
If you can’t attend, your ever-vigilant RV team will provide a report on proceedings.
Step Up for Reading
This is our periodic plea to get involved in how this town is run. The Reading Votes community tends to have a ‘live and let live’ attitude. While laudable, the risk is that those C.S. Lewis termed “the omnipotent moral busybodies” are not mellow; they join every committee and board, and they are more than happy to make abundant rules & regs for the rest of us! [See: BOH section above.]
The Select Board will appoint members to key boards and committees in June, so help translate your interests and talents into sensible policies and actions to benefit the town.
There are openings on several committees, including Finance, Recreation, Zoning Board, Community Planning and Development, and more.
See the list and apply. Respond to this message if you’d like advice or to chat with someone knowledgeable about committee dynamics.
More soon,
Reading Votes