The coverage of the Warner town meeting was welcome, but the tone of the article suggested that the meeting was contentious. Warner town government has gone through some tough times this past year – we had two select people resign and ended up in court in the process of appointing replacements. Given all of the angst in town, I think our meeting was pretty successful. We made our way through some petitioned warrant articles that were high stakes and I think saw that most of us agreed on some basic principles: that our food pantry does a wonderful job, that the Warner River is valued by most of us and all of us would like it if our taxes didn’t go up.
There was a lot of discussion about each of these issues, but it was respectful and acknowledged our shared concerns. The turnout at the meeting was great, standing room only, which shows how much citizens of Warner care about their community. Warner is a wonderful place to live. I think our town meeting this year brought that out in people and we moved forward in a pretty positive way.
Jan Schaffer
Warner