Prop to Limit Selectmen's Power Not Legal, Lawyer Says

One of the more controversial measures that was supposed to be considered at the Seekonk Town Meeting on Monday has been deemed to be in conflict with town and state law by the town's legal consultant. The opinion was released Friday, the same day that the man who proposed the measure, Bill Rice, .

Attorney Joyce Frank wrote in a letter to the selectmen that Rice's proposal for a bylaw that would prevent selectmen from serving on other boards conflicts with the town charter and state law.

[The opinion is attached to this article]

She noted that the charter gives the town administrator the power to recommend board appointments to the selectmen for their approval.

"By seeking to limit who the town administrator may recommend and who the Board of Selectmen may appoint to various town boards ... the bylaw proposed by the petitioned article seeks to restrict the executive appointing authority of the Board of Selectmen ... bestowed by the charter," Frank wrote.

She further wrote that the proposal conflicted with "certain [state] general laws," including one that provides a process for a town meeting to ask the selectmen to perform the duties of certain boards or municipal officers.

"The bylaw proposed by the petitioned article would infringe upon the power of future town meetings and of the voters to effectuate this statutory authority and would therefore be in conflict with such state law," Frank wrote. 

The only way Rice's proposal could be legally sound would be if the charter were amended, which has not been proposed.

Rice and his political allies collected more than 100 signatures to force the proposal to go before the June 11 town meeting. It had been placed with on the special town meeting's warrant, scheduled to be heard immediately before the regular town meeting's warrant. 

The former selectman said at a recent meeting that it was a "misuse of power" for selectmen to serve on other boards. Selectman Bill McLintock is on the Board of Health and Selectman Gary Sagar is an alternate for the Zoning Board of Appeals.

Rice's measure would only allow selectmen to serve on other boards if there was a lack of quorum on that board and a fill-in was needed until a new person could be appointed.

Various Town Hall observers told Attleboro-Seekonk Patch that Rice's resignation may have been influenced by his frustration over the legal opinion. Rice has declined to tell the media why he quit.

Both the special and regular town meetings will take place Monday at . The sessions will begin at 7 p.m.