Warrant Amended to Avoid Crowd Policy Issue

As expected, the large assembly ordinance was the most-debated warrant article Saturday for the second deliberative session in a row, as the only amendment passed was reportedly one to stop a petitioned warrant article from rescinding the "flawed" policy.

The Hampton Union has reported that the roughly 50 voters present during Saturday's session overwhelmingly approved the altering of Article 20, which would've pulled the plug on the heavily-criticized ordinance until an ad hoc committee could review it and make recommendations for improvement. The article will go to the March 12 town meeting asking voters to give the North Hampton Select Board the authority to establish the committee, but the petitioned warrant article no longer calls for the rescinding of the large assembly ordinance, according to the paper.

There will be two large assembly ordinance articles on the 2013 town meeting warrant, as Article 19 — a select board article — calls for revisions to the document, which currently doesn't allow exceptions and exemptions to be made.

North Hampton resident Amy Kane told Hampton-North Hampton Patch that voters altered Article 20 on Saturday "because if both the petitioned article and the Select Board's article passed there would be a legal conflict."

The petitioned warrant article amendment comes not long after State Rep. Fred Rice, R-Hampton, announced he's proposed a bill that would prevent any changes to petitioned warrant articles at future town meetings. The bill is set for further State House discussion next month, according to Rice.

The rest of the 2013 warrant, including the $5.86 million proposed municipal operating budget and a , will go to town meeting as-is with a proposed tax increase of 53 cents per $1,000 of assessed value, according to the Hampton Union. 

The ballot voting portion of the 2013 town meeting process will be on Tuesday, March 12, from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. at North Hampton School.