{"id":344,"date":"2008-05-04T22:24:18","date_gmt":"2008-05-05T02:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/?p=344"},"modified":"2008-05-04T22:24:18","modified_gmt":"2008-05-05T02:24:18","slug":"why-im-voting-yes-on-article-35","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/2008\/05\/why-im-voting-yes-on-article-35\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I&#8217;m Voting Yes on Article 35"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Article 35 is one of several similar articles before Town Meeting this year and previous years.<\/p>\n<p>To me, it shakes out this way: I don&#8217;t want to discriminate on the basis of age.\u00c2\u00a0 If you can do the job, then you should be eligible for the job.\u00c2\u00a0 My vote will go towards anyone who can do the job, regardless of age.<\/p>\n<p>Bogus issues:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Bogus 1: Town Meeting is <strong>not<\/strong> telling the chiefs who to hire.\u00c2\u00a0 We&#8217;re not telling the chiefs who to interview.\u00c2\u00a0 We&#8217;re just permitting people to enter the pool of applicants.\u00c2\u00a0 If you stand up and accuse town meeting of telling the chiefs what to do, you&#8217;re wasting my time.<\/li>\n<li>Bogus 2: If you didn&#8217;t apply before you&#8217;re 32, then you don&#8217;t want the job enough.\u00c2\u00a0 How many people out there have the same career goals as when they were 20?\u00c2\u00a0 25?\u00c2\u00a0 32?\u00c2\u00a0 <strong>If<\/strong>, and this is a big if, <strong>IF <\/strong>you can do the job, who cares when you realize when you wanted to do it?\u00c2\u00a0 I welcome any 33, 35, 40, or 50+ applicant who can do the job.\u00c2\u00a0 I leave it to the chiefs to solve the &#8220;if&#8221; and figure out who can do the job and who can&#8217;t.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Issues that I disagree with (but at least have a leg to stand on):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Use the state physical standard law instead: A number of knowledgeable people have told me this is a bad idea.\u00c2\u00a0 The law is flawed. There is no money to fund the standards testing. The current physical standards are just as idiotic as age testing.\u00c2\u00a0 I haven&#8217;t yet seen a fact-based explanation of why this would be preferred.\u00c2\u00a0 If you think this is a better option, please be prepared to defend it.<\/li>\n<li>Exceptions: A number think we shouldn&#8217;t grant exceptions to some people while we deny them to others.\u00c2\u00a0 I agree.\u00c2\u00a0 My answer is to offer exceptions to <strong>anyone<\/strong>.\u00c2\u00a0 Until the state fixes the blatant age discrimination of this law, and offers a viable alternative, I&#8217;ll vote for any non-serial-killer who seeks the exception.\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;m not suggesting that Town Meeting is a good forum to evaluate fire and police candidates.\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;m saying that it&#8217;s a better forum than the birth certificate.\u00c2\u00a0 Another flaw in this argument: if this option is so obscure, then why do we have so many of them?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The state law is flawed.\u00c2\u00a0 Town Meeting can&#8217;t fix that law.\u00c2\u00a0 Until it is fixed, we should increase the applicant pool as much as we can.\u00c2\u00a0 Let our officials choose the best of the bunch, regardless of age.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Article 35 is one of several similar articles before Town Meeting this year and previous years. To me, it shakes out this way: I don&#8217;t want to discriminate on the basis of age.\u00c2\u00a0 If you can do the job, then you should be eligible for the job.\u00c2\u00a0 My vote will go towards anyone who can [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arlington","category-town-meeting-08"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}