Town Meeting is Postponed and Rescheduled for May 9

We have been wrestling with this all day (and really the last several days) and trying to make responsible decisions that are best for the Town and its functioning while making every effort to promote public health and assuage concerns. Your town officials care enormously about this community and running it as best they can. There also appears to be a consensus in the medical community that the prevalence of COVID-19 in the community is going to continue to increase over the coming months, which led to concerns about the likelihood of being about to reschedule the Town Meeting for a date later in the spring. Additionally, getting further into the year without an operating budget or postponing action on other important business can generate real issues. While state and federal agencies/authorities have warned against group gatherings, there is no guarantee that in a month's time or so the situation will be better- it actually promises to be worse. We all of course hope it is not. 

My hope was that the body, YOU the town, would come and decide to table the meeting or not, since it is YOUR meeting after-all. The Attorney General's Office did not want to be responsible for making this decision; no one does. So it came down to me, one person, me.  And it was a very difficult position, especially in light of the tone of listserv comments. It was not an easy decision, this is a lose-lose situation. Many other towns are still having their meetings, but we did get word that several neighboring communities did finally decide to postpone, and we are going to do the same. We are very concerned about ALL the citizens of Enfield, and therefore I have chosen to postpone the meeting to May 9, 2020, 9 a.m. at Enfield Village School. 

There is no guarantee that the virus will be gone by then, and it could very well be worse, but, we will deal with that when the time comes.

Lindsay Smith
Town of Enfield Moderator