On Tuesday night Village Trustees approved a request to sell raffle tickets in the main lobby of the Woodstock Town Hall during next week’s Annual Village Meeting.
The Trustees voted 3-2 to approve Woodstock Elementary School’s request, with Eric Nesbitt and Patricia Compton dissenting. To a person, the Trustees supported the reason for the request, but they did not agree that Village Meeting night was the right time or place for it.
Nesbitt commented, “I think people come to discuss the Village business, not to buy raffle tickets.”
Compton was concerned that approving the WES request would prompt similar requests from other local organizations in the future. She was concerned that such a trend would upset some voters who don’t expect sales-related activity to be occurring when they come to Village Meeting.
“I think it’s opening up a can of worms,” Compton said.
Trustees Bob Pear and Candace Coburn, however, didn’t believe the purpose of having the raffle sales in the lobby would be to chase down voters for donations. Pear said he expected the raffle sales would be done in a way that’s respectful of the voters.
The Village Meeting will take place in the Town Hall Theater next Tuesday, March 20 at 7:30 p.m.
According to Woodstock Elementary School (WES) Principal Karen White, who sent the request to the Trustees, the raffle tickets will benefit the WES PTO as part of a spring fundraiser involving special student-made gift baskets – which will be raffled off at the end of May.
Julia Carlisle
Woodstock Early Bird 
Posted by Maury Lorenz on March 15, 2012 at 13:00
Way to go, Eric!
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Posted by Nancy Hoblin on March 15, 2012 at 13:57
Outrageous – why should we be besieged when we go to do village business?
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Posted by Corwin Sharp on March 15, 2012 at 14:25
Good project…wrong venue…bad precedent.
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Posted by Bob Pear on March 16, 2012 at 11:06
We all have our different perspectives, but if the majority of voters are really unhappy with this, I would support an ordinance to prevent it from happening again. As it was, at the meeting, I was neutral on the idea and saw it as harmless. With virtually no community input before or during the meeting, (although it was on the agenda), I decided to vote for it and see how it goes, knowing we are under no obligation to approve the same thing in the future as a result.
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Posted by southwoodstock on March 16, 2012 at 11:20
The Gun Club has some raffle tickets to sell, who do I contact for permission?
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Posted by Peter Saman on March 17, 2012 at 07:54
Happy St. Pat’s Day everyone. A meeting of the Village people can also be a festive occasion as well as a deliberative one as well. We’re talking about little kids from the school within eyesight of the meeting hall showing people stuff they’ve made to help support the PTO. Too much “gate keeping” leads to rigidity. I’ve been to other town/village meetings in other places where there was music, food and good fellowship that set a welcoming tone for their meeting. People still spoke their minds, argued over issues and did the people’s business, but on their terms, not by permission of the ruling class. They enjoyed each other’s company and their meeting reflected it!
This kind of thing may well be why few if any people attend monthly meetings, much less annual meeting. If you’re a fan of ordinances and community inhibiting control, go to the town/village website and pour over the pages and pages of what you can’t do and how you can’t do it published there. Staggering!
At last count there are only 762 of us left in this Village. Is this kind of thing happening because we don’t like each other, we’re afraid of each other, don’t respect each other, don’t know each other… what?
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