Gorgeous Gorge in Winter

Town Chairman Steve called me a couple of weeks ago and asked if I'd preside over the nomination for town officers caucus this year.  It's held every two years but can't be run by someone who is on the ballot. The town chairman usually asks an ex-office holder if they will do it.  It was scheduled for tonight at 7.  I read over the process on the state's website this morning.  Nothing had changed from the last time.   Steve couldn't make it tonight because of a recent back surgery so Town Supervisor Roger started the meeting and turned it over to me.  The state's website says to appoint 'tellers' and decide on how ties will be settled at the very beginning of the meeting.  You see if a municipality uses a caucus to nominate candidates there is no primary.  If an office has more than two people vying for it, the number has to be drawn down to 2 before the end of the caucus.  The tellers count votes if we need to pick the two highest vote getters and if there is a tie will it be decided by a toss of a coin/cut cards/etc.   I bypassed all of that since we only had 7 people in attendance and, in our town, an over abundance of candidates for office has never been an issue.  I swiftly went through nominations for all of the offices.  The incumbents were nominated (and seconded) and everyone will be running unopposed in the April election.  The meeting ended 10 minutes later (took three minutes longer than the caucus two years ago.)  Everyone seemed anxious to gossip rather than leave (a common occurrence here in the winter) and I stayed a few minutes longer.  However, the movie on Svengoolie tonight is The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes causing me to be the first to get up and leave.  In truth, I didn't know most of the people they were gossiping about anyway.