EAST LONGMEADOW, Mass. (AP) – Verifying petition signatures probably doesn’t keep municipal workers on the edges of their seats, but a name on a petition Laurie Raimer was checking against town resident lists stopped her in her tracks: her own.

Raimer, who works in the East Longmeadow clerk’s office, ran across her own signature last week as she was checking the names asking for a special Town Meeting to rescind a new law affecting when restaurants can close.

She says she was never asked to sign the petition – and she’s positive that her brother James, whose name appeared next to her’s, wasn’t either.

“He hasn’t lived here for, well, it must be 12 years,” Raimer told The Republican of Springfield. “He lives in Florida.”

The so-called early closure bylaw was passed at the May 5 Town Meeting, and has since drawn criticism from restaurant owners who claim it will make them less competitive. The petition drive is to schedule a special town meeting to ask that the bylaw be rescinded.

Raimer laughed off the matter. Her boss, Town Clerk Thomas P. Florence, did not.

“I’m a detail-oriented person by nature, so catching these things is important,” he said.

Verification of the signatures found that 96 of the 320 collected signatures – 30 percent – didn’t pass muster.

Petition organizer Stephen R. Manning said petitions were circulated mainly through restaurants, where overeager patrons might have signed without reading the directions.

Manning said he found it curious that someone used the name of a known employee of the town clerk’s office.

“You have to wonder if someone was trying to discredit this,” he said. “But, in the end, we got more than enough signatures.”

The Board of Selectmen is expected to schedule a date for the Special Town Meeting on Wednesday.

Copy the Story Link