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Monday, February 09, 2015

Town donations: A nice gesture, but are they legal?

HURLOCK — A longstanding practice of donating money to area groups came into question at Hurlock’s town council meeting Monday, Jan. 26, after town attorney Robert Merriken said the law is not clear on the legality of such gifts. The town has $2,000 in its budget earmarked for community contributions.

“They’ve done it for years and years and years in Hurlock,” Mayor Joyce Spratt said.

The issue came up after two requests for donations from the town — one from the North Dorchester After Prom Committee and the other from Vaughn Evans, principal at North Dorchester Middle School, who is looking to start a Saturday basketball program. Councilman Earl Murphy made a motion to donate the funds at Jan. 5 meeting, but it never came to a vote because it did not get a second.

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

If the town has enough money to donate, they are taxing people too much. The gov't isn't in the charity business.

Anonymous said...

11:32 exactly and also breeds corruption as in giving only certain people or groups the funds.

Anonymous said...

Of course it's not legal. But what does that matter? Government does illegal things every day.

Anonymous said...

Debbie Campbell voted "no"on city donation to fireworks group and then made a personal contribution because she supported the effort PERSONALLY, but didn't see it as an appropriate use of tax dollars. Wish others thought that way. Taxes have a very specific purpose.