Shelby surprisingly switches from three to five town board members

Ruling could be overturned in
special meeting or in November

For now, a change to the Shelby town board will stick.

In a surprise move at the annual town meeting last week, a handful of residents managed to push through a change that increases the number of town board members from three to five.

Current town board rep, Tim Ehler opposed the move, but not necessarily because he’s against having more members on the board.

“So there are some distinct advantages to having a five-person board,” Ehler said. “One would be, that the town of Shelby right now, two board members can’t talk to each other about basically anything to do with town business, because we are breaking the meeting laws.”

But Ehler thinks a substantial change to town government is a choice that would be better made in a referendum that all of the town’s nearly 5,000 residents should make.

“It should possibly go to the November ballot,” Ehler said. “That would let the town decide, not the few people that were in the crowd and the board itself.”

Ehler says the surprise move can be undone through a special town board meeting or at the November budget meeting.  Otherwise, he says, the change becomes effective next year.