The new Amesbury Municipal Council is, relatively speaking, a breath of fresh air from its predecessor.

The ill will between the legislative and executive branch is gone. There are no ugly divisions between council voting blocs thus far. And many of the changes proposed at a meeting last week that would reverse various rules or structures established by the previous council make sense.

But, one of them does not. The council's vote - which will not be confirmed until its February meeting - to remove citizens from the Finance Committee and once again put all nine councilors on it does not, as Council President Roger Benson claims, "make for a more efficient and effective government."

Indeed, instead of receiving advice from a committee that includes councilors and citizens with financial expertise, councilors will simply be "advising" themselves. They will meet and discuss matters as the FinCom, then reconvene as the council and vote on what they recommended to themselves.

Subcommittees play an important role in the process of creating new laws and deciding on expenditures. Finance committees are typically set up as oversight boards that provide an independent opinion to the board that they answer to. Amesbury's arrangement ignores this important watchdog advisory role.

District 4 Councilor Robert Lavoie pointed out what is obvious to local residents - that it looks like the council is making recommendations to itself.

It doesn't just look like it. That is in fact what is happening.

Amesbury has already been down this absurd road. Look back three years ago to see a prime example, when the council voted to reject a Finance Committee recommendation. In plain English, the council rejected an opinion it made to itself a week earlier.

In another example of absurdity, the Finance Committee voted to not make a recommendation to the council - in plain English, the council debated for hours before it decided not to send advice to itself - regarding a matter of great importance at the time, the renovation of the public library. That's perhaps the strangest example of passing the buck that we've ever heard of.

This kind of "no recommendation" situation occurred a handful of times, and it didn't inspire confidence in the system. In fact, councilors recognized the inherent flaw and worked for months to fix the problem, eventually coming up with a reformed Finance Committee composed of a handful of councilors and a handful of residents that the new council is doing away with.

Benson's call for the creation of a citizens Financial Advisory Board won't solve the problem. All it does is add a layer to the bureaucracy. Why create another citizens advisory committee when you already have one?

Benson is certainly correct that the councilors are the "keepers of the purse." But that is why it is the council, not the FinCom, that takes the votes that matter.

The FinCom as currently structured offers the best opportunity for efficient and effective financial management of Amesbury. It should remain that way. Otherwise, why not just end the charade and get rid of it?