The Town Council may be ready to move forward with an audit of the town's harbormaster office, provided Town Adminstrator Tony Teixeira can justify his request for doing so.

During a June 26 council meeting, Mr. Teixeira mentioned he would like to audit the harbormaster's office, without going into more detail. The comment hung in the air and quickly resurfaced during the July 17 council meeting.

"I want to know why you want an audit, who's going to pay for it," said Councilman Edward Stuart. "There had to have been something that triggered this, for there to be an audit on top of the yearly audit that's done on the town."

Mr. Teixeira would not offer any more details, citing that a death in the family called him away from a meeting scheduled with an auditor on Tuesday.

"I don't have any information for you at this time," he told councilmen. "It was my plan to provide you with information on the kinds of audits available."

Mr. Stuart was adamant about discussing Mr. Teixeira's prerogatives for the audit, suggesting that perhaps the council meet in executive session to discuss it.

"I want to make sure we follow the procedure of the legality of how we do things," he said.

Councilman Tim Sweeney suggested that perhaps an audit would be a "good thing now that (the town) is switching (harbormasters).

"It would be a natural time to find out what we have, what we need to do," he said. "It would be a good thing to move the audit forward."

Mr. Teixeira assured the council he would have more information for its Aug. 7 meeting.