Minutes of the Government Study Committee Meeting
October 21, 2003
Hearing Room Lower Level
PRESENT: George Bailey, Andrew Nebenzahl, Gloria Rose, Patricia Zlotin, Anne Carney
ABSENT: David Fixler, Dennis Friedman
Chairman Carney called the meeting to order at 7:40 PM. She opened the meeting by welcoming Gloria Rose, the new member recently appointed by the finance committee. Anne then stated that if the committee decided to put any warrant articles on the annual town meeting they would have to be submitted by the middle of February. Most of the members felt that we would not be submitting articles for the annual but should aim for the fall town meeting.
The Committee discussed Pat Zlotin’s article discussing the pros and cons of open town meeting versus representative town meeting. George Bailey said that he would draft a description of the council form of government for the next meeting. George said that looking at a council form of government would open up a lot of other questions such as:
Do the boards and committees serve the town well? If the whole idea is to look at what form of governance would serve the community best today – is open town meeting outdated? Communication between boards and committees appears to be lacking – George cited the example of the lack of communication concerning the Cobb’s Corner issue. Council form of government is definitely more efficient – the question is whether townspeople would want efficiency at the expense of the ability to participate directly by voting at town meetings. One real problem with open town meeting is the lack of timely decision making. Another issue with open town meeting is the fact that the initiative petition process allows an inordinate amount of time spent debating articles that have no direct
effect on anything. The 40B issue was cited as an example.
Suggestions from members that might help simplify open town meeting:
- place all budget articles first
- arrange the warrant articles by like topics
- have articles considered by first, second, third night etc.; since we can’t make people attend every night it might be a good idea to give them a choice on what they want to vote on. The Moderator would take up all articles listed for that particular night
- swear in the persons who would count votes before the meeting starts
- it might make sense to have the proponent of an article give a synopsis in the warrant.
- have the moderator announce the new finance committee members either in the warrant or in the newspaper a couple of weeks before the town meeting
The Chair will contact Town Clerk Marlene Chused and ask about the feasibility of any of these ideas. She will also ask if the committee can have a flyer available at the special town meeting in December to advertise a public meeting to be held after the first of the year. The agenda for this meeting will be a discussion of the good and bad aspects of open town meeting, representative town meeting and council form of governance. The committee will make an effort to get more community involvement than expressed to date on this subject.
Andy Nebenzahl said that he feels too many boards and committees are trying to make policy decisions and there is no communication amongst the various bodies considering the same issue. Pat and George both felt that minutes from all committees should be filed with the Town Clerk and posted on the web site. In this way, people could see what the boards and committees were discussing. George particularly felt that it was important to know what the capital outlay committee was considering. Andy wanted the committee to review the standing building committee since he feels there has been a lack of coordination in some of the projects that the Town has undertaken recently. He cited the issue of lights and the inability to turn them off at one of the elementary schools. He feels the members of
the committee are overburdened and would like the committee to review the committee and see if anything should be recommended. This idea will be discussed at a future meeting.
The next meeting is scheduled for November 12, 2003.
Adjournment at 9:40 PM.
amc.
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