2022-06-08 Historical Commission Minutes

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P kECEIVED Town of Reading TOWN CLERK .. 'I Meeting Minutes READING, MA. 2" 2622 JUL 25 CO'J9:INfOPrOP� _ AN 7:47 Board - Committee - Commission - Council: Historical Commission Date: 2022-06-08 Time: 7:00 PM Building: Reading Town Hall Location: Conference Room Address: 16 Lowell Street Session: Open Session Purpose: General Business Version: Draft Attendees: Members - Present: Samantha Couture, Chair (SC); Pino D'Orazio (PD); Amelia Devin Freedman, Secretary (ADF); Christine Keller (CK); Sharlene Reynolds Santo, Treasurer (SRS) Members - Not Present: Virginia Adams ( VA); Jonathan Barnes (JEB); Daniel Moresco (DM) Others Present: Jocelyn Gould (JG); Fidel Maltez (FM) Minutes Respectfully Submitted By: Amelia Devin Freedman Topics of Discussion: SC called the meeting to order at 7:04 PM. She made CK a voting member for the evening. Meeting with the new Reading Public Library (RPL) History Librarian, Jocelyn Gould: JG introduced herself to the Commission. She then reported on her planned projects, which include the following: to reorganize the local history room; to produce an inventory of the room's materials and to make it available on the RPL website; to run new adult programming in the fall. Because the Town Archives is physically small, SC asked whether the Commission could host researchers of its archival material at the RPL's local history room; JG said yes. Meeting with the New Town Manager, Fidel Maltez: FM introduced himself to the Commission. SC gave hum a copy of At If/oodEnd as a welcome gift. FM desctibed his plans to modemize Town Hall, as follows: to host travelling m exhibits after they leave the RPL; to install digital billboards for announcements and wayfinding. FM also said he would like to try to pass the Community Preservation Act, which would provide matching state funding for, among other things, historical preservation; he helped get the Act passed when he worked for the city of Chelsea. In Reading, he noted, the Act passed at Town Meeting but lost narrowly (49% to 51%) in a Town -wide election in 2002. SC observed that Town Hall sometimes does not notify the Commission about matters which are relevant to its work. She pointed to two recent communication failures. In the firsS the Commission was not made aware that applicants were being interviewed to fill vacancies for FY 2022-23. In the second, the Commission was not notified that 25 Haven Street, which is on the Historical Inventory, was scheduled to come before another Town board, namely the Community Planning and Development Commission (CPDC). She asked FM if he could ensure the Page I 1