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Board - Committee - Commission - Council:
Board of Selectmen :1015 JAN 31 A.10: 50 i
Date: 2017-11-14 Time: 7:30 PM
Building: School - Memorial High Location: RMHS Schettini Library
Address: 62 Oakland Road Session:
Purpose: General Business Version: Draft
Attendees: Members - Present:
Chair John Arena, Barry Berman, Dan Ensming n Halsey, Andrew
Friedmann
Members - Not Present:
Others Present:
Town Manager Bob LeLacheur, 0 n AccOuntatlt Sharon Ang ,
Administrative Services Depart ead raunelis, Busin s
Administrator Jayne Miller, DPW Di c r ager, Assistant DPW Director
Jane Kinsella, Assistark- Facilities Dire vin Cabuzzi, Executive Assistant
Caitlin Saunders, Fina.- mmittee, L Trustees, School Committee
Minutes Respectfully Submitted B
Topics of Discussion:
Chair John Arena cal a mee to orde t after 7:30 PM.
The School Commi = ailed to r.
The Finance Committ lied
The Library T tees we in s
Mr. Ar oted th :ool ittee vacancy has been posted and we will be accepting
app' ns until Dec r 1l
The will then mee h th ool Committee on December 18th at their meeting at 7
PM to j discuss and on a tuber to fill the vacancy.
0 en tinCom n
Mr. Arena noted f Selectmen will now discuss the next agenda item: the Open
Meeting Law Comp ed by Emily Maughan.
Ms. Maughan filed the Complaint on November 9 after the Board had already posted
its agenda for this meeting. On Friday at 2:34pm; the Board posted a revised agenda that
included discussion of the Complaint. It is worth noting that, while many private businesses
in the Commonwealth observed Veteran's Day on Friday, the legal.holiday was Saturday.
Thus, the Board timely posted this agenda item more than 48 hours prior to the.meeting.
Even if Friday were a legal holiday, the Board can still properly discuss the Complaint
this evening:
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• First, I did not learn of the Complaint until Friday, and therefore could not have
reasonably anticipated the matter before then.
• Second, upon learning of the Complaint, I asked for the agenda to be updated
immediately to reflect the new topic.
• Third, discussion of the Complaint is time sensitive. The Board must respond to the
Complaint within 14 business days. If the Board waited until its next meeting to
review the Complaint, it would.only have a few days before a response would be
due. In my view, therefore, the Board should discuss this topic now to ensure that it
has enough time to respond properly.
The Complaint alleges that,a quorum of the Board impro eliberated outside a
posted meeting during the Finance Committee meeting on We., : - ay October 11, where
the Town's FY 19 budget was being discussed. It is the Tow4'cy that when a quorum of
a public body anticipates attending another public body's i e visiting body will post
notice in case a quorum deliberates.
Since it was possible that a quorum of the . _ would attend t ance
Committee's meeting, Town staff was directed t notice of the meeti r this policy,
however it was not the intent of the Board to erate duri the October eeting. As
Monday was Columbus Day, Town staff posted otice _ sday morning, ess than 48
hours prior,to the meeting.
The Open Meeting Law spec! ermits a qu• of a public body to attend a
meeting of another public body witho notice, s = as the visiting members
communicate only by open participatio eliber or that specific reason, I
made a statement at the beginning of t eetin =s hHe oard had a quorum, the
Board had not posted noti xs meetin nd a erating. The members of
the Board therefore sa each o ung the ding. In addition, the Finance
Committee did not p the - tmen t : ny special opportunity to address them and
we were allowed t icipate on t the di etion of the Committee Chair. Furthermore,
when Barry and I , we did espond t tz comment upon each other's prior
comments. We also t vo - __v d i 'ons regarding the Town budget during
the meet'n
heles Boar cognizes that statements made during the meeting may
hav sed the line elib on such that a proper posting would have been required.
The apologizes fo vio = e that my have occurred. The Board has made and
contin = make a strop F mmit nt to transparency and to compliance with the Open
Meeting We again pie;. to ensure that all meetings of the Board are posted more
than 48 ho for to a m t"ng and that Board members will refrain from any improper
deliberation w ttend'R meeting which is not posted.
In order to additional transparency, the Board will create minutes for the
October 11 meeting. r those interested', the meeting was also recorded and may be
watched online. Please email Bob for the link to the meeting.
The Board is required to respond to the Complaint within 14 business days. I would
request a motion from the Board to vote to authorize Town Counsel's office to timely
respond to the Complaint.
The motion was made by Mr. Ensminger, second by Mr. Berman, to authorize Town
Counsel to respond to this complaint.
Discussion on the motion:
Mr. Ensminger noted he personally felt there was no deliberation that happened that
meeting.
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Mr. Berman noted that he felt as if his comment he made that night may have been taken
as `deliberating' and he apologizes for that.
Mr. Friedmann expressed he would have liked to have known about this before tonight to
have time to look over it.
The motion passed with a 5-0-0 vote.
Board of Selectmen Survey Results
Mr. Arena first wanted to startoff by thanking Mr. Berman for putting a lot of hard work into
this survey.
They then discussed if they wish to release the comments after to ht as well. The board
felt best to hold back the comments until after Thanksgiving an people time to digest
the questioned results first.
Mr. Halsey wanted to point out that even though three o e en have already
viewed the results, it should be known that they were o ewed er at the.same
time.
Mr. Arena noted he is going to let Business Ad t ator Jayne Miller go h the entire
presentation and then open it up for commen
Ms. Miller presented the results by question and b fi nswered the first question.
Ms. Miller noted that the "NO" voter vastly unde esented in the survey results but
Mr. Friedmann did not agree saying the resul tured a little bit of everyone
in each group.
It was also mentioned du r' survey pe F _ :, a is on a lot of questions
indicating they may ha . ifferent n indic in the question. Ms. Miller
noted as though tha he ca metim was a very miniscule number and would
not change any of verall res t
Mr. Berman explaine a sur him de it seem like people have not fully
made up the' inds a erfo" ems we asked for too much last time and
didn't cl e m would go eno for people to vote for it. Mr. Berman also
menti a qu tha d `where do you get your information from?'; the top
ans r that questi as s media and Mr. Berman explained the Selectmen need to
get d talk more.
Mr. Halse ed we need ay exactly what is going to be done with the money if we ask
for another ide. Heal 3 oted that there are people in town willing to pay more if it is
valuable to th
Mr. Ensminger not c Safety really needs help and that is an important area we can't
let slip. There is,no t g how long they are going to be able to keep up at this rate..
Elaine Webb on the School Committee asked if any surveys were discarded for any reason
and Ms. Miller answered no.
Ms. Webb then explained she is concerned about drawing too many conclusions based on
the data of only the people who responded to this survey.
Linda Snow Dockser explained we need to be careful not to jump to conclusions. She also
wanted to mention and see the correlation between the `trust gap' and where those people
are getting their information (i.e. social media).
A resident was concerned about the people who answered the question about voting for a.
specific dollar amount for another override without having any background information. He
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felt that people should need and .want information about why we need the money and where.
the money will go before they can think about how much money they are willing to pay.
Mark Dockser from the Finance Committee asked if we can correlate the ages of the
responders and the services they answered they used. There tends to be a sense of division
but we all need to be on the'same page with the same information and goals.
Mr. Berman noted it seems the people who just moved here tend to be the `YES''voters and
the people who have been in town for a long time seem to be the 'NO' voters. What we
need is everyone best interest to be ONE Reading.
Erik Burkhart of the Finance Committee explained he thinks the turnout we got for this
survey was a great number. He also noted that the fact that most ople answered they get
their information from social media did not surprise him, that's we are in today's
world. It is easier to talk to your neighbors than to talk to To icials.
Jeffrey commented that the results from question #5 we co ing to him. He doesn't
think Town Officials need to `convince' the residents a o ride is ed. If people
followed along to the meetings and did their researc T."'y would un tand what is going
on. The Selectmen have a hard job already witho ing to personall out and
convince people to vote yes. He also noted tha lieves the group tha most
underrepresented in'this survey are the'-peop o did not v , e at all.
Mr. Arena noted he felt last year they did as muc h ; = Id to inform residents about
the financial situation of the town but .h ese results seem like we were way off.
Amy Cole suggested putting a flyer i t e's tax bill c o a mass email blast to all the
emails we have on file
Vanessa Alvarado of the F'_ Commit as employees will be able to
speak publically about overri affect departments.
Mr. LeLacheur noted oyees (ways wed to speak their minds. He would just air
on the side of cau W out Publi fety em - ees.
A resident asked ho et rd th NE Reading and close the so-called
`trust gap' t his su s to
Anothe dent to out that we need to take into consideration that most of
the a who answ this y feel very strongly one way or another; we need to
reac se people who on t Ve and probably didn't take this survey.
Jeff expla � that he thin eople don't realize how much they use public safety just
because th n't calling . It is still important and people use it more than they think.
Mr. LeLacheur a f everyone in this room is the choir and your voices will help
communicate with a not in this room right now.
Mr. Arena noted it is important.that we all communicate the same set of facts.
Mr. Friedmann.mentioned the `YES for Reading' group who will be a key resource for us to
help with communication.
Mr. LeLacheur reminded everyone of the upcoming budget meetings.
Erin Gaffen noted the Selectmen talked about adding a meeting on January 30th, but she
doesn't see it on the schedule.
Mr. Arena noted it may not be needed but we can plug it in just in case.
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George Kachen suggested,havi hgdifferent options at the budget meetings that show what
the different impacts-would'be depending on what number was voted on.
Linda.Phillips explained that no one has:mentioned anything about capital projects in the
pipeline.,Those may affect people's.decision on how much to vote,for an override.if they
knew-what was coming.
Linda Snow Dockser wanted to thank RCTV for making this meeting and all meetings public
for people who can't make it.
Proclamation
Mr. Halsey made a motion to do a proclamation in Eloise " " Shannon's name
and declare October 18th in her honor. for'her 104th.birt The motion was
seconded by Mr. Berman and approved with a 5-0-0 v
Mr. Ensminger made a motion to adjourn at M, second by alsey and
approved:with a 5-0-0 vote.
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