okay I'm going to call to order a special meeting of the board of Selectmen Tuesday September 3D 2024 we're convenient at 706 the first order of business is the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all right thank you public speak we're going to move on to Linda fish no thanks okay all right so the the purpose of this meeting item three is to discuss and act upon questions for the ballot Dennis has done a tremendous amount of work on these and to make them as easy to understand and have someone have the ability to read them in The Ballot Box I think they've gotten much better so has everyone had an opportunity to see the most recent one Ann and Scott yes the one that just came six how recent was that 6:30 basically oh no I have not seen anything that recently okay well let's I'm not getting emails I've talked to Carol and she had sent an email and I never got it today I'm not getting emails okay so Ann is there a personal account that I can can you text me the account you want it to go to so then broadcasting it let's see
here and it was only the change Scott that was the last question split to two question 14 was split into two 13 are you going to send it to me also sure I'll do it yeah I did not get it either Jeff I didn't send it to you Eric you have it I didn't know you would be here I'm I'm so sorry I didn't send it to you I I sent it to an at her her Andover address the only one I have I also sent it to you Scott at your personal address what I did was I got I got back from I was at norch hospital today and I got back and noticed an email I got from Jeff Murray saying that he agreed with all the questions except for question 13 he thought it was that he put it a word salad so I tried to make the only the best way to not have it be a word salad was to break it into two questions which is what we had done with other items just to make them more simple and so I I sent I believe Scott I sent it to you your
the latest version you got should have come around 6:30 and it should be a total of 15 questions instead of 14 and I'm gonna put him up on the screen anyway I think that would be the best oh yeah so let me I did text you my email but and I sent it so put up everybody can just confirm that they got it while I do this next step that I'm going to deal with yep I got it okay and so I got it to I'm printing it right now okay I just got it Jeff if I may before we begin I wanted to say a few words about the
context of this exercise yeah if I if I may of course we we are on August 12th the board of Selectmen voted to approve the the final report of the of the committee of of the charter committee and the board of selectman and the timeline is such that we we have to submit we have we have to do this by the by Thursday okay this is this is the deadline is February 5th I'm sorry a September 5th so we are running up against the deadline and we we we really should get this done the other thing I want to say is that if these questions are seem to be and I've worked on making them more simplified
too simple although one of the one of the ways to make them more simple was to break them into several you know more questions there is there is an opportunity and I'm going to bring it up to the selectman's meeting the regular meeting next week an opportunity for the select to vote to have explanatory comments official explanatory comments from the town made to explain the the issues more precisely say than these questions do I think in some you won you won't need it but for some you might but anyway that that's that's common practice and the way that works is it's under a general statutes 9- 369b it's it's done commonly what what what happen happens is the board of selectman votes to refer the matter to
the town clerk so which would be of course Carol Le and she is responsible for preparing explanatory comments which are not argumentative in other words they don't they don't make any points at all in favor or against any of these any of these items they just state facts they just explain the details of what is changing right of what is changing and what what isn't what isn't maybe in the okay I mean I I think the questions are pretty self-explanatory for the most part but some of them I I am sure that we should do that I just know that before you go over the questions so you can you know say don't worry if they're not you don't think they're detailed enough because we can detail them through the explanatory comments that actually have to be you have to approve doing it next week and then there's no deadline before it but it's time to get on with it you you would have to approve at the board of
selectman and then it goes to Carol and Carol prepares the draft and then it goes to me for final approval so I'm G to I'm going to prepare a resolution for you to put on the agenda for next week's meeting that shouldn't take but five minutes okay that's all I I want to say that because I want to make sure that everybody knows that there can these these questions can be explained in more detail in ways that are not argumentative in FA either in favor or against just by stating additional facts and I don't think it has to be done with every question my own opinion that's all my only concern with that Dennis and correct me if I'm wrong but we're already into this is going to be a two-sided ballot yeah because we're asking 15 questions correct if you're trying to put explanatory text on the ballot at the same time no does doesn't go on the ballot it's it's it's in a separate format and it's it's distributed by the clerk in actually in whatever means she thinks is best calculated to get the word out and on top of that she's she's authorized to prepare like posters for the for the for the voting place that you know include those explanatory comments so no it doesn't does not go on the ballot that's a great question though Eric got it okay then that's that was my only concern with doing that Eric Eric as a question how do I share my screen as the host down if you run your cursor down near the bottom yeah I see you see a green arrow that says share yeah you click that then it gets me to open system
settings I don't really want I I don't know it should come up with something that just says hare okay Eric can you no forget it I got it it worked you have the power I know I like it sorry you're not seeing that are you yes okay let me I see it I see it okay so this these are the questions as currently written so I think and Ann and Scott please please let me know if if I read the questions if we have if we have issues on any of the individual questions let's let's stop talk to dentist say okay this is a problem what what can we do what can't we do I'd like to get through these and sit there and and move this if we can so so question one shall the town Charter be revised to require regular Town elections in in November of odd numbered years instead of in May any issues on that question no okay two shall the town Charter be revised to delete the rule that the resignation of any member of any board or similar body
be accepted by the board of Selectmen okay if you guys don't say anything to me I'm just going to keep going like that question is good okay three shall the town Charter be revised to require that any Charter revision commission established after a mandatory Board of Selectmen review be giving at least six months to submit their draft report to the board question four shall the town Charter be revised to permit the director of health or animal control officer position to be filled by an entity as well as an individual person question five that means that that one is referring to where you could have another town help out with that is that we what it what it's referencing in is the charter had called for an employeed position employee and they might be subcontractors just just like we're doing currently with the animal
control and yeah that's what I thought okay good all right question five shall the town Charter be revised so that starting in November of 2027 instead of being elected the town clerk will be appointed by the board of Selectmen okay question seven no I'm sorry question six shall the town Charter be revised to begin the town budget process sooner and to set earlier deadlines for budget proposal submissions by Town departments so can I ask a legal question sure what happens if seven passes but not six and you'll have to everybody will has to Huff hustle up a little bit more even without the mandatory deadlines to try to get everything ready for the annual Town budget meeting in the second week of April instead of in May but what happens what Eric is saying is what if one of them doesn't pass and one of them passes I mean and Eric the reality is you're going to do what is required so if the earlier budget process doesn't happen and it still ends up in May you're going to set the deadlines accordingly okay you can you can always do them earlier we're just GNA use common sense if something doesn't pass we'll sit there and modify the actual application and then if something passes that shouldn't have will either try to pass it again in the next budget revision or remove it in the next budget revision budget Charter revision I'm sorry I guess I have kind of a bigger question than that is that these are
generalized questions yet you've approved very specific mod modifications text and what I see what I think is that there's not necessarily A onetoone correspondence like some changes in text are affected by two numbers at once so is that whole section kind of null and void can you go back and make just some of the changes Dennis the changes are in the dra in the final report of the commission and the board of selectman what the the the trick to to doing this Eric is to make sure that the questions cover all of the changes that have been made by the selectman and the Commission in the charter that that's contained in the the document that includes the the changes at large within the context of the charter so you know whatever that's a matter for interpretation but when when I draft these questions with with Jeff's a big help from Jeff and from Carol I I have that in mind try I mean Eric I totally understand understand what you're saying is one of these questions can pass and it relates to another question so does that eliminate both those issues from moving forward in the new Charter no the they're individual questions understood understood but What what Eric is saying though Dennis is that especially with the budget iming if if the timing of the budget passes Eric and let's sit there and say the Quorum issue of the budget doesn't then we we we have an earlier Town budget meeting right I mean Dennis that's the truth right I'm not I mean what happens
wait a minute here here I gotta I gotta do this Eric Eric I gotta do this because I don't want to waste I don't want to waste let's through the questions let's go through the questions and then we'll go back and we'll we'll Circle all of the questions that relate to each other and sit there and see what would happen if one failed and the other passed frankly in past chter revisions that I've worked on I don't think I've ever done more and I've done them in Mansfield and also in about five or six of them in Windom I have never ever ever gone past seven or eight questions no matter how detailed it is but I got a message I got messages from several people that these questions are to be more simplified and I I if if I were left to my own devices at one time I have seen the light though I agree I like this I like I like the result a lot but I used to you know I'm used to doing app pellet work in courts and you write questions that will take up a whole page okay that's an art that's an art okay but but but to do that here the one item that could have could have resulted in a long run on question would be Eric this new budget process that could have been all set up in one question where it's all dependent on one question passing so you either do it all or you do none of it but my my view continues to be that for one thing I'm confident and this is probably not relevant but I'm going to say it I'm
confident that this these questions will pass I don't see them fail failing one failing one and one one passing I also I also think what I said before and what Jeff said is that if the requirement that you have an earlier annual Town budget meeting and that may be written in more may do this or may do that in the draft report I'm going to take a look at it when we get back to discussing this in more detail I'm not sure it's mandatory but I think the effort is going to be made to hold the annual Town budget meeting in the second week of April instead of in May that's pretty that's pretty solid that's a pretty that's a pretty mandatory thing so I I I guess I guess I'm I was talking about something else but in terms of that but anyway let me let me go through the rest of the questions and then we will come back to is talking s there's certain questions that do relate to each other and I would also like to know what would happen if one pass and one failed y okay so so we were on I'm going to go to question I read question six and no one had any issues with that and Eric asked this question okay let's go ahead I just have one question to do with a whole bunch of these budget things because I noticed one of the things in the charter revision thing was that the budget review meetings would be joint meetings from the board of Selectmen and the board of Finance that's not in any of these questions here question there was there was an initial
meeting that and and if I remember that correctly even our current budget meeting is a joint meeting and that this says there'll be joint budget review meetings in March meetings plural well and section D to be really honest even even if we even if that is said and even if that is how it's written the Board of Selectmen don't really need to attend those because we don't have control over those items we can attend and some of us have attended previous meetings but I don't really consider that as a okay because this year I know we had like four budget meetings for the board of Selectmen then we sent it over to the board of finance and they had all their meetings yeah and the an not going to do that okay the anticipation is I'm hopeful that this year the board of Selectmen does less meetings on the board the budget and okay anyway let let's go to question seven question seven shall the charter shall the town Charter be revised to hold the annual Town budget meeting in the second week of April instead of May okay question eight shall the town Charter be revised to eliminate the Forum requirement for the annual Town budget meeting but not for any special town meeting question nine shall the town Charter be revised so that the budget passed at by the annual town meeting may
go right to referendum held on the same day as the Region 8 vote we should add Dennis in there the Region 8 budget vote just for clarification I I was trying to keep it to two lines but I'll add that yeah you know I'm trying to be economical it because it is long but yeah okay my question about number nine it says the budget passed by the annual town meeting I thought there wasn't going to be a vote at that meeting no there will be a vote of the board oh no of the annual Town budget meeting they can vote they can vote to lower it or they can vote to approve it they can lower it and approve it but but they've got to from what I read of the charter they've got to come out of that that meeting with a budget it's there's no rejecting the budget at that meeting there's either lowering it or or not they can lower it they can't raise it there's going to be a result and that and that's the whole purpose of this this this whole set of questions is to get the referendum and this may not be a wor that worthy a goal to for all this you know I didn't write these these I when when Charter revision was being developed I usually play a more of a role than I did because I had a I had a death in the family during that period And I didn't I did not have anything to do with writing this part of the Charter that was done by the commission I'm sure Jeff did but I think the major goal was to
try to get it done earlier so that you would go to referendum at the same time as Region 8 if you could it's not if you don't it's not a sin or anything or a crime but the effort was to be made to have it on the same day I think I don't live in town I don't know as much as you all do about how things actually work in practice I know a little bit but but I but I do know that you know there there seemed to be a it seemed to be felt that it was a big advantage to have those referendums held on the same day if possible yeah we just didn't okay the charter revision commission and the discussions at those meetings was have it all on the same day so we only have one One initial budget referendum and hopefully everything passes and we only have to ask the voters to go to the polls once not not twice because hardly anyone would go to the ram meeting and then you'd get more people at the Town budget vote so let's combine them get as many people as we can to go and vote on
both of them so that we get the most participation so that was what this was about and remember now you okay okay okay okay okay but I just talk let's just talk about the questions like really I just want the questions either approved or not or adjustments that need to be made to the question so if we can put in the Region 8 budget vote and I know it'll drop it to another line but that one word will at least I might cut another word out and you know you never know okay you never know question 10 careful editor sell the town Charter be revised to provide the authority to pass ordinances to the board of Selectmen while authorizing voters to petition to referendum and repeal any ordinance passed by the board before before it could become ffective that's totally accurate okay yeah if I do say so myself okay so I'm just I'm just making sure my other members are all good and no additional much better than the old question much better than the for list I had from you all have driven to exceed myself okay okay question 11 shall the time Town Charter be revised to increase the minimum dollar amount to require special town meeting approval for bonding or other forms of financing to a figure exceeding $50,000 for any rep repayment term of more than one year okay can I ask another dumb question on that one sure so is that any bond or financing that that costs more than 50,000 a year or 50,000 total 50,000 total 50,000 plus one one one cent if it exceeds 50,000 and the repayment terms are for more than one
year but but understand just for the rest of the board of Select members these would normally be in in the budget document this would be Eric this would be Eric if you went out and you wanted to do something different something you want to be get a copier and it cost under [Music] $50,000 and you had a budget line item that you had the money in it you could do it sure when's the last time you guys bonded anything never never we don't do we don't don't bond we don't we haven't B we Bond all the time in window well you do but we don't but our number our number was very low and but that would be the information in the document that you were talking about before which we'll talk about after we get through these questions 12 shall the town Charter be revised to increase the minimum amount yes sorry it is the different question shall the town Charter be reved to increase the minimum amount to require special town meeting approval for any Grant of financial aid from any source to to a grant that requires the town to provide a local match of $25,000 or more okay question 13 so these are the two questions that were split on this last
go round question 13 shall shall the town Charter be revised to increase the minimum amount requiring special town meeting approval to any proposed supplemental appropriation of 1% or more of the current Town budget and okay so we'll go to the next one question 14 shall the town Charter be revised to provide that any proposed supplemental appropriation that exceeds 2.5% of the current Town budget or $200,000 whichever is greater must be sent directly to a referendum vote okay and question 15 shall the town Charter be revised to delete transaction sections 1012 1013 and 10:14 which shall be recorded in the office of the town clerk for eference okay so if we don't have any questions related to the well any issues with the questions let's talk about items that are joined like Eric was talking about so question one is not joined question two is not joined question three is not joined question four is not does not have any other related Parts question five does not have any other related Parts well yeah it doesn't so we're really talking about question six question seven question eight and question nine right [Music] so if question six if question six doesn't pass and everything else passed we would still force all the Departments to do their budgets earlier because we need to hit the de and so question six is really just a a an organizational part part of the charter and if if if question seven or question eight or question nine fail then Eric I would assume we would push back the deadlines to allow them to have a little bit more time because the residents didn't want to have one referendum they wanted to have two
referendums so and that that's what would happen so 678 and nine all kind of go together and they'll all have a different impact if any of them if they all don't go in the same direction and Dennis if if that occurs if something happens where one six or seven like six8 n pass and seven doesen what do we ll you try to meet the goals of the others without you know there there may be some wiggle room like you seem to say before with with the the F with with six and you know you try to do it it's just it's not if you can't do it you can't do it but what what one thing as I was going to say before one thing this does do is
remember that in 2022 you passed or the town passed a very noteworthy provision that provides that if a budget fails once that it goes to it it becomes split into education and and Town something that I personally do not like frankly I shouldn't even say that but I I'm sorry we have it in Windom and I don't like it and but here I believe that it's said until now that I may be wrong but I thought it said that having oh oh oh I know the budget is rejected at the town meeting that Pro that will go to h a second or you go to a split referendum a split budget after that too I'm pretty sure that's what it says this wa wait wait wait wait wait that's not true it it is it is it gets bifurcated and Scott you were on that committee so please just say if it gets bifurcated it's at referendum that it fails I I'm gonna look and then after possibility that I could be wrong after the first referendum where the combined budget fails it then goes and does it
separately but who cares the point is the point is to not have it fail to pass it all at once so we don't have these conflicts the question ends up still being and this is just something that we as a board are going to have to use common sense on question six seven eight and nine all all relate to the same basic budgetary issue and if one of them fails we're going to have to work together to determine what the the outcome of that vote makes us do with the budget process because honestly I sit there and go if if question eight fails [Music] if question 8 fails you are going to have problems with meeting the regional vote meeting the deadline of the regional vote because Dennis what that would do is that would push our budget process back to there'd be a town there would be a vote down because
the way the charter currently works if it's voted down if the budget fails at the town meeting it pushes it back to the board of finance and they have a week that's right you know we have to I think it's they have a week and then we have to meet again we have to have another town meeting I just looked two weeks later so we'll never meet the ram budget Dae you'll never get it never do and so we as a board are going to have to understand if these questions don't all pass we're going to have to make some decisions and say okay this is what the outcome of that boat vote leads us down and this is how we're going to sit there and implement the charter it's just just how it is there's nothing else we can do and we're going to do it to the best of our ability but six Eric is correct six seven eight and and nine all relate and they do and one fail on any of the questions will cause problems with the other questions not not problems that can't be addressed through as you say Common Sense Common Sense yeah I think I think I think that the benefit is that you're not going to
go back from the town you're not you're going to go to town meeting and you're not going back that town meeting is going to end with a referendum correct that's the goal that that's the goal that's the goal gotta vote we got to have favorable vote but if not 6 seven8 n all relate to the same issue and we're going to address that as a board a 10 is a separate Issue 11 is a separate issue 12 is a separate Issue 13 is a special is a separate issue right 14 is a separate issue oh it is yes right and 15 y so there are two specific questions so if if somebody and 13 and 14 are relate to the same thing but if something gets voted down like if 13 got voted down or asking for 1% of the current budget it's currently a half a percent. so we would just go back to a half a percent correct if 14 passed that would be fine we'd have to have a special meeting over half of half of 1% but if it exceeded $200,000 we would go right to referendum so they're separate questions so the the only issue we as a board have are six seven8 and nine not all going in the same direction of v and then we have to address that
after the lection see how see how it works yeah yeah that's that's all plan okay so so an Ann and Scott do you guys have any problems with the questions to be submitted to the Secretary of State to get on the ballot I don't okay I'm fine these these revised LS look good okay so I'm gonna I'm I'm GNA make a motion that we we authorize the town clerk with the under the direction of the Town attorney to present these questions to the Secretary of State to get them put on our November 2024 town of Andover ballot a second all right any further discussion all those in favor I I okay all right right so Dennis wanted me to add a word to one of the nine it was yeah Scott's got it right number nine budget the word budget the region a
budget vote what other what other votes do they take well we don't but all right it's just a word that will clarify it for a voter that doesn't have any idea what region is oh it's gonna make I'm gonna have to all right okay so so we don't have anything else to do in this in this meeting let me stop sharing go back to the screen and it looks like Linda fish left our meeting so we don't have anyone from the public here Eric would you like to make a comment better to burn out than to fade away okay and Dennis would you like to make a comment that I like that song Eric that's a good song Young anyway yeah I no I have no comment I I I appreciate the support from the Board of selectman and the charter revision commissioner I think you all did a wonderful job to get to this point and I'm so glad that these are passed and we're going to make the deadline because I would hate to see it all all this hard work by so many people go to waste let's let the voters decide thank you so much all right thank you thank Dennis all right I think we're done then I I'll make a a motion to adjourn second it second it all right all those in favor I all right thank you very much thank you Eric thank you Dennis and Scott thank you thank you