alance okay 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 since this is a more of a question and answer session it's not a typical Board of selectman meeting we're not going to conduct any business other than reviewing the proposed Charter revisions I will go around and do public speak but I would ask to limit what we are actually actually talk about in the charter questions because you're going to have your opportunity to speak to each one of the questions as we go through this so I am going to start with Katherine magaldi mute can you hear me now we can there you go okay sorry about that yeah all right sorry about that I have a couple of questions there primarily though for Carol Le and she was vice chair of the charter committee and the first one actually is when did the BOS actually decide a revision was needed and what was the committee given as a charge given a charge we were told that we would get our charge from the public
at our public hearing oh okay so at the public hearing then what revisions or suggestions requests did you receive from the public you fix the areas in the charter that referenced May Municipal elections we were asked to look at select board versus Board of Selectmen then we were asked to look for a town look at forming a Town Council changing the elected town clerk to appointed giving the bo to select the authority to create ordinances and Expediting the budget process so we vote on the same day as the ram budget refer and all that information's in the minutes well I have my question is I remember being there but I don't remember anybody asking in the public for a Town Council no I okay I did in the middle the meetings oh okay and and I'll get to that in the presentation okay and were these suggestions then submitted to the chat members all the requests and the suggestions that we had all done at the meeting well Katherine if you at that meeting if you were at that meeting that first meeting we we after the public hearing yes we met and you stayed and we all talked all the members of the board of the charter revision commission talked about different things that we might want to bring forward to review okay yep I was there remember I couldn't remember all of it yeah it's fine I'm I'm all set
okay Celeste Willard nothing at this time Jeff I'm just listening if I have anything I'll I'll let you know thank you Steve Willard nothing at this time Jeff thank you thanks Dave ganian okay I think Dave's good there's a phone number that's ends in 5475 if you just state your name and let us know question hi it's this is Leanne Hutchinson I have nothing right now okay thank you lean Elaine Bart hi I just I I actually worked at our first day of early voting today and I and I have to say that the write up that carolly has a whole bunch of copies of that goes ahead and explains each question is wonderful and I do know that this is this election this voting process is going to take a lot longer than our usual voting process so just because of all the questions that need to be read read and responded to people should take advantage of early voting and get down there and and take your time and go ahead and vote because November 5th is going to be very slow process but I just wanted to to give a heads up and certainly we will Point people to go to the town hall if they're there while she's there the town clerk is there which which is great because it's the same hours that the
town clerk's office is open and if people have questions about the questions they can go up to Carol and get that little write up but I just wanted to to mention it it it's very successful today thanks okay and to to piggyback on that Elaine I asked Eric to have all of that information put up on the front of the homepage for the town website so hopefully by tomorrow we have that available online for anybody that wants to have access to that yeah that'd be great all right Bob hamburger can you hear me we can yeah I just wanted to thank everybody that was involved with the commission I was I was humbled to be chosen as chair and I just wanted to say that everybody who participated you know we had quite a task before us everybody brought individual talents and skills to bear and you know we had a lot of work to do in a short time to do it and I just wanted to say that I I think given the constraints and given the challenge before us everybody did did a great job I look forward to seeing how the voting goes on on the different issues and you know I I love hearing all the input that everybody that showed up
tonight is is gonna is going to contribute so that's all I had to say all right thank you carolite I'm all set thanks all right Shannon Laden good evening I I guess the only thing I'll say is having voted today I wish this meeting had been held earlier and I'll save my questions for when we're talking about the proposed Charter revisions thanks okay kubika and and I'm sorry I don't have your phone name sorry sorry I tend to just go by the one name because of work I have no questions comments at this time I had seen the revised with markup I would can't find it right now on the the website but I did see it the other day and I
thought it was mostly seem to be clearing up some of the ambiguity in the language legal being legal thank you Michael S sin I'm sorry I'm not GNA pronounce your your name properly ctz all set thank you thank you Cath Kathleen Hutchinson or Katherine Hutchinson I have nothing at this time thank you Bata nothing at the moment thanks Jeff okay Louise Goodwin I just want to say Elaine made a good point I saw on the news there's a lot of people standing in line waiting to vote so I think it would be an excellent thing for people because we have so much time to do that to go early
and do that other than that I'm all set thanks Leanne Hutchinson no thanks okay Kimberly psan I'm almost that thank you Abby Cole here to listen today thank you all right Stephen Stephen King nothing at this time thank you Joan Ebert hi just a quick comment I'm sorry if it's already been mentioned it probably was we just need to do a revision to the front page and add the D for Andover thank you for that and then I'd be remiss with my with my eyes not to mention that in my job I did want to mention my I will probably speak again later because I do want to listen but I'm really not in favor of changing anything with the budget process I like the way our town currently handles it I know that it takes a lot of time I know that I I hope I'm allowed to speak publicly I mean everybody else is so I am a member of the board of Finance so I know how much time and effort it takes to you know pour through documents and and the whole process and to speed that up and rush it really scares me truthfully so and I like the process of
the budget meetings the town coming together so I'm not in favor of any of those changes and I wanted to say that thank you Sharon St Rock I was also hoping to vote today but I felt like I did not have enough information so hopefully this evening the conversation will help me make an informed Choice when I do decide to vote thank you Philip hovi well I've just come to U kind of lurk listen to whatever he was saying I've been away all summer and I'm trying to catch up with the with the the ballot issues so I'll be listening and I'll be working the polls for early voting kind of excited about that thank you thank you very much Katherine Kathleen Ward catch hi thank you I'm just listening for now thanks so much no
problem Kathleen okay and the phone number that ends in 2345 okay so I'm gonna go back to Kathleen I don't know your last name roers hi Kathleen see I gave you the five minutes you got through public speak perfect no comment thank you okay Sarah Becker I'm sorry Jeff can you repeat that I just joined we're in the middle of public speak so we're just giving you an opportunity to say anything you want before we get started I'm just calling in nope that's okay Jeff I'll set all right and again the phone number that ends in 2345 okay did I miss anyone anyone like to add anything okay so and I apologize for missing the D in my presentation that's terrible Joan Ebert thank you for calling me out on that I I shouldn't have missed the D so what I did was I prepared this presentation but I also have a few other things for everyone to sit there and see so this is the ballot that we're all going to end up at the holes with the
top of the ballots sits there and goes through the party and the individuals and what we're focusing on is the questions the vote on the questions so I believe that this information was put up on the website as a sample so that if you can sit there and pull that up why you're in this we can sit there and and deal with all of these but in my presentation I do read out each one of the questions so I'm going to sit there and come back to the question and I'm going to get started so this goes into what Katherine was sitting there asking about the charter revision commission the board of Selectmen voted on April 8th to establish a charter revision commission and then the board of Selectmen appointed the members to the Charter revision Commission on May 7th the individuals that we had I believe 13 and we took a a board of seven so we had
requested the board of Selectmen requested that final report to complete it by September 1st 2024 to ensure that the questions could be on the ballot for November 5th so the committee members that were selected were Robert hamburger who is voted as chairperson for the committee Carol Lee who was voted the vice chair men of the committee Jody gross who was voted in as the secretary for the committee and then members in without specific roles were Patricia Billings Karen midor Jeff Maguire and Adrien mandaville so the charter revision commission had nine meetings we had those meetings between May 22nd and July 17th of 20124 the charter revision commission discussed various different things that we wanted to potentially see related to the Charter and our goal was to try to make the town government as efficient as possible and and there's been some conversation as to why this was started and this Charter revision commission I wanted to
sit there and see this Charter revision Commission because I wanted to see questions get on the ballot for a presidential election and everyone is sitting there there's a lot of conspiracy theories Andover is pretty well known for conspiracy theories and those conspiracy theories are that Jeff Maguire or other members Bob hamburger were driving forth some issues that that's not how the process worked so Jeff Maguire wanted to bring forth A Town Council form of government and my simple reason for this was efficiency in that we have some things that the town should look to correct so a Town Council form of government would consolidate the board of finance and the board of Selectmen it would create a seven- member board because now with the Town Administrator what we have is the Town Administrator preparing the budget for the town and what I would like to see and what I think would be positive for the town of Andover is a seven member board that would sit there and do the overarching Focus for what the town should be looking to do and also control the financial aspects of what's doing so right now what happens is because we now have a Town Administrator that prepares the budget it then goes to the board of Finance to be reviewed and to be implemented and then it sits there and gets voted on by the public at the Town budget meeting what I wanted to sit there and see is because I've been on the board of Selectmen for about 10 years now and we have a five- member board and every time we come up for an election all five members run and what
my belief is is that we would be a much better organized group if we ran similar to the board of education or what now is the board of finance and you have seven members four members run in odd years three members run in excuse me four members run in even years three members run in odd years and you have a consistency of the board and it's not a total redo because the the second election I ran I was the only member of the board of Selectmen that continued over this last election all five members continued and or or ran they did not continue but we they ran so that was my idea and what I did was I brought that up to the board the charter revision commission and it was a little bit too much for everybody to understand and to want to take on for what we were challenged with and and honestly I was okay with that because what I wanted is to bring it forward to the community
because I do believe it's in the best interest of the community so that was Jeff Maguire's reason for the charter revision commission what I wanted to present then what we ended up doing is we ended up taking all of the ideas that were out there of things that could be done to make town government more efficient and we all evaluated them so Bob hamburger was the chairperson Carol Lee was the vice chairperson we went through each of the issues that were brought up and each of the members of the the board the charter revision commission were given a topic to review
and to come back to the board and discuss and we all went through each things and not everyone's item ended up being brought into the revisions that we made but it was a very good board and honestly it was it was a very good board and everybody participated and everybody sat there and brought their ideas forth and everybody voted on each of the items that we finally brought into the draft that went to the the board of Select so that's related to the Charter revision commission and and listen anybody want to ask a question please raise your hand unmute yourself this is a question and answer this is not a I'm not I I want everybody to ask their questions so that we know what we're after so these are the ballot
questions that are out there if you sit there and you go through your ballot question ballot question one is shall the constitution of the state of Conneticut be amended to permit General Assembly to allow each voter to vote by absentee ballot this question is related to the Connecticut Constitution not the the Andover Charter and what it's doing is currently we have rules that require you to say that you're either out of town or you have a reason to get an absentee ballot what the state is doing now is and what they're trying to get the the Constitution changed to is that there's no reason required for any boat voter to vote by absentee ballot that's question one it's a yes or no question you vote whichever way you choose to on that item that's not related to the Andover Charter state of Connecticut it's on every ballot within the state of Connecticut okay question number two ballot question two shall the town Charter be revised to require regular Town elections in November of odd years instead of in May Jeff real quick Louise had her hand up for the first ballot question oh I'm sorry Louise go ahead yeah no problem actually is for all the questions I just want ask and have everybody here did are all these revisions were they all kind of reviewed
by the town attorney yes okay and approved of yes okay thank you and and the questions that the the questions need to go to the Secretary of State's office and they're also reviewed by the state of Connecticut to make sure that the questions are are written correctly for the ballot for the ballot okay okay thanks Jeff y okay question two relates to voting the town of Andover since the initial Charter was written voted in the month of May of odd years the local elections were were may this is to move that in the charter to November we currently vote in November because of State Statute and law passed by state of Connecticut we're just trying to change the town Charter to sit there and correspond with that to sit there and say we're going to vote in November as opposed to May any questions related to that that item Philip H has his hand up yeah go ahead yeah the question is the so this is basically driven by the state rather than a choice by the town it is the state is requiring November elections unless we make a decision to vote in May which not anyone on the charter revision commission was looking to continue May elections yeah we we missed that because they the Secretary of State's office hold the towns five remaining May towns if they wanted to keep elections in may we would have to have a town meeting and allow the people in the town to vote to keep the election in May and if the town
failed to hold that special town meeting by December 31 of 2022 we would automatically go to November elections in 2020 okay thank you and Shannon Lowden also has her hand up thanks I'm just curious that it's now required by State Statute what happens if we vote against it as a town then we would have a charter that doesn't comply with State Statute thanks so Shannon I'm guess you're saying vote Yes for this because it makes sense to change our Charter I'm saying what happens if we go against State Statute Jeff okay I got we can't it's just we wouldn't be in compliance with what the way we're doing business right there there's a bunch of sorry Carol go ahead there's a bunch of these questions that are really just simple logistical questions that were just the charter revision commission was trying to just get changed and this is one of them so okay Katherine I'm sorry real quickly though if it already went into effect is this question even a worthwhile question like Shannon just said even if we don't vote we've it's already gone into effect that now we have November
elections because we never ask the town to vote on it well what we're trying to do is get the charter in alignment with the state statutes so it's just a technical issue of trying to change that you could leave it and vote no and then we're still G to vote in November so we're just trying to get the to match up everything so okay okay anybody else okay ballot question three shall the town Charter be revised to delete the rule that resignation of any member of any board or similar body be accepted by the board of Selectmen so this is really just a what's the difference if the board of Selectmen accepts a resignation if someone resigns they resign it doesn't need to be accepted by the board of Selectmen of SE selectman is made aware of the resignation and then we move through the process of what we need to do to potentially replace that individual or
the board that is involved will go through and and work to replace that individual but to sit there and say in the charter that the board of Selectmen needs to accept the resignation to me as irrelevant okay yeah Stephen has his hand up my only question would be would would there be any reference to timing regarding that or is that based on the minutes and and how is that because there there are certain things that are timed based based upon a resignation and requests for Replacements someone submitting a resignation submits the resignation to the town clerk and to the chairperson of the board and then the timing related to the replacement of that individual starts from really when the Tom clerk gets it and it submits it back to the members Joanne Hebert also has her hand up just a followup to what Stephen said too I I totally understand why this would be easier and why we would want to
enact this just to take away the formality but it does it it just alerts the town when it comes up at a board of Selectmen meeting and your you accept it it just you know people that take time to watch the meetings and everything it just makes it more public in case people aren't aware so that would be my only thought on that well currently in our in the board of Selectmen minutes every month we have a resignation line item so any resignations are listed there I think it's just a technical issue are we accepting the resignation or receiving notification of the that it's just terminology so the question is acceptance you okay in reality if Joanne if I resigned as the you know from the board of Selectmen is the board of Selectmen going to accept my resignation or receive my resignation and then move forward to make the appropriate steps to replace me that would be the issue thanks yeah anybody else okay ballot question four shall the town Charter be revised to require that any Charter revision commission established after a mandatory board of selectman review be given at least six months to submit their draft report to the board this is just a saying th this was based upon members of the charter revision commission identifying that
they were being put under a time crunch to sit there and get this back for September it was a request EST that was made during the course of the meetings that there should be additional time granted to Future Charter revision commissions and it was something that the charter revision commission sat there and thought that we should try to get changed so it's basically any other future board of Selectmen that requests a charter revision commission has to provide them with a minimum of six months to complete their work they could do their work in less time but they're given a minimum of six months so the time in of these Charter revisions needs to be evaluated by Future Board of selectman or if we if this board of Selectmen determines they want to sit there and do it again the next Charter revision commission would be given six months to
complete their task any okay ballot question five 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 the current Charter calls for employees to fill these positions we technically are utilizing Services outside of that to perform those task so right now for the director of Health that is performed by Eastern Health Eastern Highland health district and so we're trying to just revise the charter so it allows for a subcontractor or a another company to perform those tasks without having it to be an individual because that's what's called out or an employee that's what's called out for currently in the charter any questions on that item Mr hovy again is that the only two organizations or departments that can that can get that be an entity or are there other in the town in the town departments who might be fulfilled with an entity those are the two that are called out for in the charter that we identified there are you know right now we sit there and contract out services to the building department and I'm trying to think of any other Eric that we actually
Outsource that are not employees Youth Services Bureau would be one that's through through the through ahm ahm I was trying to say I was going to say Ram but it's ahm yeah right who else do we use anybody else we're Contracting out our IT services through the town of South Windsor as you already talked about the Animal control officer is we are using the Northeast Council of government's animal control services to cover the town of Andover you know and as employees leave and are replaced we always look at the potential for savings using shared Services as opposed to a discret employee so Mr hog those ones though Eric that you mentioned are not part of section 702 for the administrative the only ones are the town assessor building official Municipal agent director of Health Animal control officer tree wardens sanitarian Wetlands zoning enforcement Treasurer Town attorney Town engineer and Police Service Public Works and tax collected so the only ones that we're Outsourcing right now is building to Bolton easn Highlands health district and MOG for animal control the ahm and the other ones you mentioned are not identified in our chart so Carol just let me ask you a question is the town attorney identified as an employee within the charter the town attorney is identified as an administrative position and he's identified as your appoint you appoint him [Music] and okay but the te the terminology for the director of health and the Animal control officer within the current Charter was to have them be an employee right so it says a sanitarian and then director of health so before we used to have actual doctor that was the director of health and then the Town Sent okay when the charter was
originally written okay so this was this is trying to change some wording on those two positions because they call out employees specifically and we do not they're not full-time positions and they're not positions that the town would be financially wanting to employ someone for so that's why we Outsource those and we're just trying to change some terminology within the charter so that's just aligning these two positions with what we're already doing with other positions correct thank you good any other questions on ballot question five and just as a side note even if ballot question five fails the state the state this year passed a series of measures that make it easier for towns to collaborate with each other so you would still be able to share services with another municipality or a cog regardless of what the town's charger says about an individual position under current state law as I understand okay understood any other questions on ballot question five okay oh back up Leanne Hutchins yes I assume that just the question itself is going to be on the ballot and not the explanatory paragraph
that's my question is I read the top where it says as well as that I would read that to imply that you can have an individual and an entity doing the same thing because it doesn't say an individual or an entity that's correct so would it be is the intent of it to have an individual or an entity as opposed to like for example the animal controlled cision position having the is it neck nekog that we use now neog correct could we have them and still have somebody who's an Andover resident or a town employee could we have both or is this meant to say you could have one or the other you would only want to have one or the other because it's costing us too much money to have both so you're either giving the town the opportunity and the authority to sit there and have either an employee on the books if it's financially prudent or to sit there and Outsource it to a third party okay well that makes sense I just I read it several times in the way I would read it again because of the wording as well as I personally would read it that you might end up with one of each an individual again a resident or a town employee already or another entity that's just the way I read it understood thank you you would never you would never want to do that just to sit there and it's a financial issue but it's giving flexibility to the town to sit there
and pick the best way to sit there and fill those positions okay anyone lse okay ballot question six shall a 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 Select that is how the question is written so before I get to you Dian or Diane is joining the the to Clark's office is the information center of the town and to be really honest Carol Lee has done an exceptional job and Carol I didn't ask you this last Friday how many years have you been have you filled the town clerk's position since 2003 I have been the town clerk but I started in
[Music] 19 almost so you were the assist assistant town clerk for the years in the beginning right okay so you know basically ter Carol's office does a significant amount of work within the community and as everybody on this call understands Carol Lee has done a tremendous job no one is this is not about Carol Lee this is not about trying to do something that is going to be a negative this is where the town Charter we we changed the first selectman from the the CEO of the town to the Town Administrator and why did we do that back in you know I guess it's about six years ago now why did we do that we did that because you can never guarantee who you're going to elect into a position a professional position such as the first Elman and to guarantee that they can do the job in an appropriate fashion so we as a town all voted to sit there and move the first Selectmen and you know basically appoint a Town Administrator and from my perspective that is the best thing that's happened to this town since I've been involved it has professionalized the position and has allowed us to do do things that we would never have done with a part-time individual as the first select so that is what the intention of this change is to do so the town clerk's job is is not a simple job and this issue is not related to Carol it's related to the next individual that comes in and runs
because the Democratic town committee and the Republican Town committee would each select an individual who lives in the town of Andover to run for the town town clerk's position and that individual may have never worked in the town clerk's office that individual may not have any of the training related to the town clerk's job and they would be voted in based upon the results of that election so that is where this is coming from this is trying to move to a position where we can select somebody potentially from out of town we could ex we could appoint the assistant town clerk currently and that individual would then become the Town Clerk and an employee of the town and the one thing that everybody needs to understand is the board of Selectmen does not appoint does not just arbitrarily appoint anyone to any position the board of Selectmen would sit there and identify that we have a job to fill the
a hiring committee would be selected one member of the board of Selectmen would be on that one member of the board of Finance would be on that Town clerks from other towns would be on that and they would evaluate all the resumés received they would conduct interviews and they would come back to the board of Selectmen and make a recommendation as to who would be the appropriate candidate for that position that's how every position within the town of Andover is filled Jeff Maguire Jeff Murray Scott pson and CR we don't sit there and just say we were going to app point x that's not how it works there's a process and you go through that process for every position that you would want to fill that's how the Town Administrator was filled and that's even how all of the positions are filled
it's a hiring committee recommendation made and then an appointment made it's not what it's been stated out there that we're going to just appoint whoever we want it's not how it works Katherine mcal Lewis wait a second yeah you were up first I know I I was well mine's real quick yeah it's I've said this before I there are pros and cons to both and and I understand pros and cons to both and I don't have a I'm not against it however I think that it should be stated somewhere that if the board of Selectmen is going to app point then that role can change every four years I think that's something people should know I don't it's not against the appointment it's just that that's a that's a big thing that every four years you might have somebody new in there that's all well that's the same thing you would have in an election and the goal would not to do that and that that's you know the reason Carol Le's been in that position for 21 years nobody wants to change that position but eventually Carol Le is going to retire and it has nothing to do with Carol Le no it has nothing to do with Carol Lee but it does Carol Le is going to want to retire and then at that
election we're going to vote on somebody that potentially has no qualifications well I would hope not but okay I don't see how I don't see any way around not voting on somebody that doesn't the only way to sit there and do it is if someone moved into town and because they have to be a town resident to run in our election they'd have to move into town and they would have to sit there and want the position and then they'd have I mean I don't see it happening I mean it would be different if we could sit there and vote for the assistant Town Clerk and she wanted to fill the role but I don't believe Carol
your assistant lives in town currently he does not she does not so she wouldn't qualify so is it an I'm sorry can I just clarify is that an indefinite position then or does it automatically get looked at again every every four years I mean you hired and then you're hired or you're hired you know you you'd have to you you know just like any position within the town you'd have to sit there and you have to you have to get moved for cause I mean it's not as if okay we consider sit there and as a board of Selectmen just make a change because we're the board of Selectmen you know that this is where everybody
sits there and thinks different things the board of Selectmen just doesn't wave a wand and say we're gonna make changes we don't want to make changes I Katherine I would never want to make a change to the town clerk if if I we didn't have to it's just a question of are we as a community wanting to vote on someone that doesn't and I'm I'm just telling you I could you can almost sit there and see it would never be someone with qualifications but we're going to have to vote on a town clerk so the next election that Carol Lee doesn't run because Carol Lee is running Carol Le's winning she gets the most votes out of anyone in town she's on both party lines it doesn't matter no one's going to run against Carol now I don't think the Republican Town committee or the Democrat Town committee have ever put anyone up against Carol Lee since she's won the first election Carol has anyone run against you since you won your first election no no okay and rightfully so we shouldn't so what's the I I guess my question to the community and everybody else is this is just an issue of down the road how we we're sitting and looking at this and even if this question loses it's going to come back up again because
we're going to face it some sometime so we're just trying to get ahead of this and this was an issue that we addressed it's an issue that's brought up in a lot of other towns it's issues that it's an issue that's failed in other towns it's an issue that continue to get brought up but like I said eventually Carol Lee is going to decide she's not running and that's going to put the Republican Town committee and the Democratic town Committee in a position to find someone that's that wants to run for Town Clerk and why are they going to run they're going to run because it's a
job and they're going to get paid x amount of money they're not going to be qualified and then the community is going to have an issue that we're going to sit there and potentially suffer or we could sit there and make it a an employee position an appointed position and the individual could sit there and be from out of town we could select the assistant town clerk to fill that spot and that's all this is about any other questions on this Elaine botard yeah I just I I I I understand the confusion that Katherine has because it has been verbalized that every four years maybe you know you'd relook at the town clerk position but in the question and in the explanation of the question there is no mention of doing this every four years it's kind of a we're hiring and as things you know go on with
people who are working for the town you know if they leave or if they are not doing a great job and we need to remove them or they're great and we just want to keep them that's all there the flexibility is all there but I know verbally it was mentioned every four years but it's nowhere in this statement well I believe that what you're stating is that in that in the information they're appointed every four years it's not I mean if a board of Selectmen is doing their job they're not going to they're not going to determine they need to appoint someone to replace someone doing a good job and I and I really and I would sit there and I would go back I don't even think that's legal that you you'd have to go for cause on someone it's not that simple and and if I was ever on the board of Selectmen you know in a in the position that the the four years came up if the individual is doing a good job the individual is getting reappointed right but nowhere in the does it say there's going that there's going to be a review every four years it does in the charter elain the proposed draft of the charter oh it does oh okay because the question mentioned that mailer that went out the office of the
town clerk shall have permanent status pursuant to the options set forth in general statute 9-1 185 beginning with the November 2nd 2027 election to clerk shall no longer be elected rather onor after November 16 2027 and every four years thereafter Board of Selectmen most recently elected in the November municipal election felt on or after two weeks following the Gate of their election by a minimum of three votes appoint a qualified person to be town cler to work in that capacity okay so that's where the four years is coming from I'm just saying if you're coming in and the first time you're exposed to this question and explanation you don't see anything about that four-year relook that's all U Were there other individuals that had questions related to this yeah this is Phil Hy I couldn't quite make out what Carly was saying there was a garbling in
my reception but my understanding then is once appointed through the hiring process the the this position then H is goes through basically a job evaluation every four years is that correct and then also is there something in the the Clark's contract or letter of agreement that protects him or her does the question make sense it does but I don't necessarily know that there's Protections in a contract because we've never drafted the contract I mean this this would go into effect three years from now we would sit there and have to work that out with the town attorney but the the issue that that Carol raises is that the verbage within the charter is that it's reappointed every four years and the concern from the public which I totally get and is that every new board of Selectmen is going to potentially be able to change the Tom clerk which would be foolish but that's what could happen so you know there's there's U that's actually something that actually I believe probably needs to be addressed we might have to call a new Charter revision Commission because I could understand the concern over it I don't think that the intent was to be negative like that but I could understand where people are would be concerned about that I just know as a member of the board of stuckman I'm not changing the town clerk if they're doing a good job and there's not an issue and I don't think the town clerk I think if the town clerk was having an issue and we're having an
issue with the Town Clerk and legally we could do it we wouldn't wait till the four years were up we would do it beforehand that would be me but I I do understand the concern over that how it is stated within the text of the charter revision so I can only tell you that the the thought of doing this is is appropriate in that we do need to sit there as a community and move to this to sit there and be able to have that position filled by a qualified individual in the future so I understand the benefit of having a hiring process for the candidate when when a vacancy happens I'm just wondering if like in four years if you have a a vindictive Board of Selectmen or select people just you know out of the air saying okay time to get rid of this person because we don't like her or him that's the only I'm concerned about because you're changing essentially from a high from a from a an elected office to a hired office and then there doesn't appear to be any wording for protection or how the review Job review
happens and you know how we replace the object of of running it again in four years that's all Liz lat yeah I was just wondering if you could I know you you mentioned it and it kind of went over too fast for my brain how the the interview process would work and who the quote unquote interview committee would be is that something that would be different every year or how would that be chosen well it changes by position normally what would occur is a member of the board of Selectmen would be appointed to the interview committee we would request a member of the board of Finance to be in the on the committee we would then move out and we would probably request for the Town Administrator to be on that committee and then we would go out and normally you deal with a current town clerk so when we just interviewed for the the director of the community center we brought in the director of coventry's Community Center and she came in and was on the interview committee and so that's that's normally how the process will work so you'll sit there and you can have four or five you can have upwards of seven people if you chose to on that interview committee and then you just evaluate the resumés and you you allow the candidates to come in and you interview them and went through the process and we graded each of the individuals for the senior committee and then we made a recommendation to the board of Selectmen and the board of Selectmen appointed the individual so that's that's normally how the process works who's on that committee might differ each time in each position any other questions Liz I mean thoughts but questions no
thank you okay Stephen King yeah you touched upon some concerns that I had obviously it would make sense to ensure that you have somebody with appropriate credentials for the position however that individual is currently elected by the people as are the board of Selectmen and you could make the same argument of the board of Selectmen that you're trying to make for the town clerk and the town clerk essentially becomes a job at the will of the board of Selectmen I understand you're going to have committees making recommendations but the bottom line is the board of Selectmen decide whether or not to hire that individual the people elect the board of Selectmen I think the people should elect the town clerk understood and that's why Stephen we went and we changed the first selectman from being the chief executive officer of the town to basically being the chairman of the board so we have an individual that's in the position and has professionalized the position so that's the same logic that has was being is being applied here and was being
applied by the charter revision commission so was Stephen finished I was just going to mention that you know just argument that that an individual make sure you vet the individual properly at the board level I think that it's appro it's just as appropriate to vet them by the general public the population of Andover I I understand what you're saying but those same people elect the board of Selectmen why shouldn't those people be have have the opportunity to to elect the town clerk because there's not the technical requirement the board of Selectmen as there is for the town clerk so the board of Selectmen is really the current Board of Selectmen what we are are as we're the board of directors of the town we sit there and advise the chief executive officer of the town the Town Administrator as to what we were choosing to do when we're electing a town clerk we're electing someone that is that is dealing with all of the vital records of the community has to follow all of the legal requirements of the state as they file and record all of the documents it's not the same it's just not the same you're not electing you're not electing a a selectman listen Stephen we've had we've had select people who are terrible it didn't matter because they're not they're not
impacting transactional information they're not doing something and we've had first Elmen that we voted for before we made this change that were terrible and they impacted the town negatively and that's the truth that's why we went to a Town Administrator that's why you know I wanted to sit there and see a Town Administrator because the the issue with the select man and especially the first selectman is he's he's part-time and then he's getting paid you know in the case when we first started this you know the the the first selectman was really pocketing $100,000 between his salary and his benefits and you cannot qualify that I might have come in and done a great job I might not come in and done a terrible job but that's not what my role is anymore that's not what the
first selectman's role is anymore town clerk is is a position that has technical requirements that we're extremely lucky to have Carol Lee that when the Republican Town committee and the Democratic town committee select someone to run they're not going to go through the process of qualifying somebody because you're not going to have anybody that you can qualify I'm just flat out telling you I don't see that anyone is g to be running for that office that has gone through the training and the requirements to sit there and be a town clerk I recognize your concerns but again I just I just feel that it should be a vote of the people thank you understood Bob hamburger I just wanted to take a step back and point out for the remainder of the public that's appearing here just to foresee the kind of questions that they might be asking that there's three pieces of information here that can be looked at we have the the ballot questions themselves which are the most condensed reduced summarized statement of of the issues and they had
to be summarized like that in order to fit on the ballot we have the presentation that you've got online here and which they're handing out at at the polling place at Town Hall which amplifies on these issues and gives some background but if people want to see the full detail of what's happening to the Charter that is available on the town's website if they were to go to government and then appointed commissions the charter review commission 2024 they can see the full text of what's being deleted and what's being added it's colorcoded and that's really some of the the questions that are being asked right now could could be avoided if people just went and and looked at at the in-depth ISS what's actually happening to the Charter so that's Point number one I just wanted to point out now Jeff you mentioned we may have to come back when it comes to the the question of the the town clerk I'll just throw out there for everybody's listening pleasure and and thought that right now we have the the reappointment term being stated as lining up with the election of the board of Selectmen something that can be suggested and considered by a future Charter review commission is to stagger that by two years so that the board of selectman has
to come in they have to be seated they have to be in the position for two years before they could take a look at the the town clerk I think that in and of itself might lend some stability to the entire process and Jeff I I see you I see you nodding and thinking you want to you want to jump in and say something here well I I can I I agree with you that on that point the twoe Staggering but we don't even need to reappoint the individual you know we don't need to say we didn't need to say that I I in essence you know thinking about it why did we sit there and say we were going to reappoint the Tom clerk the Tom clerk has a position until there's a an issue of concern or a reason for for potential termination and then you sit there and you go through the process of rehiring but it's usually with cause it's usually it's got to be with cause I I don't see any other way of doing it
with than without cause so maybe what we did Bob is we added some complexity to this that we didn't need to add and we could have just sat there and said it was a you know it was an it's an appointed position and it'd be just like any other employee you do an evaluation it's good or bad you know and you move on so I believe we were reflecting some of the language that's in place for Eric for the Town Administrator so we were trying to to keep these positions as parallel as possible in in the language that that we employed so if I if I recall our meetings that was the rationale behind this so a third thing that I wanted to bring up you've mentioned a number of times the board of Selectmen has a a distinct well delineated process for a number of different procedures for for how we hire how how you impanel a hiring committee let me ask are these things documented anywhere is there a board of selectman operating manual you know for lack of a better term and and if not maybe this is another
thing that the board of Selectmen should consider moving forward so that there is again continuity in how things are done and transparency within the process I would tell you the answer to that is no and we should sit there and get with the Town Administrator and get those things in place okay that's all I've got right now no problem Steve Willard yeah Jee I I don't know I think I can summarize this in one sentence this changes it from just being able to choose a clerk from the voters the electorates in to in town to opening it up to anybody could be could be in this position that's all I've got to say thank you Joan Ebert I'll be very brief too Jeff I I see this as a very important position in town and and agree with a lot of the points you're bringing forth as far as you know we need we need someone that is capable of handling all the important things that Carol has handled for so long and looking to the Future my one scare was you know the four-year thing you've kind of amended that and then I just wanted to say for the people that are here I have had the privilege of sitting on an interview committee with the town that's something that I do in my job in it was very very professional we all took it very seriously we did a lot of the things that Jeff said as far as going through applications you know really looking for qualified people and they did do a good job the only thing that would have scared me before this was the
four-year term and someone being afraid to lose their their job thank you okay anybody else have any other questions on ballot question six okay so before I move on to a ballot question S 8 n 10 those are all related to the budget and they're all related to the town meeting so I want to go through and I want to give everybody a little bit historical perspective as to why these were being considered and what we thought so the town of Andover was chartered in 1848 1848 1848 says it right there on the logo thank you 1848 I went to the town clerk's office because the town clerk keeps all of our Vital Records and keeps all the minutes of everything that previously occurred within the town as best they can so I went backwards and I looked at voting records from 1900 1925 and 1950 and be really honest I loved how they did it back in 1900 1925 1950 they basically put out there that the way they put it on their their nice written script documents was these are the voters we have on the list these are the voters that cast ballots so in 1900 there were a 100 registered voters in the town of and and over 79 cast ballots 79 percentage 79% voting that's awesome 1925 the population increased by 98 individuals or registered voters by 98 individuals 163 of them cast ballots 82.3 2% in 1950 you can see after World
War II we had an explosion in population there was 300 539 registered voters in town 469 of them went to the polls and voted that year at 87.1% so the that's and over historical voting when they were doing the town meeting and you had 100 people that lived in town and they they came and they voted so I want you to sit there and go through our town budget meeting attendance over the last five years I'll start at the bottom and work my way up in in 2019 we had 2235 voters 7 22 people attended the town meeting in 2020 covid we did not have a town meeting in 2021 we had 2296 people 71 people showed up to vote 3.09% in 2022 we had two budget votes the first was May 4th 2330 80 people attended the town meeting 3.43% May 2022 a second time the budget went before the town meeting the same number of registered voters 91 people showed up 3.91% in the budget passed to move to referendum in May of 2023 2367 registered voters 78 made it to the town meeting 3.3% in May of 2024 2386 voters 42 registered voters came to attend the town meeting let me tell you one thing about this of those 42 people that came to vote at the town meeting a minimum of 12 of them were elected officials so there were 30 people from the public that came to our town meeting to move the budget to referend just so everybody understands and is aware of what's going on now I want to go to the reason why these votes are being dealt with we have a $12 million budget
give or take and I'm just rounding numbers so everybody can be aware the ram budget is $4 million the AES budget is $4 million and the town budget is $4 million we currently have two referendum votes we have the ram budget vote that's in the beginning of May and then usually a week later we go to do the town V vote so these are the same registered number of Voters those are the votes cast you can sit there and see the percentages for yourself Year bye in 2024 we had 4.95% of the voters go to the polls to vote on the ram budget now a week later we go to the polls again and we do the town budget we usually get better attendance at the Town budget we end up in double digits we've exceeded 22% twice so we're not the 79% of 1900 we're not the 80% of of 1950 we're 20 2% right the reason for all of these issues all seven8 nine and 10 is to consolidate the voting for the budget referendums to one date so that more people show up to vote on the $4 million
for the ram piece of our budget and we consolidate that budget that that referendum vote to include both RAM and the town budget that's that's what we're trying trying to do there's nothing toar is there's nothing we're trying to get out there and have some Authority or control over it's just a simple fact that people don't vote and we're making them go twice in a limited amount of time and they don't show up and it would be much better to have 22% of the people sit there and evaluate the ram budget at the same time they're evaluating the Tom budget all right so now I'm going to go through the questions and I'm going to
tell you what we might be losing by any of these issues right go ahead Elaine Bart yes I I I just wanted to point out a lot of the problem with the I mean the ram referendum for the budget was on a Tuesday as our general elections are unfortunately the Andover budget vote was on a Monday and it confused the heck out of people that's all I just want to say if they can be on the same day that would be so much better okay so our town budget votes are always on a Tuesday link for the charter oh sorry about that which one was on Monday was that the municipal election the municipal election yes oh sorry we've already taken care of that and doing it on November sorry okay Joan Hebert before I get started go ahead yeah just because it does seem to be a theme of wanting the two voting things to happen on the same day is there a reason we can't talk to RAM and see why their's is I mean do
they have laws and bylaws that they're following why theirs has to be when it is versus stat State Statute says that the regional budget referendum has to be the Tuesday following the first Monday in May you can't do anything about that okay so it's so what statute Carol thank you what it's a statute I'll it's a state statute I can get the number for you Jo I don't have it right off the top of my head but I know what the state said I mean I've often thought it was a problem and I understand the reason for wanting to get them together because we never you know no matter how many letters you write to the editor talking about the ram budget Etc you're right the voters don't come out so okay thank you for answering that all right so ballot question seven and I know there's four different questions that all relate to the same topic but we were when we were drafting the questions we just felt it would be better to sit there and bring forth different questions to change different sections of the charter but they all interrelate and they all deal with the same thing so Seven 8 nine and 10 so the first question is question ballot question seven shall the town Charter be revised to begin the town budget process sooner and set earlier deadlines for budget proposal submissions by Town
departments only reason to sit there and and vote Yes for this is to speed up the or to push the budget process forward so that we can get the two referendums on the same date and if you hold your questions till the end there's one question that has specific issues that you'll want to address and so this one is a very minor item question eight ballot question eight sell the town Charter be revised to hold the annual Town budget meeting in the second week of April instead of in may only reason to do this is to line the two referendums up ballot question nine is the one where you might have some questions so we're going to sit there and go through this one so ballot question nine shall the town Charter be revised to eliminate the Quorum requirement for the annual town budget meeting but not for any special Tom meeting so what we're trying to say here is that the budget meeting is going to at least have a minimum of 12 people there because those are the elected officials that will show up but we have a current Quorum and I believe Carol the number is 25 yes corre 25 so 12 12 people will be the elected officials we have a quorum of 25 but if we got to 24 we wouldn't want the budget not to move to referendum so this is not
anything that we're we're just trying to to verify that if if the budget goes to town meeting if we have 24 people to to show up that budget after changes are made are going is going to go to referendum so the issues with related to the town Charter everybody's worried about what what does the town budget meeting do the com budget meeting questions the the budget amounts has the ability to lower the budget amounts and puts a thumb up thumbs up or thumbs down so that means those 42 people that come to the meeting or came to the last meeting had the authority to approve or to put the budget down and send it back to the board of Finance to redo it
so what did we have to do to try to get this on the same the referendums on the same day we did not change the authority of the town meeting to lower a budget line item the town budget meeting still has the authority to lower a a budget line item and if a budget item is lowered and it passes through the town chart to through the town budget meeting that line item at its reduced rate would then move to the townwide referendum so all we're doing in this issue is eliminating the true up or down on the budget by the people that attend the town budget meeting that's it we're not sitting there saying anything else you still can lower a line item you can still try to sit there and and get the votes to sit there and and decrease a line item the current town meeting budget meeting has no authority to increase the budget it can't increase the budget it can only lower the budget the goal of this is once we adjourn that meeting that budget as it's done with the the potentially lowered line items moves to townwide referendum on the same day as the ram budget referendum that's all we did that's all the changes that were made anybody have any questions related
to this real quick you eliminating the Quorum requirement completely yes we have to eliminate the Quorum requirement completely so in essence one person can show up and vote well like I said there would be 12 elected officials that show up just want to point that out understood but somebody's got to open the meeting Liz yeah so about about that I guess the point is and especially when you showed the voting and the turnout from the last slide or two so I mean I've been to many of these meetings and sometimes it's a very big meeting and then sometimes it's very small so the point of this is the people that get that are there have the ability to make the decision yay or nay or up or down but it doesn't hamstring the the process from moving forward if enough towns people don't show am I am I getting that right if the if we don't pass this then the budget fails and it gets pushed back to the board of Finance for revisions and the board of Finance can bring the exact budget to the next meeting and then somebody packs that budget meeting and and it gets passed that's what happens that's how our town works so you know from my standpoint it's a the town meeting can be packed by Whoever has the biggest issue at that time so the difference from my end from
my standpoint is if I go to a budget referendum even though I have 2,389 voters I have six six to eight times the number of residents come to cast a ballot on the overall budget I feel that's not what I want to sit there and see as an elected official I want to see 2374 people come vote but right we still have 274 people come to vote which is more than the 42 and and again of the 42 a minimum of 12 of them are elected officials and probably more because the people that go to that meeting are the people that are elected officials because they feel they have to get there to sit there and and they they want to be part of the process and so it's just a question of is it is the up and down vote so important for the town meeting or is it more important to try to get more people to participate in both budgets referendums and that's the question so well what are attempt was was to sit there and get 506 people to come and vote for the budgets and give an up or down appropriately for the entire community so that that's that's what this is about l so Joan Ebert I can appreciate you know the sentiment of getting more people involved having been involved the last few years quite you know intensely no matter what we try you know the same people or the people that truly care are
the people that are going to come here you know to to the meetings or to vote you know you know I appreciate the Don denley's and the Scott Sayad and you know people that notoriously really do care and bring points forward okay so that's being said about that I don't know if the the end result is ever going to be the same especially when it comes to the ram budget having put a lot of effort into getting some information out there but we'll see what happens and then my other point is I really am very afraid of speeding up the process in this town I feel like having people that are already you know Eric himself who has a lot on his plate you know the Public Works Foreman that's responsible for a big part of the budget putting things together notoriously each year that we've received budgets at the Timeline that we had previous there's always been things added at the end or things brought to us I just feel like moving it a whole month sooner is not really allowing the Departments to do their due diligence and do a good job at presenting a a budget I think everyone's
very busy they've got their own tasks to do and this is adding pressure on the town employe employes that have to present things that's my opinion okay Kine der roer so my opinion is combining the ram referendum with the town vote is I think a wonderful thing to do I think it'll give people that don't typically vote for the ram referendum or an opportunity to be there and do it at that time I think it'll be a better repres presentation of the town of Andover and secondly ballot question number nine it's just eliminating the the Corum requirement that's all that we really need to discuss here so instead of having 25 people I'm understanding eliminating that to be who who you know whoever shows up plus the representation of the board of Selectmen and the board of Finance can move the budget to referendum that's all it is is the number of people for the Quorum requirement right okay does anyone have any questions on ballot question ine okay we're gonna move on to ballot question 10 which is just you know the last of these items so ballot question 10 shall the town Charter be revised so that the budget passed by the annual Town budget meeting may go straight to referendum on the same day as the Region 8 School District budget referendum just to align the two items and the two referendum dates anybody have any questions on this item okay I'm G move on to item ballot question 11 ballot question 11 shall 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 it be can become effective so
just so everybody's aware an ordinance is a piece of legislation and enacted by a municipal Authority this question you know the board of selectman is you know we could pass an ordinance but we're subject to all the hearing requirements and all the notices and everything else that are is currently in within the charter so we're not going to pass an ordinance in the dark and it's not going to be handled by like that so we talked about you know as this was brought up and and it was discussed thoroughly in front of the charter revision commission so what we we did was we put in a a very detailed way of trying to sit there and move an ordinance from passed by the board of selectman to referendum so there's been some concern as to the language required the language is 50 signatures it's 50 signatures or 2% of the voting public Carol is that incorrect or not just so everybody's aware it's 25 people that is correct 25 people okay so let's talk about the the the signature requirements of of of sorry 50 people it's 50 signatures so let's talk about that it's not 25 my bad it's 50 people so the PTA could collect 50 signatures the Democratic town committee could collect 50 signatures the Republican Town committee could collect 50 signatures and it's you could all combine to C signatures so the way that the repeal process would work is everyone in the town of Andover would
have to receive the text related to the ordinance the ordinance text would be mailed to your house by mailer the timeline on the collection of the signatures will not start until that mailer is received by the town clerk's office the town clerk stamps the mailer into receipt and from that point on everyone in town would have 21 days to sit there and collect 50 signatures that would send the ordinance to the next referendum next regularly scheduled referendum everything we tried to do here was about efficiency without wasting time wasting money if we if the board of Select passed an ordinance that ordinance and it got 50 signatures and it got moved to referendum it would go to the next election in May or November yeah Jeff I just wanted to say it's 20 days not 21 20 days I'm sorry I took a day away from everybody I apologize so 20 days from the day that it's received by the town clerk's office not by the day it was passed by the board of Selectmen or any other arbitrary item it's when the mailer is received and stamped in by the town clerk's office so there are plenty of ordinances that we have discussed at the board of Selectmen and ordinances that we have not passed and not put on any special town meeting because personally I don't like to call people to special Town meetings for items that I don't I don't you know I could we could sit there and schedule a special town meeting all the time it's going to cost the ton money it's going to have people have to come in and and
vote so we we have chosen as a board to u to roll up multiple items on any special town meeting so if you remember the last to meeting we had lot line adjustments that were brought up at the last town meeting we had issues related to other items on that town meeting there were probably five or six items on that agenda at that special town meeting because we have ganged all those items off Eric does a good job of organizing them all and they're all brought up at the special Town meetings and we choose not to call it so in this situ situation it's you've elected a board of Selectmen most of the board of Selectmen have received three to 500 votes from the residents of the Town we're not going to put into effect an ordinance that is negatively impacting a significant number of the Town people but we might sit there and put in an ordinance that sits there and and requires somebody to not walk their dog on the Veterans Memorial Field and allow their dog to defecate on our field without getting fined for that that would be an ordinance we would put in place that would be an ordinance that you could get 50 signatures together with and that would be an ordinance that if you got those 50 signatures would go to
referend so if we pass something that was egregious you put it to referendum and you vote it down if we pass something that's common sense you let it move forward and if you believe that we're doing something bad you don't elect us the next time that election comes around so that's that's my take on all this so Katherine mcal Lewis you were the first one with your hand up hi okay hello all right first of all you ad you mentioned a couple of things the first one being that when you're doing this as the board of Selectmen you have all these regul ations and things that you have to go through to get them the W is there and those I think were put there for exactly that purpose to make sure that you are that there is a checks and balances and you're doing what you're supposed to do before you put in ordinances secondly you left to go to the dog poop one that's a good one for everybody but if we use a better one such as changing when people pay their taxes that's an ordinance and you guys could pass it anytime and whether people want to pay their taxes on a different day or annually or daily whatever you wanted you are still asking people now to go out get the form make sure that form is filled in completely and correctly otherwise you can just deny it then get the 50 signatures in 20 days you think it takes nothing to get signat that's not true and and then go through coming to the board I just I I think that those checks and balances were put there for a reason and this Authority should not be taken away
from from the residents of the Town that's it for now okay Liz that's exactly what I was going to say I mean I think a there's been a lot of criticism especially in the last Board of selectman meeting you know with this whole Charter thing about the board of Selectmen wanting to take over power blah blah blah blah and I think I I don't think that's a fair assessment but this question this one kind of bothers me because to it may seem like some to Someone Like You Folks who are on these boards and you may know everybody in town getting 50 signatures may not be a problem but I I think I think that's problematic if somebody
sees and I'm not even sure how often a new ordinance comes into play it may not even be that big of a deal but it's the Optics the Optics looks like okay you guys can make this decision and then all you have to all you taxpayers have to do is you know oppose it collect your 50 signatures blah blah blah so I I just I just think the 50 signature thing is a stickler for me and I wish there was just a different way to handle this so for me yeah I'm I'm I'm not a fan of this particular one I guess that's all I can say I'm not a fan of this particular one I get what you're trying to say I get your trying what you're trying to do but it it does look like optic wise probably doesn't look as good for the bard of Select even
though I know that's not what your attention is okay shanon loud yeah I just wanted to comment that the change that you're proposing to the Charter is not only about ordinances and I didn't see any question that talks about the other part of or parts of the revision one of which is that would give solely the board of Selectmen the authority to create consolidate modify or abolish permanent board commission department or agency not otherwise provided for in the charter which is almost as concerning to me as the proposition about the ordinance I have a similar concern that many of the questions about the budget are very overs simplistic as far as the significant changes that are going to be made to the process by the proposed
Charter changes so I'll give you an example because I don't think any one of the questions affects this Jeff which ballot question necessitates the new otd which replaces the board of finance budget hearing with a joint Board of Selectmen Board of Finance meeting at which the presence of just three Selectmen would constitute a quorum there are a number of questions on the ballot that don't match up with or don't fully explain the very significant changes that are being made specifically to the budget process and the involvement of the board of Selectmen in addition to the board of Finance in addition to the Town Administrator in the budget process so specifically I'm concerned that the questions don't match
up with the the proposed changes that are being made to the Charter and that to me is is really disingenuous to try to put those questions out and then change the charter in ways that aren't questioned on the ballot Shannon I I I would just tell you that that's not the intent there's nothing in there that's sitting there we trying to hide anything in the questions what I I'm not accusing you of the intent I'm not accusing the intent Shannon Shannon I understand it but I'm just telling you these questions you can read the entire Charter all of these questions are trying to line up they were they were prepared and reviewed by the entire Charter revision commission we attempted to sit there and do the best possible job we can if we didn't line it up exactly that's that's okay I mean for me I I mean I'm just telling you the reality of what we're trying to get done and accomplished and we're talking about on this question the issue related to passing ordinances I I refer back for everyone to the number of people that come to a town meeting so and and this is another question that maybe there is a little bit better way to do it but this is not something that I I look at for anyone here that I'm sorry I sit there and I look at 50 signatures and I know Katherine mcal Lewis can say no and she can sit there and you can we can determine that it's difficult to get 50 signatures I don't necessarily believe that's the case I believe that if you really didn't want the board of
selectman to pass an ordinance I guarantee you the Democratic town committee and the Republican Town committee depending upon which side of this they were on would get the 50 signatures so but Jeff Jeff the 50 signatures only applies to the ordinances it does not apply to the creation modification abolition or whatnot of town boards and agencies so you didn't address the question name name one board or agency that is not noted within the charter that we would abolish give me a I don't need to do that Jeff it gives you asking you it's got to be an un it can't be named in the charter name one no but you can modify the boards Jeff you can create new boards Jeff that take away the powers of existing agencies it is not named in the charter okay Jeff name the fact of the matter is is name something you want to sit there and put it out in public please name something show the public what we could do that is wrong and I'm okay with it I'm not I'm not I'm not arguing with you to try to to create a problem asking you to name one of the boards not named in the charter that the board of Selectmen would and could abolish Committee for Public Safety you could create a Committee for Public Safety you could create another committee that takes away some of the powers of an existing committee Jeff it simply says you can't affect the boards and committees that are named in the charter you can create or modify any of the committees or commissions and that the my my problem with that Jeff is not just that fact but it's the fact that the question that
supposedly deals with this issue isn't even on the ballot all it says is discussion of ordinances it doesn't say anything about this additional power that is going to come solely to the select it is it is because those Tom boarding agencies have to be you know created or or or abolished by ordinance so it's all in the same issue it's all about an ordinance so if we sit there and created an ordinance to establish a new agency or a new board we'd have to create an ordinance and you would sit there and and sit there and object to that ordinance and you would sit there and go through the process that's what this is about this is not a special power that hides in the background that we're sitting there attempting to do if if the board of Selectmen wanted to to abolish an agency we'd have to create an ordinance we'd have to go through the process we'd write the ordinance we'd sit there and and and and you'd be able to go into public speak Shannon and you'd be able to sit there and and object to it and then then if the board of Selectmen passed that and and sent out the notice to the community you would be able to collect 50 signatures
and put it on the ballot that's the issue it's it's not something that sitting in the background it's not it's an ordinance let me let me jump in here janon the language that you're talking about that you find objectionable had to be changed there already was existing language talking about these unnamed commissions or or or organizations and this language had to be changed in order to stay consistent with the change in the ordinance language that is being described in ballot question 11 this is not a separate power this is taking the existing language and making it so that it remains consistent with the larger body of the the the the charter this isn't a separate power that that's being granted this is there already was authority to the board of Selectmen if you look at what's being being struck out and the change in that language is just so that the entire the entire document is internally consistent okay where I don't know I'm I'm just going to ask this because Jeff you're going question by question and I don't see this addressed by any of the questions so you're asking me what additional powers or what additional
things so I'm going to give an example two all new sections of 802 the duties on the budget were created one of them is that the Town Administrator can comment and make recommendations on the budget requests made by various departments offices and agencies and the board of education is noted by definition as an agency of the town where is that in any of the questions that are on the ballot because that's a whole new Authority for the Town Administrator that's question one question two somehow there's now going to be a proposed if this goes through again not a question on the ballot but a question to deal with the budget or new powers under the budget supposed to be joint meetings of the board of Selectmen and the board of Finance to conduct business about the budget somewhat I think taking away the power of the board of Finance so my whole point here is that the questions which I know were thoroughly reviewed and everything and frankly there are probably way too many questions and way too many issues that you're asking the electorate to address and that's a whole problem here but you've granted by virtue of the proposed questions new authority to the Town Administrator and to the board of Selectmen that aren't covered by any of the questions on the ballot and that's my primary concern tonight thank you okay I would sit there and go the reason why and again I go back to the same issue to do these items the board of Selectmen would have to create an ordinance to abolish or create an agency going to your question of powers
granted to the town to to the administrator in the budget process the Town Administrator creates the budget puts the budget together and presents that budget to the board of Finance who approves that budget so I don't understand and and I don't want to get into a long dissertation because Shannon vote no and I'm okay with already did thank you it's good vote no and I would tell you the Town Administrator does all that work so to be able to ask any agency including the board of education for information that assists in preparing that budget I don't understand where that becomes problematic because he does not currently have the authority Jeff to make recommendations to the Board of Education that's why Agency for information so you're telling me and you're telling me the Board of Education will not provide information to the Town Administrator to that's not what it says Jeff okay read the language thank you very much I'll read it Town Administrator make comments and make recommendations on budget requests made by various agencies which includes the Board of Education he has no Authority now to make recommendations on our budget requests by law by Statute by Charter okay thank you next question anybody Stephen King well I'm just going to Echo some of the sentiments of the young ladies before me that you know obviously this puts a lot of power
within the board of Selectmen and you PR this discussion by note noting a drop in attendance that drop in attendance speaks volumes as far as trying to get people involved in just getting signatures the timeline is narrow and I think severely limits the recourse for the residents in a situation where something is passed that just is just not in the best interest of the town okay and I'll tell you why I believe the town meeting had had less attendance in the last cycle and that is because the board of Selectmen and the board of finance and the Board of Education have all done a much better job of trying to be as transparent as they possibly can be and there were no major issues addressed that everybody was sitting there and had was up in arms over so I believe that the town meeting didn't generate any controversy in the last go round the times before when there is a little bit higher participation in those Town meetings there was controversy generated by one or more issues that were out there so I would tell you that the last meeting of the town meeting didn't have very much participation because personally I think we've done a very good job and the issue that I'm trying to address is I'm trying to get it away from the town meeting of up or down and just get the 500 residents that will actually show up and vote to get a more democratic process out there and more people you know voting on all of the budgets that we have to pass so that
includes RAM and includes the town budget so understood but my the focus of my point was that the narrow window for a petition to referendum that that is of greatest concern to me everybody would have a minimum of two to three months of of anybody participating anybody that comes to a meeting and sits there and you know a something at the board of selectman doesn't happen within one meeting it very rarely ever does happen within one meeting it's usually and especially an ordinance would be a process because we'd have to sit there and express what we wanted to do with the ordinance we'd have to have it written by the town attorney we would then have to get it back and and send it out as a public notice and have a public hearing so it's not a small window and it's not a tiny window the 20 days is after the 2,368 residents get their their notice that here is the potential proposed ordinance by the board of select the reality is it could happen in one meeting that's my point again it can't because it has to go to public hearing so Katherine mcol hi my issue again with this is the fact that and I agree with Shannon I'm sorry but I do that you are taking a lot of the responsibility from the town residents or the authority from the town residents and giving it to the board of Selectmen and that's not what town meeting that that's not the town meeting form of government that we have and I
don't think that you and you can say you're right there's been a lot of good things everyone's done and perhaps that has led to less people coming out but I would also say that the local government here doesn't do a really good job of letting everybody know what's going on and trying to get people involved and even when we want to get someone to volunteer because we need somebody on a specific board all you do is put I I I see it in the paper there's an opening on such and such board you don't say what the board does how many times do it meet what it's there for what it's supposed to H happen nothing there's nothing to entice people to get together and try to come in it's just there's here it is there's an opening so if people knew more about
what was going on I think you'd get more people to come out okay Bob hamburger I think there's an important part of this that that needs to be brought out that folks folks may be missing so if the board of selectman passes an ordinance and the mailer goes out that 20-day period the ordinance is held in abeyance it does not go into effect until the end of that 20-day period And if the petitions the the the 50 signatures are collected and submitted within that 20-day period it never goes into into effect until a referendum is held and that 20-day period is not a do or die kind of thing if a if the board of Selectmen passes an ordinance that ordinance goes into effect and the public at any point after that decides we don't like this collect 50 signatures submit it again the ordinance go gets suspended until the next referendum is held so this isn't a do or die kind of thing and this kind of language was insisted upon by several members of the the charter revision commission when we talk about checks and balances we wanted to make sure that there was an accessible ongoing open-ended way of reversing what the board of Selectmen might have passed and I don't I don't think that has been has been presented adequately okay Liz sorry I don't I don't want to belabor this but maybe a simple question maybe this would help how were ordinances approved but prior to this I don't have the original charter in front of me how how were they
approved before could maybe maybe that be answered sure they would go in front of a a a special town meeting so 42 residents including 12 elected officials would sit there and up or down on a Town ordinance it's either that or you know you allow the board of selectman do it and if you don't like what the ordinance is you sit there and gather 50 signatures and it goes for reference so the original way is it would go to a Tom eeting okay Bata yes Jee did you say there was a cost associated with the meetings and referendums and can you share with us what that is well I believe that we were talking about this on Friday and I believe the number was somewhere between you know 500 and ,000 for town meeting but Carol Lee would be much better about a town meeting as far as the overall cost of
that but the reason why and one of the things beata is we're not doing a special referendum what we talked about is to be as efficient and as open as possible is if the signatures were collected and everything was approved it would go to the next general election within town so there would be no extra cost related to the referendum timeline it would just be the cost of the special town meeting so Carol if or Eric either one of you that has a basic number for the community have to send a mailer out and that is anywhere between three and $400 depending on the size of it and then the cost of I believe the registar or Deputy registar salary hour that they so the hourly cost that we're paying for the employees to come and participate and check off the the names of the individuals that come to vote thank you issue okay we're going to move to item 12 ballot question 12 shall the 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 repayment term of more than one year this question increases the threshold from $10,000 to $50,000 any questions on this topic this is really meant to just be more
efficient and eliminate the need to call a special town meeting or something that might be a copy lease something along that lines okay no questions I'm going to move on to ballot question 13 ballot question 13 sell the town Charter revised to increase the minimum amount to require special town meeting approval for any Grant of financial aid from any source to a grant that requires the town to provide a local match of $25,000 or more the current threshold for a special town meeting for the amount of money that a town would need to put into a grant is currently $1 so we're moving that to $25,000 so what this is saying is if we receive a grant that requires a 20% contribution and that is a $125,000 grant and we get we're going to get $100,000 from a state federal or philanthropic organization the town could sit there and apply and and accept a grant that requires us to put in $25,000 or less if it's greater than $25,000 we need to go to a special tongue meeting any questions on that item okay everybody's tired now all right ballot question 14 shall the town
Charter be rise to increase the minimum amount requiring special T meeting approval to any proposed supplemental appropriation of 1% or more of the current Town budget the current threshold for that is 0.5 so we're looking to increase that to 0.1 that's basically and the way that this is calculated is it's 0.005 of the AES board of education budget and the town operating budget it does not include Ram so it's 0.5 of those two components basically $8 million so it's moving that threshold from $40,000 to $80,000 item Stephen King I'm I'm just curious how often this has hampered you say within the past two years has not because I wouldn't sit
there and we would normally deal with this during the budget process but there are certain situations where we may run into something and we might want to get it done out of our current current operating budget or our fund balance and this would just allow other boards of Selectmen to be able to sit there and deal with a different hreshold any other questions on this one okay question 15 ballot question 15 shall the town Charter be revised to provide that any proposed supplemental appropriation that exceeds 2.5% of the current Town budget or approximately 200 or $200,000 whichever is greater must be sent directly to a referendum vote so
this question is specifically related to the town mower that was just approved at the last town meeting so this was one of the items that was on the last town meeting that we had we had an opportunity to purchase a mower and that mower because of the limited inventory that's out there and available a decision was made to sit there and put the town mower in the budget for the current year normally that but that would have went on the budget for the following year and we would have paid it but we needed to get it done in the current year and we had a significant number of people come to the meeting it got passed it was a fairly tight vote but it did get passed and it's a it was a lease so it wasn't as if we paid 220 or 205 or $210,000 for the mower all at once it's a fiveyear lease but it was a member of the charter revision commission that really wanted to make sure that that type of expenditure didn't just sit there and go to town meeting that it was required to go to townwide referendum so a greater number of people would vote on it so normally those types of items would happen during the budget vote they wouldn't be special Appropriations and
and we wouldn't sit there and try to do a supplemental appropriation for something like that this was an an odd circumstance it's the only time that's ever happened in the time I've been on a board of Selectmen but the member of the the charter revision commission was not happy that the vote of the town meeting came out that way and so they requested that it go directly to referendum so that more people would get to vote on so I see Liz you have a question yes so this is for items greater than $200,000 right yes what was it before Oh we would never go to special we would never go to a referendum was was there a Dollar figure before the2 200 th000 dollar figure it was one of the dollar figures that we would have had in here so you know this would be a special time so it would be 40 Grand so it would be related to this number we took this this ballot question 14 is 0.005% or $40,000 so if we were trying to make a supplemental appropriation of greater than $440,000 which we were we had to go to a special time meeting which we did and then the mower got approved so what what is being stated and what the charter revision commission is saying is anything in excess of $200,000 should not just be a voted on by the town meeting because in reality there's a limited number of people that vote that go to these Town meetings they have an an an amount of authority to to push things forward and to be really honest the town meeting and in the past has been packed by the side
that wants something done for themselves and that's that's just the reality of our our form of government related to the town meeting so what this is about is this is about trying to move something of that great an expense that is off the budget cycle to move it to a townwide referendum and that that's the thought because in reality if something came up that was greater than $200,000 currently and it was for the benefit of one of the Town agencies that really wanted to see it pass they would pack the town meeting and get it okay so how do we know what would be allowed for this sort of appropriation I mean anything under $200,000 could kind of slip through it would be a truck no it still comes down to we'd still have to go to town meeting on anything in excess of $80,000 in excess of 80,000 corre yeah because ballot question 14 and ballot question 15 relate in certain ways the ballot question 14 relates to what's the threshold to do a supplemental appropriation and to sit there and have it go in front of a town meeting or not so ballot question 14 is the current threshold was $40,000 it would move to $80,000 if it was an item of need and and and and understand this still and and Eric correct me I'm wrong or or or Carol still needs Board of Finance approval like we didn't sit there and the board of selectman didn't just send the mower to town meeting without Board of Finance approval that is correct it was approved for purchase by CIP and then the board of Selectmen and then the board of Finance
and then it went to town meeting okay so from from this standpoint that even if we wanted to do this even if we wanted to spend $80,000 the current form of government the current form of government is that the board of Finance still needs to approve that okay okay thank you can I point out one other thing that's just a technicality is that these are cumulative so this means in any given year all supplemental Appropriations in total have that threshold on them this is not for an individual thing this is collective throughout that budget cycle what is allowed one now I'm not so sure now you flip back to question question 15 because question 15 is what I was looking at when I asked the question and then you went back to 14 and I'm like wait what happened to the $200,000 because you asked me what the current threshold is so it was it is $40,000 currently for Appropriations okay and as Eric pointed out it's cumulative so so well let's walk through what we did with the the mower so the mower was
brought up in front of of Public Works and the Town Administrator asked for this to be evaluated CIP evaluated it and said it's a good idea it then went to the board of Selectmen and we sat there and said it was a good idea it then went in front of the board of finance and they sat there and said okay we agree with it also it then had to go to a town meeting which we had we had the one meeting which was ganged up lot line adjustments everything else and the town meeting voted on this and so that was done at that special town meeting if we had items so anything over $40,000 this threshold on question 14 was going to have to go to special meeting the town mower even with the new threshold would have had to go to town meeting and actually it wouldn't go to town meeting now if we vote for this it would go directly to referendum this is a very odd this is a very odd item I would sit there and tell you that so I've been on the board about 10 years this is the first time we ever chose to deal with anything like this this would normally go through the budget cycle it was very so it would still okay it would still go to referendum it wouldn't necessarily need a special town meeting is what you're okay gotcha right okay I'm good thank you Joanne Ebert was up next sorry I just wanted to add on to having been involved in it that it you know was presented to the board of Finance as being a very the reason it didn't like you said the normal process
is to go through budgeting year toe and it should have been anticipated beforehand and been included in a few fut budget or the present budget but it was presented that it was you know a specialized item that if we didn't wa if we waited it wouldn't be available so all of those circumstances but it does bring up the thought you know I'm a little leer of some of the ballot questions just because of the cumulative effect of everything that Eric brought up but that that's what happened the hope hopefully the hope is that people budget accordingly so that there's not additional Appropriations you know made to the taxpayers that have already passed a budget well just just to clarify that this this was the mower was $200,000 financed over five years it was $5,000 that would be in the Department of Public Works Capital Equipment fund so what we had to what was done and the request and the reason why it was
made was because there was limited inventory on those mowers and if we waited till the beginning of the next fiscal year and went through our budgeting process we would not have been we would not have had availability to buy that mower so it was a first come first serve thing for the dealer that had the mower and that was the choice that was made but it was only $50,000 and then and then the next $50,000 was in the budget cycle for the following year but because of it cumulative total that's what had to happen thank you Shannon go one second Shannon go ahead Eric just as a clarification under the current budget the way it says is leases or lease options to which the town including the local Board of education is a party to which involve a term of obligation in excess of one year have to go to special meeting so currently if I bought if I leased
something that cost the town $1 per year that is technically supposed to go to a town meeting unless it falls under the title of a lease of Personality which which means like general office thing so if Public Works bought a $20,000 item that they were going to lease over three years that would automatically go to special meeting under our current system that's just I just want to point out what's in our actual Charter now okay Shannon yeah hopefully an easy question where does it say what Eric has described as cumulative I didn't see that anywhere in the charter or the charter evisions okay that would be item F under 304f which says any appropriation from the capital non-recurring expense fund not included in the annual budget which exceeds one quarter of 1% of the budget as specified that's what it says now so right now that's the way it reads are you looking at it Channon or do you have any other questions yeah I'm looking at it I'm just curious how one
would understand or I'm even looking at it and it refers to section 805b so you've got to go there how does that get to the cumulative Eric if you can just explain it in layman's terms so to speak because it's the total appropriation from the capital and non- reoccurring budget well Shannon I would sit there and I would go that's the way that we've interpreted it for the years that I've been on the board so it's always been a cumulative number okay thank you all right any other questions related to ballot question 15 okay ballot question 16 this is just a legal EAS issue so shall the town Charter be revised to delete transition sections 1012 1013 and 1014 which shall be recorded in the office of the town clerk for reference so this question is meant to delete sections that were modified by prior Charter revision commissions and to simplify the the current document anybody have any questions related to this item okay so I I personally I want to thank everybody this is the most U attended meeting that we've had on Zoom I really believe I would tell you that all of the information that we we had here is
available or will be available on the town website so I would ask that you sit there and share it with your other residents who weren't here hopefully they can come and watch this tape it's also recorded it'll be available so that people who were not available to attend can sit there and come and get information as to how they want to answer the ballot questions around there apologize that the ballot is so long but it's how we chose to sit there and try to get the these questions in smaller form but not one big long dissertation for each thing so I personally believe that as Louise Goodman said that we probably should all go to early voting to sit there and deal with all of these questions and get them answered you can sit there and take the sample ballot and have it filled out beforehand so you
know what questions you want to answer yes and hopefully you'll answer yes on all of them because it will make town government more efficient you you may not but that's okay so I can make my pitch for that anybody else right now we're going to move on to public speak unless somebody has a question Bob yeah I just wanted to I I've been taking a look at this is just to address some of the things that Shannon said a little earlier I've been looking at some of the sections that she brought up that she said you know represent additional powers for the board of Selectmen or for the Town Administrator and that weren't referenced within these changes I mean she she spoke about section 802 for example the board of Finance may suggest a target for expenditures and I the last line there says however the target shall not be binding with respect to budget submittals and similarly the Town Administrator May comment and make recommendations on the budget requests and Shannon was claiming that these are additional Powers the way that I that quite frankly is I as an individual could go to Every Board of Education meeting and do exactly those same things these are additional responsibilities for the for the the the individuals that are named there but they are not additional authorities or Powers as I read that language so Shannon you and I can take this offline and and discuss this but this is this is how I see the language that that you think is is granting unenumerated Powers all right any other questions related to the ballot questions before
we move to public speak okay so there's nothing that's going to get done at this meeting no motions no votes no nothing like that but we're going to move to item four public speak Katherine mcal Lewis hi one of the things I had asked at that meeting was why we couldn't put the language update the language in the chter and have language that's 20th let alone 21st century and take out most legal and take the which by the way I spent a year of my life doing and it wasn't easy but it was worth doing and take maybe a things that are over a paragraph that could be done in three sentences and I don't know why we're not willing to do that I don't understand it because people shouldn't have if this is the document to help the people of the Town govern the town I don't understand why it shouldn't be in clear concise hamburger can you come back to me I'm still thinking about I have something to say but come back to me in in a few people Joan Ebert Jeff did you call me Joanne Joanne sorry okay yep I'm not I've already said quite a bit during the night so I won't say too much I just am very concerned with the timeline of moving the budget preparation all of the Town departments Our Town Administrator you know they all have daily jobs to do and tasks to do and it may sound easy and I understand hoping to get all those additional voters out I would love it too I'd love to see a lot more voting for The Ram referendum I just feel like we're putting way too much pressure on everybody to prepare the documents
double check it make sure it's correct and then present it to the board of Finance or whatever the process you know needs to do just too much of a change thank you okay I'm GNA call on Scott person because we didn't have a normal meeting so Scott would you like to say anything Jeff I heard enough okay Philip hovie yeah I'm good I appreciate all the com comments and conversations so thank you very much elain Bart yeah I just I just want to thank you for doing this meeting really appreciate it and like you said it's been recorded So it's going to go out there so people can go ahead and check into it I know the the people who are doing early voting just about all of them knew we were having this meeting tonight decided nope we're just going to get it done so that's okay but thank you very much for this Shannon L thanks also I just want to thank you for having this meeting and also say that I encourage everybody who's on this meeting and others who are going to vote on these very important Charter revisions to actually look at the charter revisions that are being proposed because as I tried to make clear I think there are very overs simplistic explanations about very significant changes being made especially to the budget process that I don't think the questions on the ballot
accurately reflect and having voted today and having looked at all the questions previously I've made comments to that effect for a while but now it's here and it's on the ballot and please please review act the actual changes that are being posed because there's a lot more than the questions actually reflect thanks okay Eric Anderson I'm good okay Steve Willard just thanks Jeff and thanks to the recent Charter revision committee for for putting all this together thank you right Jerry kmet or an kmet hi it's me Ann I really feel the same way as Shannon did I think there's a lot of changes that are in that whole document and the questions do not clearly reflect that there's so many details that are being changed and I'm not happy with the question that's it thank you Michael sinowitz all set thank you Katherine Hutchinson I have nothing to say additionally thank you Carol Lee set thank you Dave castani I just wanted to thank the charter revision committee and the sikan I think there was a lot of information I think it was pretty clear and I appreciate all the hard work everybody's done thanks thank you Bata
gamsky thank you to everyone who has taking the time to work on this and thank you for giving us the opportunity to ask these questions and to bring this information to us that's all lean Hutchinson no thank you okay Stephen King I'll Echo the support for the work the committee did obvious VI L you can't please everybody I see positive in some of the language there's a number of things I disagree with but thanks again for the effort and appreciate the work you do Kathleen wart thank you for the meeting it was very informative I think y all did a wonderful job and I think this meeting was very informative my only concern is is I truly believe that a lot of the individuals who are going to vote on these aren't really on going to understand what they're voting on and I think some of them may or may not pass just because of lack of understanding which is unfortunate thank you Liz low catch oh I think I've I think I've said enough thank you all appreciate you and you know good luck right danan grer yes can you hear me can okay good I just like to add add my thanks to everybody that made this happen good meeting Jeff you always conduct a good meeting I'm happy with that I hope there's no minimum number of Voters that have to
answer those questions in order for it to pass because I think most you know John and Jane Doe out there when they look at that 14 15 questions it's just roll their eyes they're they're not going to understand what what this is all about and they just going to skip the questions which I think is really unfortunate and I don't know what more you could have done to get people informed as to what this is all about but again when I looked at that ballot and my you know my eyes just rolled around to my head and I'm I'm sure that most people are just not not even going to bother answering so I hope there's no minimum number of people that have to answer all those questions so that's it but good job good try I wish you all the best of luck with it thank you I just want to say thank you for presenting this information and for the productive dialogue and to everyone who had comments I appreciate everyone being so engaged in the process and and respectful throughout it so thanks please okay I think we'll go back up to Bob hamburger I just wanted to thank you Jeff for all of your input not only as you know for selectman but also your work on on the commission a week and a half ago there was a letter to the
the River East in which your name and mine were mentioned side to side and I I hope the letter writer understands that I appreciated that I appreciate being being named in the same context as you for all the work that you've done here and also in a in a follow-up letter last week there was a different writer who said that hell must have frozen over because he agreed with the first raiter and the two of them have diametrically opposing viewpoints quite frankly I view this as as a mark of success if we can get different people with the town who come from different perspectives to agree now they agreed to I think vote things down so I don't know how successful this all is but you know this this really has been an exercise in compromise which is what what politics is and you know I've been enthusiastic about it I hope everyone realizes I'm enthusiastic about the process and even at this meeting there were I argued for some things which I might not necessarily have
agreed with but I agree wholeheartedly with the the review and revision process as as I said to the reporter at River East a couple of weeks ago when he interviewed me this is democracy and ction and I'm I'm pleased and proud to be a part of it and I want to again thank everybody that was on the commission everybody on the board of selectman this is a complicated and challenging assignment that we all took on and you know it's up to the voters at this point so thanks again I don't think I missed anyone but if I did did I okay so I I want to Echo a couple thoughts I want to Echo Kimberly's thoughts I I really appreciate everybody participating in the meeting even if we disagree it was it was done in in an appropriate manner I I I really do enjoy that about these these meetings when you can have some disagreement but you're done you do it respectfully I think that's great and I'll go to Bob's Point I actually take the fact that Don Denley a bar r Republican and Scott soet a far-left Democrat sat there and and believe that these issues are inaccurate I I feel that as a a win because that means that
we're driving the bus right down the middle of the field and we're trying to do this in the most respectful and appropriate manner fashion so I I actually think that's a win and whenever my friend Don Denley can criticize me he he takes advantage of it and that's okay but but I think the the issues that the charter revision commission went to address are issues that were appropriate they were they were measured we we had very good discussions on that committee back and forth and attempting to try to allow for the most especially on the ordinance issue I think we went forward to try to give the most opportunities for people to sit there and and have an opportunity to disagree with the
board of selectmen's choices and to give them the opportunity to sit there and and force an ordinance to to referendum so thank you very much for everybody however you vote is how how you vote this is more informational as much as possible and I thank you for your time so I think we're we're all done we're going to adjourn we don't really need to vote for it but thank you very much for everyone attending it was it was a great meeting all right byebye thank you thank you