Meeting transcript
Special Town Meeting
June 30, 2020 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Go through this process. It's all new. I'd really like to thank Linda and Amanda for doing an excellent job. Thank you very much. You're welcome. We're all here for a town special meeting. And let me read the announcement for you all. The electors and citizens qualified to vote in town meetings in the town of Andover are hereby notified that a special town meeting for the town of Andover will be virtually held on Tuesday, 06/30/2020 at 7PM for the following purposes. One, to choose a moderator for said meeting, to elect a member to fill the vacancy on the Regent Eight Board of Education term ending 06/30/2023 and to adjourn. Copies of the candidate synopsis of qualifications will be available on the TOM website at andoverct.org. Dated at Andoverct, the May 2020, signed by the members of the Board of Selectmen. So we're gonna get started. The first thing that we need to do is choose a moderator for said meeting. I nominate Wally Barton. I second it.
Okay. Any other nominations? All All those in favor of Wally Barton? Aye. Aye. Wally, the meeting is yours. Aye.
I just wanted to let everyone know that this meeting is being recorded. Thank you. Alright. Wally, you're muted. You have to unmute yourself.
Okay, Amanda. I'm gonna need your help cause you can see every one I cannot so when someone raises their hand to make a nomination or to say something you'll have to call on them all right? Gotcha.
Okay so nominations for the Regional Eight Board of Education. Are there any nominations? Anybody raise their hand, Amanda?
Shannon Loudon. Shannon Loudon's raising her hand. Shannon, please unmute I did.
I nominate Ed Smith for the vacancy on the Rams School Board. Is there a second to the nomination? I second.
And that is? Daniel Foran. Thank you. Is there any further nominations? Yes. I'd like to nominate Lori Blake.
That's Jerry Cremay dominating Lori Blake. Is there a second to that nomination? I second that. And you are? Stacy Bigley. Thank you. Are there any further nominations? Hi, Wallace. It's Dave Costanian and I nominate Brian Clay.
Brian Clay has been nominated by Dave Costanian. Is there a second? I second Eric Anderson.
Seconded by Eric Anderson. Are there any further nominations? I'll have to say this twice more. Are there any further nominations? Are there any further nominations? Wally, let me go through and just make sure.
No, if no one's raised their hand and come up with another nomination, I've said it three times. That's how we normally do it at a meeting. I will declare nominations to be closed. Now the hard part, roll call down the list and everyone will have to say who they vote for one at a time to get through this. There is no secret ballot here. You'll have to verbally say who you're voting for.
Before we begin, we have Nicholas Eckert who just joined the meeting.
Nicholas. Oh, yes. Hi, Nicholas. Can you hear us? Nicholas? Amanda, ask Wally before we vote. Did Nicholas just disappear? You should give a couple minutes.
I'm not seeing him. Nick Eckhart, are you still there? I think he's left the meeting. Okay.
At some point, do we stop letting people in? I mean, we're about to take a vote. Before we vote, can we hear from the candidates?
That's fine. Which way you wanna do it? Do you want just the candidates to speak or do you want a question and answer period as well? Well, I would like for them to speak first
and then I suspect if people have questions they should be allowed to ask them.
That's what we would normally do at a town meeting, but this is a little different. So we would go to the, first person that was nominated, was Ed Smith, if he'd like to make a statement.
Thank you very much. I would just refer to the letter that I have online for people to look at the details, and I will let there's a lot of things that are up there. Some people might be wondering if I'll be able to handle all of the things that I've listed as well as being on the ramp board event. My intention is to, if selected for the board event, to drop the union position at my school and also cut back on my EnviroCon commitments, so I will free up time, as far as the Inland Wetlands Water Watershed Committee, at Inverter, I would expect to remain at meetings, but only if they need a quorum, And that pretty much sums up.
Okay, the second person nominated was Lori Blake. Lori, would you like to say something?
Sure, thanks Wally. Well, I would just like to say, I'm so pleased to see everyone came out tonight to vote. I think it's important that Andover has an option to say, to choose who they would like for this important position. I too have a letter up on the website that hopefully folks had a chance to go and look at. So I'll defer to that as well. But I would just like to say that I'm excited to be a candidate and I have a soon to be seventh grader entering RAM. So I will have quite a long few years in the RAM community as I have in the Andover Elementary community.
And I'm excited to participate and give back to make our schools as strong as they can for our community as well as our students so thank you.
We have Maria Nella who would like to ask a question.
Can I have the third candidate speak first please Amanda and then we'll go to the questions if that's alright? Yes. Ryan Clayton, if you'd like to say something.
I will thank you and I'll keep it quick because I know folks are anxious like the other candidates I've had an item up on the up on the website. Very excited to be given the opportunity and nominated to be part of the RAM board and just looking forward to hearing some of the questions and moving forward.
Thank you. Alright Amanda, if someone has a question now. Okay, we'll start off with Maria Nella.
Hello, I just wanted double check is it a common practice to vote via I mean I guess not be be in a public vote like this for a position like this
Yes. In a town meeting, we do have the option of a secret ballot. Because this is on Zoom, it will be a roll call vote by the people normally we'd have like a show of hands unless someone called for a secret ballot and then we'd hand out ballots we cannot do that on the Zoom
program. We could consider using the chat piece of the Zoom call and sending our vote to the host So it's only visible to the host. I'm just concerned that, you know, that the vote is public. Right? So I
can Not everyone is on Zoom. We have some people that are on a telephone. So they don't have that option available on the phone. So basically it's going to be a roll call vote. They're gonna go down the list and say, who did you vote for? And then we're gonna tally the count that way. Again, this is different than a town meeting where people are present and we have the option of a secret ballot. We really don't have that tonight.
Okay, I guess I over. I didn't think about that. Linda Derrick or Eric Anderson, did you wanna speak on that?
I actually think that's a very good idea. Not everybody can do that. No, I mean, that's the only issue. So how many people are not doing that?
Who is on a cell phone that it does not have the capabilities of this voting via Zoom? We also have Ed Smith raising his hand.
Could I make a suggestion? Perhaps the three candidates would vote and then drop off of the Zoom meeting so that they would not be witnessing who was voting. Would that be a help? The meeting is being recorded, though.
And the other thing is it it is a matter of public record. If if it's being recorded and then it goes into the minutes, it will reflect all of the votes. Amanda, how many people are only dialed in? We have at least three phones. Okay.
Is it an option to allow the rest of the community to chat and just those three to voice.
Dan Foran, did you have something you wanted to Yeah. I I personally have no problem with my vote being voiced, but if there's this much concern, are we not doing this via mail in or through an absentee ballot system if there's that much of a concern? And maybe that's something that we need to look at in lieu of what we're doing right now.
Dan, unfortunately, that would require a change to the town charter. The public meeting is the method that the town uses for these types of affairs by the charter. So we worked out with the town's attorney, but the closest we could come to our standard meeting is and still meet the governor's executive orders.
And this was it. So nothing's been handed down by the governor as far as elections go, even though stuff was done through the Board of Finance that town budgets did not need to be voted on and that the Board of Finance could pass whatever budget that they wanted to, but nothing was done as far as elections go?
The budget issue is a state statute that the legislature allowed.
So my thought is that we have the ability for each participant to message us privately. So it's up to the moderators and and the board if they would like me to retrieve votes that way. Linda is a host, Linda Derek, and she would be able to see the messages along with
It doesn't matter if we actually vote personally or publicly.
That's what I was going to suggest. Can we go through the role? Because I don't mind voting personally.
Say your vote or you can send it privately through chat.
If it's a big issue the option is there but if people are willing to voice their vote we can get through this a lot quicker I think. Okay, then let's voice our vote.
All right. Amanda, do you want to do the roll call please? Wait. Is
everyone spoken? Yes, they are. You're right. Go ahead, Wally. All right. Anybody else put their hand up, Amanda?
Are two more people that are in the waiting room.
It looks like Nick Eckert is here again. Would anyone else like to speak and ask a question during this time? Shannon?
Yes. On the chat, miss Lowley raised the question whether or not there was a number that those on the phone could call in to more privately vote. So given that it is an issue that's been raised, the question I would have is if everybody else other than the three people who are by phone wants to vote privately as we would in a town meeting, and then a phone number could be provided for people to either call or text so that those only those three people could could call privately, then we could deal with that very quickly. And I would and then you have a also a public record of all those electronic votes via the chat.
Thank you, Shannon. So Linda and Wally and the board do you think it's appropriate for those phone numbers to call Carol Lee at the town hall to cast their vote if they so choose?
If that's the way you wanna do it. Normally, we would have if someone requested a secret ballot would be a vote rather than having people publicly vote on these positions.
We're make we're making this more difficult than it than it initially came out to be. I understand that people don't want to sit there and have their vote be public, but in this circumstance with what we're dealing with, this is what we should do to make it equal. So if everybody does it the same way, problem. I
agree and I personally think that people can vote for the candidate of their choice. Once you go through this whole list, I don't think anybody's gonna remember who voted for who to be honest. There
are three other select men though on this call, select woman. I apologize, Paula. So I'd like to hear from them.
Nick Eckert, by the way, I'm going to sign you in in a second, or maybe just go ahead. Can you just, Nick, tell me your street address? Wait, you have to unmute yourself. Unmute yourself. There you go. Right. Hi. 7 Brown Drive.
And then Nick, I just need to see your photo ID. I'm sorry, what number did you say?
7. Okay. Could be my wife's name too, Erlinson. Yep. No, I got him.
Okay, very good. You're in. So we're just deliberating We the have Carrie Crompton who would like to speak.
I would like to ask all three candidates a question. Given that we are going to be having
hard times ahead with all the fallout from COVID, there will have to be cuts in curriculum, I expect, in the next year anyway, and compromises made in, you know, what what is being given to the students. And I'd like to hear from each of the candidates what they would like to prioritize and keep no matter what, whether it's, you know, humanities or sciences or athletics or arts or whatever I would just like to know how how you feel about what's most important for the RAND students
Well, I'll speak first. I'm I'm not gonna make a call on that until, I if elected, until I've had meetings with administration. I believe administration is gonna have lots of input on that, and so I would defer until I've gotten up to speed on a lot of the issues. I wouldn't make a judgment at this moment. Sorry to dodge the question.
I'd be happy to speak next if that's okay. It's hard to see everybody and I can't see if Brian's also trying to talk right now, but I think that there will likely have to be lots of difficult budget conversations. I think that we can't compromise a well rounded academic rigorous curriculum for the students, nor options to engage extracurricular activities, whether that be clubs, music, or athletics. And I think that there are creative ways to ensure that many things, if not all that are currently happening still occur. And I don't know what those ways are. I think they'll present themselves along the way as we dive into this situation a bit more. So sort of exactly like Ed said, I don't think we can pinpoint exactly what the rollout would be, but I think we're gonna have to have creative leaders. I think we're gonna have to think of new ways to do things such as how we're doing them now in an effort to cut as little, if anything at all for the students to meet all of the students' needs, because there are students that have various needs, interests, and strengths, and we should be able to have offerings that appeal to all of them. Thank you.
Hi, this is this is Brian and from a priority standpoint, it's the priority is education. Whether or not you'd wind up having to evaluate different ways to deliver that education. But you know, the question was, what's the priority? The priority, the priorities education, you know, from there, you'd look at, you know, what you've been able to do as relates to education and costs. Costs. And then identify what what might come next. As the other folks have said there, you know, it's not going be an individual, I think that that's able to make the decision you're going to work together. The key is working with the not just the board members,
but the superintendents and you know, and the folks within the school to help them identify what the priorities are post that but, you know, again, just from a straight what's the number one priority, it's the education of the students. Students
of Jeff, back to you. You wanted to hear from the other select persons?
If they don't have a problem with taking the public vote or if they think that the chat is not a good option, then we're gonna go with the way that this meeting was established and set up in the beginning. Hey, Jeff, it's Jeff Murray. Hey, Jeff. Hey, how are you? I, you know, if somebody's really uncomfortable, we do the roll call. Would it be possible for them to just say instead of the vote that they're doing to say chat? So Linda could expect that to come in via chat and if the other people on the phone say text or call, they could expect their vote text or call. I think that the people that are gonna defer are probably gonna be small but we should give them that option if they so choose. Okay. That's just my thoughts.
Yeah, we so we talked about this a while during our meeting and I know a lot of people weren't able to listen in that night. So this was the best option we could do, but I'm fine with if people are not comfortable doing it publicly. I'm fine with either text or chat. I want to make sure everybody's comfortable with, you know, the procedure. So I'm fine with that. Scott. Scott, you have to unmute yourself.
I'm fine. I'm fine the way it's set up. Okay. Well? Dan, Lauren has his hand up.
Yeah. For the people that don't want to vote publicly, is it possible when the rest of us vote, afterwards they go into the waiting room and you bring them in one by one and they cast their vote unrecorded and then they go back into the waiting room?
That that's defeating the whole point of what they're trying to accomplish which to keep their vote private
because it's a recorded meeting. This is just I just said unrecord that at that part of it. Stop the recording.
Okay. Now we're gonna end up having to sit there and and listen. We went through the town attorney to try to get this meeting set up because it was so different. I personally just believe now with everybody, we should all follow the same rules and we should all have to give our vote in public. It might be difficult, but it's just something that we should do. That's my opinion. The other selectmen I understand, right now we'd end up in a two two tie, so that's not really gonna do us any good. I just say we established meeting and the rules for this meeting this way, we should just do it Because I don't think taking Dan's idea and stopping the recording is really it will cause us more problems down the road than it will help someone avoid publicly voting for one of the candidates. So let's continue with the meeting as is and I just believe it's just in our best interest to sit there and all follow the same rules. So we're all gonna have to sit there and say who we're voting for.
All right, are we ready to start the vote then? Let's go. Amanda, can you go down through the roll please?
Yes. Okay. I'm going to go one by one. First, we have Carrie Crompton and George Elliott. You have to unmute yourself. Brian Klee. Brian Klee.
Okay. Thank you. Next, have Dan and Delia Foran. Please unmute yourself. Ed Smith.
Ed Smith. Thank you. Jeff McGuire, did you want to cast a vote? You're muted. Brian Clayton. Thank you. I think I like him more. Eric Anderson. Brian Clay. Okay. Thank you. Georgette Conrad. Georgette. Georgette, please unmute yourself. Okay, am I unmuted? Yes. Ryan Clay. Thank you. Mark Brinker. Please unmute yourself. Ed Smith. Thank you. And Jen is there. Yep, Ed Smith. Thank you. Bill Penn? It's Bill. Thank you. Thank you. Paula King. Lori Blake. Thank you. Grace and Dave Gustonian. Brian Clay. Brian Clay. Thank you. Anne Marie Daigle. Ed Smith. Thank you. Jerry Crem. Cremay. Laurie Blake.
Anne Cremay. Laurie Blake. Catherine Creme. Laurie Blake. Thank you. Ed Smith.
Myself, Ed Smith. And do you have Christie Hayes now? She was trying to get in. I was on the phone. You registered me on the phone. We did have her check-in. Okay. Ed Smith. Thank you. Katrina. Brian Cleat. Thank you. Maria Nella Chalfant. Lori Blake. Thank you. Irv Stanley? You have to unmute yourself. Brian Clay. Thank you. Stacy Bigley, please unmute. Monique Blake. Thank you. Absolutely. Brian Clay. Myself, Brian Clay.
Thank you. Carol and Wally, I don't wanna leave you out. Brian Clayton for Wally. Brian Clayton for Carol. Kathleen Barrett. Ed Smith. Thank you. Scott Person? Ryan Clayt. Thank you. Shannon Loudon? Ed Smith. Thank you. Laurie Blake? Laurie Blake? Sean? Okay, Cindy and Jeff Murray? Laurie Blake. Laurie Blake. Thank you. Alright, next page. Kathy and Mike Palazzi. Brian Clay for Mike. Laurie Blake for Kathy. Thank you. Diane Grenier. Laurie Blake. Thank you. Bill and Lorraine. Ed Smith for Bill. Ed Smith for Lorraine. Thank you. Robert and Katherine Smith Ed Smith for Robert Katherine what was your vote Ed Smith, please. Thank you. Pat Morardi? Lori Blake.
Thank you. Linda and Steve Fish, we'll go with them first. Hi, Brian Klait for Linda. Brian Klait for Steve. Please announce your name before you vote. Carol, Laurie Blake, Dennis, Brian Clay. Tanya. Laurie Lake.
Thank you. Elaine Baccard and Don Keener. I was clicking on the wrong thing. Sorry. Elaine for Lori Blake. Don for Lori Blake. Thank you. Charlotte Nelson. Ed Smith.
Thank you. Kristen Soloway. Please unmute. Lori Blake. Thank you. Fred Oliver. Ed Smith. Thank you. Stephanie Bancroft. Brian Clayton.
You. Erin Boris. Linda, was that clear? Laurie Blake. Okay. Thank you. Katie Marino. Laurie Blake. Thank you. Susan Slater. Laurie Blake. You. Scott Chalfant. Laurie Blake. Thank you. Nancy Dooley. Laurie Blake.
Thank you. Linda Armstrong. Ed Smith. Thank you. Lorraine and Tom. Lorraine and Thomas Dunphy. Lorraine and Thomas Dunphy are you there? Alright, we'll circle back. Next up, Louise Goodwin and Joe King. Ed Smith. And Ed Smith. Thank you. Paul Bancroft. Brian Clay.
Thank you. Linda, just FYI, we had Lucy Wilson join on the meeting. Would you like to add or go back?
Should we just get her in right this second? Lucy, Where are you? Lucy Wilson, you have to unmute yourself. Hi, Lucy.
Lucy. Do you want tell me your address first? 428 Lake Road. 4
Lake Road. Got it. And just flash me your photo ID. Okay. Give me one second. Very good. Thanks, Lucy.
Thank you. Okay. See we have Lorraine and Thomas Dunphy have unmuted themselves. Yep. Lorraine and Thomas Gungee. Can hear us? Okay, we'll circle back around. Scott Chalfant. I already voted Amanda.
Oh thank you. So I apologize. People have moved around during the voting. So please let me know if I call on you. Let me know if you already voted. Next we have Sheila Patrice. Lori Blake. Thank you. Ellie Pen? Ellie Pen, can you hear us? You have to unmute yourself. Sorry about that. Ed Smith.
Thank you. Megan Lally. Laurie Blake. Thank you. We have another phone number who is calling in. Linda? This is Lorraine. You are. Thank you.
I'm sorry. Did you get my vote for Ed Smith?
First, we need to check you in so you can give me your street address.
I've already did that, and I did my photo ID. It's just my camera went out. Okay. Then yes, we're on to your vote. Lorraine Dundee votes for Ed Smith. Thomas Dundee votes for Ed Smith. You get that?
Do you have Thank you. Okay. And Lorraine, if you could mute your phone back because it's reverbing. Great. Thanks. Thank you. Yep. So we just let Brian Dupli in. Brian? Brian, are you there? I think we're all set. Okay. Okay. Brian, can you hear us?
Brian, your audio is not connected. There we go. Looks like he's connecting now. Yep. Can he use my camera?
There you go. There we go. Sorry about that. I'm gonna use my wife's camera. Okay.
Great. Ryan, so just tell me your street address. Sure. It's 5 Chester Brooks Lane. Okay. Very good. And then your photo ID in you're in. Great. Thank you. Okay. Are we taking his vote right now while he's here? Out for Laurie Blake.
Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. So I'm gonna take a moment and go through, make sure we haven't forgotten anyone or if anyone else got moved around. Hey, Amanda. I don't think we got Lucy. I didn't vote yet. Yeah. She needs to vote. Lucy, go ahead. Laurie Blake. Thank you. You have a question? I didn't vote yet. Georgia, go ahead. Clyde didn't vote yet. Okay, go ahead. Brian Clay.
Was that your vote? That was my vote as well.
Just to clarify, are you both voting for Lori Blake? No, we're both voting for Brian Clayton.
Brian Clayton. Okay, thank you. And Amanda, Georgette already voted, so I have Georgette already. I'm But just adding Clive didn't. Yep. I'm just adding Clive. I already had you, Georgette. Thank you. Okay.
Hand up no one has their hand up out there and has it checking just checking. Nope.
Okay. Please speak up and unmute yourself if you have not voted. I am triple checking now to make sure we have everyone. There's 53 participants. How many? 53 people. How come that Linda, is there an easy way to check if everyone who you signed in voted?
Not an easy way, but I can confirm that we have I have 67 votes. I don't understand.
Because we have 53 households, but there's multiple people in several several of the households. There's
And on my list of checking in, had 69 people checked in and 67 votes. I counted 69 votes, Linda. I can count again. What did you say, Shannon?
69 votes? Yeah. The same number of people that you have entered for the meeting. Uh-huh.
Do you think it makes sense to go through each person again? I'm happy to do it. Let me just count real quick. I counted 68.
And while it is close, it is close. It's not a one vote margin or a two vote margin.
Right, Jeff. I counted 68 also. I had a an errant mark. Do you have 68? I have 68. Cindy and I had Cindy and I had 68 as well. Yeah. I actually have 68 as well. Are we sure on the number? Yes. Three? I was
keeping track as well. And I think Sean Blake, I didn't actually hear his vote. And that was my only question mark when I don't know if he was if he was voting. I'm not a registered Thanks, Sheila. He's he's not a registered voter. Okay. Alright. Because I heard somebody say Sean, and then I didn't hear anything after, and I didn't know if that was a vote or not. But the meeting is recorded. Right?
So we can always go back through the recording. Had we used the message, we will have an audit trail automatically, but we have the recording to fall back to for accuracy. Linda, do you have the vote totals?
I have the vote totals as 26 for Lori Blake, 20 for Brian Clay, 21 for Ed Smith. I had 22 for Ed Smith, Linda. And so that may be the one that is missing because then we're at 68 and it all jives. Shannon Still comes out the winner. Okay. Can take the votes that are over the phone? You took everyone's vote verbally. Yeah, whether they were phone or video.
Okay. All right, there's only one item left on the agenda and that's to adjourn if someone wants to make a motion to adjourn. I move to adjourn.
Is there a second? I'll second it. All in favor? Aye. Congratulations, Lori. Congratulations, Thank you very much. Congratulations, Lori. You for your patience and cooperation. Good job, guys. Good job, Amanda. Thank you, Amanda. Thank Well, you, Linda, and congratulations, Lori.
Wally, are you still on? Yes. I am. Can can you tell me how many total registered voters we have in town? Give me one second. I believe it's Congratulations, Lori. 29, bud. Here, Shannon, I can tell you. Okay.
Not me. That was from Diane Greiner. Yes. Oh, Diane. Sorry. Hold on. Total 2,184.
Okay. Thank you. And just to make sure I have the the the numbers right, we had 22 for Ed Smith, 26 for Laurie Blake, and 20 for Brian Quate? Correct. Okay. This and that is going out. Thank you all. Thank you all. Yeah. Well done.