by Frank Schroth

On November 13th, the Town Government Study Committee took up a discussion of increasing the size of Board of Selectmen from 3 members to 5. A motion was made to take a vote on the matter with the intent of having an article at annual town meeting in May, and it was defeated 5 to 4. We were not present for the session but did reach out to members of the committee to learn how they voted and their reasons for the vote.

There are nine members of the TGSC: Rick Neely (Chair), John Cronin, Marvin Gordon, Kathy Fagan, Bob Hiss, Phil Matthews, Mary McNamara, Peter Mullin, and Leroy Walker. All responded with exception of Ms. Fagan and Mr. Hiss.

All are currently town meeting members and have a history of service to the town. It should also be noted that three (Mr. Neely, Mr. Gordon, and Ms. Fagan) are former Milton Selectmen.

The motion to take a vote was made by Mr. Matthews. Mr. Cronin, Mr. Hiss, Mr. Mullin, Mr. Neely, and Mr. Walker voted “no;” Ms. Fagan, Mr. Gordon, Mr. Matthews, and Ms. McNamara voted “yes.”

Reasons given not to increase the board included:

• the lack of a compelling argument to do so – it was not clear how 5 members would function better than 3 (Cronin, Mullin, Neely, Walker)
• the additional work it could create for the Town Administrator (Neely)
• the issue is not the highest priority of the committee at this time (Cronin, Neely)

Reasons given to increase the size from 3 to 5 included:

• a larger board would allow broader discussion and more effective decision making (McNamara, Matthews)
• the research done by the committee indicated that towns which have  moved from 3 to 5 benefited (Gordon, Matthews)
• it would permit personal conversations to exist among individual meeting members without violating any regulations (Gordon)

Editorial note – the Massachusetts Open Meeting law prohibits a quorum of a committee or board to meet outside of public view. Because there are only 3 members of the BoS, 2 is a quorum. Therefore any conversation between two members needs to be done in public.

Mr. Gordon in his email stated:

The excellent status of the town, in many respects, does not mean    that many costly and divisive mistakes could not have been averted if governed in a different fashion.

It should also be noted that almost every member stated that the issue is still active, will receive further discussion and review, and may or may not come back up for a vote with the notion of presenting an article at spring or some other future town meeting.

Our thanks to the members for taking their the time to respond to our request.