Commentary by Frank Schroth

A cast of town officials assembled at the 12/11 meeting of the Board of Selectmen at the invitation of Chair Katie Conlon. Brian Walsh, Town Moderator, Sue Galvin, Town Clerk, Ted Hays, Chair of the Warrant Committee, Rick Neely, Chair of Government Study Committee, and Alex Whiteside, Chair of Planning Board were all present to discuss how Town Meeting might be improved in light of criticisms received after last fall’s town meeting. A couple of good ideas were raised, and now is the time to implement them.

The discussion concluded that  a small working group should be formed by Moderator Walsh to address the overall issue of how to improve town meeting (talk about an opportunity with nothing but upside). But three things should be done now per recommendations that largely come from Rick Neely and the Government Study Committee:

1. Publish the town meeting articles electronically upon closing the warrant and notify town meeting members of availability. This is a straightforward request with a simple solution, and as Neely noted, it will improve transparency. It could be achieved in a number of ways. At a minimum, a PDF file could be posted to the town’s web site and an email broadcast could go out to all town meeting members who have answered Ms. Galvin’s request for to provide an email address (Quick aside – if you are unwilling to provide an email to the town clerk you should not run for public office. Get out of the way and let someone willing to communicate with their colleagues and constituents in a manner consistent with the 21st-century take your place). A slightly more elegant solution than a PDF might be a link to a “read only” Google docs version of the warrant. This would also support the next item. All articles, Neely suggested, should also clearly identify the sponsor and include an email so that person could be contacted in event a town meeting member had a question.
2. Display of recommendations and amendments currently under discussion on auditorium screen during a session. This helps maintain the context of the discussion for the audience. This would likely assume that amendments and revisions would need to be transcribed. This could be done to a version of the article in Google docs or some other cloud-based document processor that could be displayed in real time. It is a good idea. All it needs is to be spec’ed and tested.
3. Do no rush out articles that are not properly vetted and lack recommendations. Neely pressed this point and we agree. Ms. Conlon said that there were times when it could not be helped and Mr. Hurley said everything is so dynamic. The Hendries building came up as an example, but “dynamic” is not the first thought we have on that – inert seems a more apt description. In any event, the Selectmen and Planning Board could exert more discipline on themselves. Mr. Hays raised the issue of increasing the lead time for fall articles by moving up the closing date and the response has been that it is summer and difficult. Well – there is never a good time. Failing to put responsibility further upstream on the board or group sponsoring the article simply places an undue and unrealistic burden on the Warrant Committee. The whole issue of the warrant timetable being driven by print based publishing concerns in an era of digital communication raises a host of questions and opportunities for efficiency that, we hope, the working group will put some thought to.

Lastly, we would respectfully suggest that the Board of Selectmen give consideration to delivering a short State of the Town address to be approved by the board and delivered by the Chair. We understand that the board will possibly have a new member as annual town meeting immediately follows an election, but one would hope that any candidate would be educated enough on the issues to approve the content which would largely be fact based. Such an address would contain what one might reasonably expect: a concise and crisp synopsis of the year’s challenges and achievements and an outline of key tasks and goals for the year ahead. Annual town meeting is an appropriate time to take stock, and the Selectmen are the appropriate board to deliver it.