Above: In a sparsely attended hall towards the end of last spring’s ATM, two votes were the difference between a pass and fail on a debated Warrant Article. To avoid a drawn out meeting with turnout issues this year, Article sponsors are urged to pre-educate voters to help shorten presentations and debate on the floor. (image cropped from SAM video)
This week, the Board of Selectmen continued to prepare for Annual Town Meeting. They are far from done, but here’s an update on what they discussed.
Selectmen made some budget compromises and again tabled a tough decision. Chair Lisa Braccio told members that new information came up impacting the Southborough Youth and Family Services budget. She asked to wait for their next meeting to address that, so they would have the “complete packet”.
Expect that to be revisited on January 29th. And expect that agenda to be packed.
Selectmen agreed to add the meeting to their schedule as part of Annual Town Meeting preparations. They are asking that anyone with Articles for the ATM who wants to present to the board before they take their positions do it that night. That would allow for any follow up needed to take place at their February 5th meeting.
February 5th will also be used for the official run through with the Moderator and Town Counsel. At that pre-Town Meeting, officials will go through the process Article by Article. (That typically includes the motions, the number of votes required to pass, order of presentations, etc.)
With up to 46 Articles on the Warrant, and about 25 of those not proposed by selectmen, both of those meetings could be long nights. But the meeting selectmen are concerned about going long is actual Annual Town Meeting.
Selectman Dan Kolenda said the point of moving the meeting to Saturday was to increase participation. If the meeting turns into a 3 day event – it would “blow that out of the water”. Moderator Paul Cimino told the board that he hopes to avoid that by keeping presentations short. He stressed that no one should be using the night to educate voters on their Articles for the first time.
Selectman Brian Shea said the Southborough Library has been generous in offering a venue for past Article proponents to hold forums. And Cimino pointed out that there will be a literature table Article sponsors can use to share information at the ATM.
[Editor’s Note: Anyone who is sponsoring an Article is also invited to submit either information for me to share in a post or write a Letter to the Editor on this blog. See details below.*]
One of the Articles that Selectmen plan to present is a change to the newly adopted schedule for the Annual Town Meeting. This budget season was difficult for boards and departments with the budget process moved up to prepare for closing the Warrant in mid-February for the March 23rd meeting. This week, Braccio proposed changing the wording to open it on the last Saturday in April.
Town Administrator Mark Purple was concerned by wording. He said the current bylaw calls for a “Town Meeting Week” in March. That meant they were unable to open it on Saturday, March 30th since it would have run into April. He said he would seek Town Counsel advice on the language. If passed, the change would give officials more time than they had in past years, when the meeting opened in early April. It would avoid conflicts with religious holidays and school break.
Shea was concerned that it may be too close to the Town Election in May. He wondered if it would mean that items that needed to be ratified on Town ballots wouldn’t meet the deadlines. Purple will look into that.
Selectmen also discussed moving to a spring and fall model for Town Meeting. The idea would be to shorten warrants by focusing on budgets in the spring and zoning in the fall. Residents would be encouraged to target fall for citizen petitions – though the board couldn’t control when those are filed. There was lack of consensus on whether that would help or hurt turnout. The board decided not to tackle the concept this spring.
Earlier in the evening, the board tackled a few more FY20 budget issues they were split on last week. [click to keep reading…]
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annual-town-meeting-2019
