I’m writing one final wrap-up of highlights from the Fall Special Town Meeting. I’ve already recapped the discussions related to three of the 10 Articles on the Warrant. Here is a quick look at the remaining 7. I’m also covering the Town’s progress on using clickers for vote counts.
Topics the meeting dealt with after most voters fled the hall on Monday night, included ones related to the lead contaminated Town property on Atwood Street, changes to support retaining and recruiting Town employees, and the Town’s public media access.
Article 3 on Atwood Parcel Remediation Steps
Select Board member Al Hamilton quickly went through his presentation on the Town-owned former site of the Atwood Water Tower. The tower installed in the 1930s was once covered in lead paint (as was the common practice). After the tower was removed in the 90s, the depressed area where it stood was filled in. Therefore, higher levels of contamination are found about a foot deep.
Town Meeting approved $100K to cover the $15K for a temporary “containment” plan and $85K for engineering plans and work needed before the Town goes out to bid for the actual long term remediation of the site. That (more expensive) Article is expected to be on the Warrant for the Annual Town Meeting this spring.
This Article passed without any questions or debates. You can read more about the Atwood site issues in past coverage under the thread here.
Articles 4 – 6 on changes to non-union Town employee pay and benefits
The following Articles passed with only a few voters opposed.
Personnel Board member John Thorburn told the hall that the intent of Article 4 was to simplify the classification of a non-union job held in several Town departments. The Article consolidated the Business Admin 1 (grade 4) and Business Amin 2 (grade 5) jobs into one grade 5 job. It was pitched as removing a “redundancy” and ensuring “pay equity” for “similar roles”. A longtime former Town Business Admin, now retired, objected to the change.
Cynthia Foster argued that the positions weren’t redundant, and actually had different levels of responsibility. She called it a “real slap in the face” to employees who had more demanding roles than others:
Some of the business administrators have a lot of budget responsibility. They also do analysis for their department heads to make decisions and decide what projects that they’re going to push in the budget system.
Health Director Taylor West disagreed. She told the hall that her department’s business admin, who handles her payroll, is directly impacted. The Article passed with what the Town Moderator noted was only a “few opposed”.
Article 5 increased the starting level for new full time employees’ vacation to be three years, which is apparently the new standard in the job market. (Employees of 0-2 years are now in the same group as employees with up to 7 years employment.)
Article 6 was to address an issue with complaints from staff and department heads that argued some long term employees were underpaid. The Town and board were concerned about the possibility of losing valued staff. At Annual Town Meeting, voters rejected spending $25K on hiring a consultant to conduct a new study of pay grades and classifications. That left to the board to come up with its own recommendation to the Select Board for how to deal with the issue.
Under the Article, the Select Board asked for pay increases for ten employees. The employees have worked for the Town for more than seven years, but still aren’t at “Step 8” of the 15 step salary schedule for their role. They will be moved up to that level with pay changes retroactive to the start of the fiscal year on July 1st.
Patricia Fiore asked if the $78,783 in the Article was to cover just the retroactive portion, and what it would cost voters in future years. Select Board Member Kathy Cook clarified that the cost is for the full fiscal year, so would also be an increase in subsequent years’ budgets.
Speaking from here experience as a member of the Youth Commission, Nancy Sutton urged support for the Article which would impact some staff she has worked with:
These are very dedicated employees that have been with our town in some cases over a decade and I would hate to see them lost because they feel that we don’t value their service.
She followed that replacing them would likely result in paying the same or more for employees with “less experience and certainly less knowledge of our town and our community.”
Articles 7 & 8 on Access Media
These Articles were to direct how the funds designated for supporting public access media for the community would be used. The money was collected from the Town’s agreements with the cable companies (Verizon, Charter, and ComCast). But the use had been held up while the Town worked out a new agreement with Southborough Access Media.
In presenting the Articles, Select Board member Kathy Cook noted that the Town currently receives about $200K in funds for public access, but expects that will decline as more people cut the cord on cable. (The funds are from a fee in cable bills, that isn’t in bills for internet or streaming services.)
Under Article 7, $120,000 was dedicated to upgrade the equipment used for recording videos of public meetings in the Town House Hearing Room. Cook said it will allow for “more effective hybrid” meetings. Participation in government board and committee meetings has increased as people have been able to zoom in since state law first began allowing the use during the pandemic.
The remaining $129,000 was transferred into the operating budget for Southborough Access Media, which provides public media access for our town under Article 8.
Both passed without any questions or comments.
Article 2 on the Golf Course Revolving Fund
This Article related to allowing excess revenue from the golf course to be used to help offset the community’s tax burdens. As I covered leading up to the meeting the Golf Course Committee and the Community Preservation Committee publicly planned to ask the Select Board to table the Article. Their biggest concerns were understanding how encumbered/unencumbered funds would be determined and the status of the irrigation system installation project that could prove to be more expensive than anticipated.
As I noted on Monday night, the Select Board’s requested postponing the Article rather than putting it forward for a vote. Based on feedback from the Golf Course Committee prior to Town Meeting opening, they decided to push it to Annual Town Meeting in the spring. That allows the committee time to research and present a long term capital plan.
You can read more about the proposed fund change and the project budget challenges here.
Clickers Successfully in Action
This was the first Southborough Town Meeting in which voters used the clickers to cast votes without any apparent issues. Despite technical issues at prior meetings, Town Clerk Jim Hegarty continued to work on implementing clickers. His stated intent has been to ensure an accurate count for really close, consequential votes. It also avoids the much longer process of counting hands when the counts are needed.
Improvements made for Monday since the prior (more troubled) use/attempted use of the clickers included:
- eliminating a source of apparent past wifi interference during the meeting
- simplifying labels on the devices (moving the “Yes” and “No” on top of the buttons to avoid people pushing the words instead of the buttons)
- a longer voting period to allow time for the system to accept and confirm each signal (including allowing people time to change votes if they accidentally hit the wrong button)
- a displayed screen in the hall showing which clickers (by ID #) had voted (though not how they voted)
- giving a warning with a chance for voters to call out if they had an issue before the count closed
Each hall had a dedicated student staffer to assist any voter who reported trouble with a device.
At the opening of Monday’s meeting, Moderator Paul Cimino said that the devices would be used only for simple majority votes that were too close to call, or where a 2/3 count was required. (Or if enough voters immediately called for a recount of a vote he deemed had passed/failed.)
In practice, it was used for two votes. The first use (on Article 1) was by wide enough margins that the Moderator should have been able to easily make the call by hand vote. For voters who left before the final Article of the night, the clicker use definitely made the meeting longer. (About 10 minutes were spent running voters through the clicker process and use at the start of the meeting, and the count was definitely longer than a quick hand raise.)
But for the voters dedicated to staying the full meeting, it likely saved time. The second use was on the final Article. With three halls to monitor, Hegarty (acting as Moderator) said he was unsure about whether the motion to indefinitely postpone Article 10 passed. And even with less than 350 voters remaining, a head count would have been a lengthy process.
You can read more about the history of the clickers and issues here.
