Town Meeting debates how to study a potential rehaul of Town Governance

Above: The Moderator recused himself for moderating discussion of an Article that would have created a new committee appointed by him, telling voters he was fine with whatever they decided. (image from meeting video)

On Monday night, the Select Board asked Town Meeting voters to approve a committee to study “Town Government Structure”. The proposal led to a debate for over 30 minutes before voters first cut off discussion, then postponed the Article.

Outspoken attendees were fairly unified in a desire to see changes in how the government is run. What they were split on was the process to pursue studying and making recommendations.

Most commenters indicated the proposed effort is a critical one that they believe could have significant, long term impacts. But many worried that getting started with what they believed was a flawed foundation would undermine the effort.

Others either agreed with the specific proposal or worried more about kicking the can down the road by voting to postpone the effort.

The Proposal

The Select Board’s motion for Article 10 asked to authorize a committee of seven volunteer voters (who can not also serve in elected positions) to be appointed by the Town Moderator.

The members would have reviewed our Town government and propose bylaws/legislation to “modernize its structure and improve its efficiency and effectiveness.” And they would have held at least three public forums on their analysis and proposals.

Any major recommendations that came out of the work would have to be approved by future Town Meeting voters, and possibly also require approval by the state legislature.

In presenting the Article, Select Board Chair Andrew Dennington explained to voters that changes were also intended to make the government more “democratic”. It was an effort he called long overdue. 

And he highlighted what his board sees as inefficiencies in the way boards and departments are structured. He pointed to the dozen elected boards and positions, many with their own “appointing authority” over staff and rarely contested elections. His board also suspects that “streamlining” some of the 18 Town departments could improve efficiency. 

The suggestion that seemed to have the clearest support from several commenters was his description of the legislative body deciding on the question. He questioned whether the rules governing Town Meeting structure were the best way to run it, or more based on tradition.

Dennington said that in order to gain widespread support needed to get voters to approve changes, his board believed the committee needed to show independence from the Select Board. That was the reason that they chose the Moderator to make the committee appointments. And they had heard that some people believe a consultant should be hired. He noted that the Select Board might follow up with a request to fund that at Annual Town Meeting.

Overview of the Debate

Some voters agreed on the importance of the proposed “independent” approach. But many others worried about aspects of having members’ criteria/qualifications and appointments be the responsibility of  person, who isn’t required to discuss the decisions in public meetings.

Town Moderator Paul Cimino (who recused himself from that role during the discussion and vote) told the hall he hadn’t sought and wasn’t “eager” for the responsibility “just for the sake of it”:

however you feel about the appointing authority, you have no objection from me.

Others argued that volunteers shouldn’t be leading the charge. The Town should hire a professional expert, even if a committee is charged to work with that person.

Some others pushing for passage of the Article worried about the impact of postponing work and kicking the can down the road.

Given a comment from a Select Board member and the feedback they received from voters, the board is likely to try to come up with an alternative proposal in time to present at Annual Town Meeting this spring.

Below are more highlights from what voters had to say before the 211-133 vote to postpone the Article.

Specific Comments from the Floor

Concerns Raised & Requests to Indefinitely Postpone

Oleg Sheyner supported the concept, but was wary of the approach. Although it may be “counterintuitive” he argued that the “composition” of the committee was more important than the votes on Costco or the Neary Building Project. Therefore, authorizing one person to make the appointments was “inaproppriate”

Sheyner explained the “broad and unconstrained” charge could lead the committee in a hundred different directions, but the committee could end up only considering 5-10 of those:

imagine ourselves maybe three or four years from now in a Town Meeting voting on the committee’s recommendations. . . when we’re voting on them, the ones maybe that you favor won’t even be considered because of how the committee did did its work.

We need more input from the town earlier in the process including who is on this committee and how they view how how they would approach the job how they would sort of take the input. I would like to hear from them.

Agreeing with Sheyner, Desiree Aselbekian made a motion to Indefinitely Postpone the Article. She thanked the board for bringing the “long overdue” topic forward. But she disagreed with their approach. She stressed that she values government and believes in prioritizing its efficiency, but:

All of us that are participating here are active in our government. . . We do bring inherent biases of how we’d like to have it done. So would those seven people that are being appointed by one person.

She pitched having an independent consultant conduct an initial survey and  analysis and a potential proposal of what needs to be done before a committee does the work. She suggested that a revamped proposal in the spring could ask for the money to hire a consultant and propose a committee to work in tandem.

Freddie Gillespie argued that the committee makeup needs to be defined. She gave a suggested example of having different boards appoint a member/representative:

you want to eliminate is people saying that committee was not representation of what this town all the all the different viewpoints would want

Based on his experience serving on past committees, Jim Colleary warned of a “long drawn out process”, but stressed that it could be one of the “more important decisions we’ve made in the past 20 years.” He believed it requires a more public process for interviewing a committee of people who would come with 3-4 proposals for the Town.

Bonnie Phaneuf, a former Select Board member for 12 years said she understood why the board made its proposal, but thought their approach made an “unreasonable” request of voters. She believed the board needed to hold more public forums about the proposal first and post info about department heads’ job descriptions. She said that having a committee of individual citizens asking questions about their positions and their department head makes Town employees “very nervous”.

Andrea Giancontieri was concerned about potential “group think” in having one person appoint the committee. Kristen Rosero wanted to better understand what the qualifications and expectations would be for appointing members and Andrew Ghobrial wanted to know if interviews would be done in a public setting. Those were questions that couldn’t be answered under the motion to postpone discussion.

Voters Urging Approval of the Article

John Butler argued against the postponement. He said that a consultant would have to be hired by and report to someone. He argued that if the Select Board is involved with the appointments or the consultant, that would doom the important and difficult work of the committee. People would argue that the board had its hand on the scale. He also argued that the effort will take a long time, not only as a town, but to get approval for changes from the state. He wanted to get the effort “moving now”.

Earlier in the discussion Alan Zulick tried to read aloud a letter from Andrew Macknair who is currently deployed overseas for the Army National Guard. Macknair argued for a change from the reliance on the traditional Town Meeting format.

The letter/comment was cut off by the Acting Moderator, Town Clerk Jim Hegarty, as off point. Later, Julie Connelly noted that Macknair had written his letter in reaction to the Article wording in the Warrant, which was different than the wording in the Motion. (That had specified the committee may research enabling remote voting for Town Meetings or a potential switch to Representative Town Meeting.) She used the issue to illustrate her point about the need to support the Article and move forward on the work to address issues with voters unable to participate in Town Meeting. She highlighted that even the big turnout for Article 1 had represented a small % of Town voters and those in attendance far less.

Tyler Oakleaf argued against a postponement. He was attending with two young children, “way past their bedtime”. He argued for changing the Town Meeting form of government which “disenfranchises” parents, women and low income people who might be working. He referred to it as a “gerontocracy” suited only to retired people.

James Nichols Worley echoed the concerns and argued for moving forward and against worries about how the committee is formed:

this is not the Department of Southboro Efficiency. This would not be someone unilaterally making changes to the town. It would have to come back before us.

Select Board Member Al Hamilton took a different tact in urging against postponing the Article. He told people to vote yes or no, rather than delay. He followed that if they do vote no, the board will try again, looking at “other permutations. He followed:

There are things that the select board could do tomorrow if it chose to do it that are completely within its purview.

So stay tuned to see what the board comes up with next based on the outcome of Monday’s vote.