##VIDEO ID:Thl0dwl4XNU## hi everybody um my name is Julian Hines I'm the temporary chair of the committee um and this is our second meeting um this meeting is being held remotely um pursuant to the pursuant to chapter 20 the acts of 2021 extended by chapter 2022 and 107 the acts of 2022 and extended Again by chapter two of the acts of 2023 this meeting will be held via remote means um members of the public who would like to access the meeting um May do so via Zoom or by calling in Via telephone no inperson attendance of the public can be permitted but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means there's also a recording of the meeting that will be posted and we're recording so so with that having then said um I'll introduce an interesting thing that has happened today which is our council president um Lyn gmer has volunteered um in the absence of atheno Keef who's our um clerk um of the Town Council and who usually works with us um who is absent today um so Lynn has volunteered to take her place and will be helping with the technological things in the meeting but we'll strictly have a technological role we won't be asking her questions or um getting advice or her opinion really we're trying to just basically have someone here for the technology do you want to say anything about that Lynn nope just that yes I do I I am strictly here for the technology I am not here to answer questions provide directions and I will actually be turning my camera off and muting okay excellent thank you so much um for doing that um Lynn and now uh we will move on to our official call to order so I'm going to call folks names and please respond that you're here and can be heard um I'll start with how it's listed on my screen Meg Gage I'm here Meg is you on my name Andy yep Bernie Pres Ken here Raphael here Erica here Dan uh you need to unmute I think Dan hi we can see you but not hear you got it um every everybody is here which is great um as Meg pointed out to me before the recording I'll just call out um that we have two members of the public here Andy Anderson and Darcy deont um who are joining us tonight uh as of now and I'm just looking Dan can you hear us okay just not audio um okay so uh now I guess we'll move on to our public comment period so um if anybody would like to make a public comment uh please enter the room state your name where you live um and we'll do three minutes uh so you have three minutes to speak in your public comment if you'd like to make a comment and just raise your hand on Zoom um you have to do the raise hand function I'm not seeing any public comments are you Lyn no okay excellent um so not seeing any public comments we'll close the public comment period for the evening you can always email us as well with your public comments if you're interested um and we'll move on there's uh Lynn do you want to share the agenda screen share if not I can as well excellent thank you very much so we have call to order and announcements public comment which we've done and then the in-depth review of open meeting law so unfortunately Athena is not here tonight who is going to give us that review and have a a time to ask questions um so that will be postponed to the next meeting that Athena is able to be present at um when she can attend so we'll do that at the next meeting then um so now we'll move on to number four which is our first discussion item um yep Meg go right ahead could we add somewhere in maybe we do it when we approve the minutes of agreeing on who's taking the minutes so that some doesn't find out at number nine and forget like I was happy and be reminded that it's me but if I had gotten on early I wouldn't have known that until okay no problem I I emailed the list to um Athena and I was um let me look here I may have emailed it that would have been my fault I may have doesn't matter don't worry about that just that we put in our agenda reminder who's taking minutes earlier in the meeting than number nine because that would be a little a little bit late to find out it was you yeah no absolutely I can resolve that um later tonight I'll send it to I'm taking the minutes at this meeting which is what we agreed last time you're taking the minutes at this meeting that's correct I'm happy I was reminded of that EXC and um and I don't have everybody's email so Athena will have to send that list that I sent to her all since Athena's absent um all I guess go to oh there's a chat actually here's what I can do I bet I can chat people and did that make it ju Julian I can email that list because I got the email I can send the that list forward that list to members of the committee it's just a who's taking notes it's a ministerial Duty so it doesn't run a file of any of the open meeting L Communications okay excellent that perfect thank you so much my suggestion is just that at each meeting we make sure that that person is aware of that yeah absolutely um I I can send out a reminder for future meetings um that's that should resolve that since we're speaking of the minutes um do we want to approve the minutes now quickly uh has have folks read them do we want to share them Lynn I I read them and I sent a couple of small edits to Athena um okay I'm assuming that the the copy that's out there now on the website is maybe the updated one I didn't actually hear back from her so I can't confirm that okay got it um would you mind screen sharing real quick so we can improve the minutes ly I have a question about the minutes while we're getting that together uh is it standard form that we um don't site uh which members raised which questions or made particular comments or we make it I'm not it seemed that it was um not anonymized but more General than specific committee members just a question to know for a future that that was the format that the council uses and that was sent to me by Athena and so for discussion they just have bullet points of the points that came up so okay [Music] um but I tried to make sure that every everybody's voice was bulleted yep excellent okay um so I'll make the motion to approve the minutes if I have a second so moved there a second excellent um I made the motion Bernie seconded uh I'll let Lynn finish scrolling and then we can vote on it what happens in the event that like with Ken sent revisions or comments um those go to Athena and then Athena will work them in to the minutes themselves I believe okay so the ones we're looking at are the ones that contain those I'm pretty sure yeah I would assume Ken is that correct um I didn't I'm trying to find the U I wasn't able to follow um I just remember that I changed the Collins it was called the Collins Institute it's actually called the Collins Center um not find the colins institute on the web and I and I bumped into it later so um just in case anybody else had that problem um got it that that was the level of edit okay got it that's that's scrier error and it'll be fixed anytime yeah okay great um so I'm an I I'll will go by seeing it on the screen Meg I've just I've didn't see them earlier but I've speed reading I guess I'm an i okay Bernie yes uh Ken hi uh Erica yes Raphael I Dan hi awesome your mic's working we can hear you great so that um is everybody that's unanimous so we've approved the minutes um I'm an I too oh sorry I didn't see you my bad um okay let's uh bring back the agenda and I guess I'll just have it so that I realize when the screen's being shared I can't see everyone so if you want to make a comment um just raise your hand in the raise hand function in Zoom so I can actually see you excellent um thank you Lyn uh so now that we've done all of the more minuscule things we'll get into the in potatoes of this meeting um and we'll go to agenda Point number four uh which is discussion of committee scope and priorities um so do we want to have a discussion on that if anyone has anything they'd like to say please raise your hand yep go right ahead Andy just wanted to refer folks to the committee charge which is in the document Center um and it basically says that you know there the the committee shall develop an understanding of mass law and the existing home Rule Charter raise public awareness of the charter review process through various community outreach efforts develop and deploy a variety of feedback mechanisms I.E surveys invitations to testify public meetings focus groups Etc analyze feedback from the community prior to initial preliminary and final reports hold a public form on the prelim on a preliminary report and then review proposed and Report on process deliberations drafts and recommendations in three stages initial preliminary and final um reports so that that's in the charge basically I would summarize that as we're supposed to do a bunch of Outreach and we're supposed to do a bunch of research and then we're supposed to distill that into recommendations for um changes that could be made to the Charter and I guess I would add that what I've heard from several folks is that it might be useful to group those recommendations into sort of three categories one is what the Town Council can vote to do locally and just make it happen one is um that things that the council could recommend to the legislature and the legislature could approve and then the third would be things that would require a a new Charter commission and I just want to be clear that we are sort of if we're going through the charter we can all make any recommendations we want it's just a matter of what processes after that would be necessary to achieve it if that makes sense um so any other comments discussion on I would not I'm sorry uh I see Meg then Bernie um let me just see if I see anybody else yeah Meg then Bernie um try to use the raise the raise hand raise hand yeah raise raise your real hand or raise your computer hand computer hand is what I was thinking but that's okay go ahead go I did it yeah um I strongly endorse of the three categories that Andy just read uh while we can't recommend things that aren't within our scope I think if we want legitimate meaningful participation and we hear things from people we should report that yeah and uh otherwise it's hard to feel that our Outreach and all this uh reaching out for people's opinion is going to be valuable if we screen it to be this sort of more narrow channel I understand though that what we're able to actually recommend that the council change is is is specific now I gotta Bernie undo my hand lower hand there it is yeah I would um I would be careful to um I would not want to report say we're going to report everything we here because some of what we will hear will be unworkable unusable um maybe unnecessary I think if you look through the sample reports that we got um the there was like a single paragraph saying this came up but we're not going to deal with it here um I think where we have something and I rank Choice voting would be one of those topics I think where you you really do need to have legislative action I think that's that's part of our Charter that we need to have firmed up by the legislature I think so that would be that would be something to do but I'm I'm not willing to U come up with a catalog of every idea we've heard and and report it uh and as I said in the previous meeting we have a form of government that's approved by the voters uh I'm not interested in Rel litigating the form of government fact we can't Cho CH we can't the one of those things we can't change um I I would like to focus on making the current Charter more effective and improving the operation of the council that should be our priority uh in in my humble opinion thanks uh Erica and then Dan thank you um I just want to be cautious that we don't sort of decide now what we're going to do with the um with the breadth of public comments that we might receive which may or may not fit neatly into categories that we're outlining right now as we sort of set out on this work I think that the the categories that Andy outlined see are based around sort of functional destinations for for where the recommendations go which is great I think that's a really great way to approach it I would I would predict that we would get a range of comments that don't share our view that there that there's a sort of functional end or a clear sort of um way to achieve what is being expressed in the public comment I think that there's I don't want to foreclose the possibility that there may be a public comment that doesn't know how to achieve itself but has some value and some Worth to be included in a future report so I just want to say I think having a a scope of work that includes some categories based around around the ultimate end that we're after is is fabulous but I don't I don't want those buckets to be exclusive um to the extent that we leave things out um and I wanted to ask while I have the floor for two seconds just if Andy could repeat those categories so that I can have them in my mind and if that was your notion or if that came from somewhere yeah go right ahead Andy and then Dan um yeah I I I I think this may have been in the League of Women Voters uh structure um and I've heard several other folks say well there's some things that the Town Council can do so so so that's one category of things that can actually be uh that aren't you know precluded by a state law or whatever that the Town Council can vote locally to just Implement and then there are some things that might require getting leg legislative permission um and then the third category is things that would be comprehensive enough that they would require a new Charter Commission in order to make them happen thank you sounds good uh Dan yeah I I think that um you know Andy's categories what's really important about them is it reflects the full you know it's in in the repeated language of you know the uh the constitution of of the general laws and the charter it says all of this can be changed it says in 9.1 of the charter all of it is on the table and I think it's really important for that to be you know Bernie I understood you know Bernie's comment which I certainly understand the desire not to relitigate but the law is really clear that that a community can change its Charter as it sees fit as long as it follows the processes laid out in the law and so I think that Andy's categories capture that the scope of the law and that's that is really important and it it doesn't matter whether we want to revisit something I mean if you look at um you know a number of the ones I posted here they don't they actually say all those reports right at the beginning we they put their their most divisive issues front and center so I think this process can um it doesn't exclude and then the question of what's wise to do what do we want to do what how much of an opinion do we hear that's what we're going to find out and and including everything we hear no but if there's a significant current of opinion of whatever kind that that is a thing that I see our purpose is is just to uncover those things if they're there and to give people voice to those things if that's what they choose to do yeah um Bernie you you've already spoken so I'm gonna give it to Ken and then I'll come back to you um thanks I'll pick the hand down um when I looked at the the other uh Charter review commission reports uh Watertown in particular um I noticed that they used the term you know these these the recommendations that they had the the the first set of recommendations they had in the in the the summary of the introduction were unanimous all all members lik these recommendations again whatever the Town Council does with them they do they do with them but I wasn't clear and maybe we don't have to worry about that now but are we under the expectation of unanimous agreement on recommendations because in Watertown they said You know here are the unanimous recommendations here are the ones that we were not unanimous on so it still was a list it still was shared in the report I just don't know if we have a um some sort of majority rule that we should be keeping in mind yeah I I would just say I think that like obviously if we can all agree on stuff that's great but if there's something we don't agree on and it's brought to a vote I would assume it's majority rule um as in what the recommendation will be but we could certainly note where um that descent was who voted in favor who didn't I know that's how it was done in the uh in the charter commission um when it used to be when they were doing that Bernie yeah I I don't have a CH I not challenged by any of these categories in fact this you know we went through this process or I went through this process with another committee when we reviewed the town's bylaws and mapped them to the city Charter and in fact we came up with a list of this is what we can change this is what the ccil needs to to to take up in the future um this is why we're going to need to get some additional permissions or clarifications from the legislature and here's some ideas what I am questioning about is that we focus on the F first things first which is making this Charter more effective and giving the the council some ideas about how to be more effective and it's it's uh uh it and it's governing that's one and two I don't want to give anyone the impression that we're going to Simply report every single thing we heard guess that's a waste of time and it's not a good use of our time I mean we're we're here to to to filter some of these ideas out and and and that doesn't mean that we're gonna you know not comment on something but it does mean that we're going to have to exercise some editorial review here in terms of what we report so this doesn't become a laundry list of these are things that people mentioned that's where I'm going to um Andy um yeah I I think uh I hadn't you know I hadn't really considered how how we how we get to um the degree of unanimity or majority or whatever but I I do think that we should be casting a wide net to collect as many ideas as possible but then I think we do need to apply our judgment um I think we were we were you know appointed this committee to use some judgment to to to sort those things out and maybe there's um you know a great some sort of way of um having certain ideas that we support you know maybe unanimously some things we support by majority and then other things we've heard which we don't take a position on I yeah I don't know if that's too wishy-washy or whatever but um you know the most useful would be things that we're unanimous on I'm sure but you know there may be other ideas that we're just not going to be unanimous on but they seem to be reflected and and resonate with a majority so I you know I I don't know what our process will be but I think there's this combination of casting a wide net collecting as much feedback from the public and as many sources you know research sources or whatever expert sources as possible and then we have to use some judgment um as a committee and and come up with sort of a refined list that that we think is the best we can do whoops gotta use my hand here oh yeah Meg go ahead um I I don't think I haven't heard anyone say we should report on every single thing we hear from anybody I think what Andy just said reflects what think most of us have said is that we need to if if there's a significant amount of opinion about some topic that isn't in the exact scope of what we're supposed to do we could still report it I think it's under category two of what Andy uh you know recommend we might make a recommendation let me not I'm not going to look at the three points very well right now but it seems to me I don't I haven't heard anyone say we should report everything we hear but we more that we shouldn't be shy away from opinions that represent a significant amount of people or a significant effort uh because they don't fit exactly into what the charter review scope is something in the middle just sort of what Andy summarized use our judgment right yeah um I don't see any other hands I'll give a oh Erica go ahead thank you just um maybe to put a a fine point on it the if the agenda item is we're discussing our scope and our and our priorities I think that's a slightly different conversation where I feel like what we're talking about here is a little bit like writing the table of contents for the report when we don't know this the the full range of the comments that we're going to get let's edit a little closer to the Finish Line is my suggestion and my kind of agenda and making that comment um I don't I don't know how to anticipate what public comment might bring in this process my interest my priority if that that's the agenda item is engaging in a public process that's as sort of you know open and um and engaging as possible and I don't want to uh my I don't want to um and anticipate what we might get to such an extent that we'd um have a pre-filled report that's all Andy go ahead um I I know that sections of interest in the charter is number seven on the agenda but that might offer a framework for us to think about you know how we're going to set priorities or how we're going to be thinking about our scope because uh so I guess I would just say that maybe one way of organizing how we're thinking about this is to look at the sections of the charter the the chapters or whatever one is legislative and one is executive and one is finance and so on um that those might be categories that we use for collecting you know ideas about how you know for for organizing ideas about what need to be tweaked or changed gotcha I'll just offer a comment myself that I was thinking is like I wouldn't want us to and I'm just using this as an example it's probably not even actually an existent form of government but for the for the purposes of an example I wouldn't want us to say we get a 100 members of the public who all write in and say we really want an open town meeting no select board in a mayor instead of select board right say a bunch of people write in and say that's the type of government we want um even though that would require a new Charter commission approval by the state legislator Etc I would hate for us to completely ignore that as non-existent or not possible I would instead recommend us to review it discuss it make a recommendation on it and at least include that a large portion of the public believed that in our report if that makes any sense that seems like we're giving people at least some voice in the matter where they feel like okay an idea that has a lot of public participation will be considered even if it's not possible it will go back to um the committee and the committee will discuss it so to speak um Dan then Bernie so one of the things about this that I also saw in other communities reports is the idea that we are part of a process and so we're you know other committees have said you know we we Chang this because this didn't work for us for future committees and also that you're recording things so that in four years people can say wow no one was talking about this then but now a lot of people are talking about it or that current of opinion that we heard some of then has really grown it it's a it's um it's a Time series in a way of of of opinion we play that role also yeah thanks Bernie uh yeah we we also um one of the things I I see happening and uh would like to again caution about is people look at other states and they come up with great ideas from other states that just won't happen in Massachusetts because it's Massachusetts law and I think we have to be prepared to say that well this is something that needs to be studied by another group in another time and it needs to go to the legislature um so as long as we're willing to do that that's a you know that will be helpful uh I would not like to spend again lots of time um throughout an example you know that would to use your example Julian of you know the open time meeting I really doubt that somebody would walk in and say that because the open toown meeting government is pretty much limited to uh to New England and wasn't adopted anywhere else um but you you know to Simply say to them well that's a good idea that's a nice idea we thank you for that thought but we're gonna we're list it as impossible legislative action or leg refer to the legislature and leave it at that not to get into extensive discussions about stuff that we can't hope to do um or you know where you have to do some serious work and some serious Coalition building to to get things going uh some of the things I'd like to look at too um overall is time and how time gets used um how time gets described in the charter and how time gets used by the council uh we also have all the council's the council's rules and of ers procedures which I think we can we can look at as well because that'll reflect back on how the council sees the charter what the council sees the charter allowing it to do um so so not it's it's not simply just sections of the charter it's themes or processes within the charter that repeat itself uh so we're going to talk about the budget um would be one area one functional area but also within that where time comes up um you know we have a particular problem because we have a a regional school with attempt to operate on different calendar than we do so I you know I think it's a good idea to fall through the charter um begin to indicate areas where people would like to U um would like to to to work on but also to keep in mind there broader themes that run through it cool thanks Bernie um Raphael yeah what Erica shared resonated with me I think in some ways we're jumping to analysis of feedback without sort of uh really centering like some of the elements of our charge in terms of just raising public awareness trying to engage different sort of community folks in this process and hearing from them so just thinking more about like the the variety of feedback mechanisms that we could employ utilize before like jumping into what that analysis might look like um really want to have us really focus on those elements too because I think you want as many community members involved in this process as possible yeah that makes that makes a lot of sense to me um I guess put a point on it um do we want to make a motion of something we sort of agree to here or do we want to say okay we have everybody's thoughts to guide us on this and um we'll move to the next agenda item which would people prefer whether we want to make it a formality or not may I don't think we need to make it a formality more ongoing conversation because making a formality would require language and take of we've already spent a quarter of our meeting fair amount of time sounds good also now that I have one um is it helpful to have the screen share or would it be better to see each other at this point yeah um I think it's probably better to see each other yeah thanks Lenn um okay so I'll give a last call for comments on that and then we'll move on to agenda item number five I I I don't want to quite let go of some of the stuff that Rashel said in and Eric it's in terms of we I think it would be good to have the town's communications director come before the committee talk get some ideas from her about how we can do Outreach What mechanisms the town has available to it um begin to catalog some interest groups in town we can contact individually or as a as a committee uh Julian over your signature as chair um because that's going to be that's going to play a big role in what we what we do and I'm said when we started I'm I'm not interested in hearing from The Usual Suspects because they're going to show up anyway um I'd like to be able to get some some feedback from folks who uh up until this point may not have an interest in how that sounds right yeah sounds good um so I'll yeah Meg isn't that item six still to come could I see the agenda please that is item correct average planning that's number six um I'm I'm agreeing with the point I just think this is jumped ahead I'm sorry that's okay if this if this is our discussion about participation and I don't think we're ready to move on I'm agreeing with Bernie but okay yeah do we want to have a disc discussion about number five and then number six or do we want to have a discussion about number six and then come back to number five I guess yeah let's do number six and uh we can finish our discussion on number six and then go back to number five Meg go ahead um so I'm sorry to talk I hope I don't talk too much um I've some of you know me U have put a lot of thought into what is Meaningful participation versus just participation and I think we've all know that when someone says we're having a public meeting in the town room about something or other and everybody can come and then people make random speeches one after the other it's hard to feel sometimes that that's meaningful and it seems we have an opportunity to think more deeply about how to get participation and input that's that's more than that um and I invite us to ask each of our us ask ourselves when we felt we've participated in a process that that felt meaningful that we were heard and there I'll just say this once then you don't have to hear from me again but uh one of the things obviously is to have different formats to meet in different places to figure out where people are where they're used to going um and so that it's easy for people to participate I think it's important that people know ahead of time what the topic is and the questions and particularly if it's framed in a way of we're thinking about this and we're trying to get input about this and that we've had this idea that not not necessarily too complicated but not just what do you think about the council but more specific so people so the input comes as we're having these discussions in a way that's informing what we're actually talking about at that time I think it's good in that same sense to have a context why this information is sought why it's relevant how this will be helpful to us so it's not just come and tell us what you think but this would be helpful I think um one of the things we that's frustrated me in public comment in different kinds of meetings is that apparently there's no because we don't want debate there's actually no back and forth of any sort like for example I think in some cases it would be so helpful to say could you explain when you use that word what you me just asking for clarification and I think we're all sophisticated enough that we know the difference between asking for clarification which can be done in an argumentative argumentative way which is is not good but asking for clarification when we really don't understand something and arguing with someone or we can help each other to not debate when there's a feedback session I think to not have any clarification or that's interesting what did you mean when you said that it makes it harder for people to feel they've their input has been heard yeah I would so and the last point is um opportunity to get back to let people know that something happened or I I don't think you can certainly can't get back to every single person but if there's some overriding we've go to a particular Community or neighborhood and there's some overriding theme that comes up that's relevant to how the town government works the possibility not the obligation but the possibility that they might hear back what right thought or to say oh listen to the meeting if if our public Outreach and participation encouraged more people to come to the meeting as observers that would be great and then to participate when that topic comes up so that there's like a conversation and again we don't have to agree you can't agree with everybody uh but people don't participate if they don't think um they're going to be heard or that it's right I'll uh I'll just interject not that I disre any of your ideas I think they're great um just the timing try to stick to three minutes is that would be great sorry was that I think so I could never take notes because then I lab on anyway sorry no problem um I add a little about what I'd like to about participation is I think we need to make sure we do not just have public forms in town hall where we hear from people let people have their public comments and that's it I think we need to make us make ourselves present in many different areas of the community whether that means we host a barbecue at M River where we invite people and go back and forth um and actually really have a discussion and tease out some of these questions um more informal maybe rent a room in the boulders or at grth Park and uh have a discussion and invite people there have an online uh an online survey or something that folks can fill out um and attach that to like an Instagram or Facebook social media of some sort I think all these ideas might be helpful not just to actually be able to get in more discussion with people rather than just listening but also to hear from people who might not be the quote unquote as Bernie says The Usual Suspects because the other thing I think that's worth noting is The Usual Suspects tend to be um not all but tend to be white wealthy and older and I think we as a town are not all white wealthy and older so well I'm only two out of the three right so the wealth part the wealth part has escaped me to hear from other perspectives in town and I those are just some ways that might work to do it other comments folks in the um that's right go ahead then Bernie and then Ken um so the the public Outreach and communication piece both outgoing and incoming is a was a big motivator for me in in getting participating in this um in this work and so I really I I really care a lot about this um issue um I have a lot of ideas I don't know this does not seem like the form in which to nail them all down but have lots of ideas for various venues forums platforms technology that might be assisting Us in in this process um just broadly speaking in the in the frame of priorities of public comment which I think is the level everybody's speaking about which is great the multiplicity of channels is something I just wanted to Echo that we we're going to get different comments the more the more we can sort of multiply the possibility of channels for this committee to communicate to and from the public is going to improve our our process and our and our reach the breadth of our reach I wanted to open us to the possibility that this kind of speaks to Meg's frustration with public comment being a kind of one-way one person at a time sequential process I want us to be open to the idea that comment might come in the form of conversation uh as opposed to one person coming up down to the front of the room to the microphone make your comment and then go sit down so to speak um that we might want to think about designing forms of comment that can actually engage not just uh residents to committee members but sort of Resident to resident um and that we can um facilitate or just observe or just take notes um it doesn't have to be coming through us um I also wanted to um include the idea of a question period somehow that we could have the submission of questions we part of our the feedback that we solicit not just comments fully formed ideas that come in the shape of suggestions but questions for the committee or for the larger Emer bodies of government um and I just really want to prioritize the idea that public Outreach is a roundtrip concept it's not one way it goes both ways and I want us to be really cognizant and attentive of that in everything that we do that's all for now but that's just my framing of how I think about this no thank you so much uh Bernie and then Ken well I thought Ken had his hand up before me go ahead yeah go ahead Ken oh thanks Bernie um so I I was gonna say something to to similar to what Erica just said and that is Let's Be As creative and and just go little crazy CRA with the ideas at first about uh Tools in which in which to engage we can judge whether you know what what we're capable of doing after that but let's let's just be wide open with it so that's more and a lot of what Erica just said thanks so much one of one of the uh one of the things that uh it's been reported me time and time again that makes people crazy is somebody shows up at the start of the meeting makes a comment and there's no push back there's no response there's no nothing that's a little bit of theater that goes on um meetings are always you know public meeing like that are always always the theatrical in some respects um but we don't have to you know there's a difference between the sort of mandated public comment period where any citizen can show up and talk to the committee about anything that troubles the citizen that's theater um there's nothing keeping us from scheduling a discussion right with whoever shows up at the meeting um or scheduling um discussion sessions uh whether it's in if it's individual we'll have to get into this a little bit with the open meeting law because I I think there are plenty of opportunities that don't run to follow the open meeting L I have individual or a couple of committee members go to a coffee and neighborhood um invite people have be invited to someone's home um that doesn't constitute a public meeting but does offer some chance to to get some input um to the to the committee uh so I I would not want to think in public comment in terms of what we see at every single meeting which is the first few minutes people show up and say whatever whatever's on their mind uh we should be willing to schedule discussions in this get come on a little bit later once we get a better framework for how we want to attack the problem um but you know we we can we can have that give and take between ourselves and um people in a formal way at a meeting and an informal ways at other discussions uh tag along with the councilors I'll have to do district meetings tag along with the councel district meeting and say we're going to hijack your your district meeting for this evening and talk about how the how the council works and the governments there plenty of ways to do that yeah thank you that was excellent um other comments on topic number six Andy um yeah I'm just trying to imagine like even as somebody who's on the committee and who was on the charter commission if somebody just says you know what do you think should be changed about our government it's a pretty hard question pretty hard question to to answer and and um so I think and I think maybe piggybacking on something I believe Meg said earlier which is that you get you want to give people context and you know I can see this being an iterative process where in some ways we we cast the widenet and just like what do you you know we're tonight we're talking about the town counselor tonight we're talking about you know public participation or whatever it is and then we sort of you know come up with some things here are some things we've heard now we take it back out and say how do you what do how do you react to this kind of thing so so giving people something that they can respond to um you know and not just blue skying it all the time I think might might might make it easier for people to hang on you know to grab on to you know what it is we're trying to do so I I guess that's just sort of how do you frame this discussion so it's actually um you know accessible by people who aren't as involved as as some of us you know as most of us are yeah thank you Erica thank you um I had a sort of a a point of procedural clarification around this that I wanted to ask I don't know if we can get the answer without Athena but maybe um just put it to the group which is uh are we at all empowered or able to do any sort of subcommittee work anybody know the frame of that yeah sir go ahead Andy Andy I I think there's a difference between a a sub an official subcommittee and maybe a working group um I just don't know how that works with the open meeting restrictions so if we had a couple people who were interested in brainstorming some categories on this and they wanted to and and um theide a would be that they would go and generate something you know something below a quum of this group would would come up with a list of things that they thought would be worth framing a discussion for the next meeting I think that would be okay as sort of an ad hoc working group designated by this team and that they the the role of them would be to provide a basis for discussion for the broader group um I think that's we had a little bit of a discussion uh beforehand just thinking about you know can we have subcommittees and um I think there there's a difference between an official subcommittee which requires uh that to be posted and be a public meeting right versus you know a couple of people that are designated to go off and you know come up with a format for discussion next time Julian does that sound right yeah no that that's exactly what I was thinking to say um other questions comments ideas on point6 yeah go ahead I mean I guess I I would like the idea of there's been a couple of people who have um certainly Erica um who have indicated interest in maybe producing something that we could respond to next time and and you know I guess I'd like to um you know encourage that to happen if if if if a couple of people wanted to go and create here's here's some ideas for how we're going to collect feedback and then we can then respond to that next time I think that would be really useful yeah I I agree I think that that would be that would be really helpful um er Erica would you have an interest in doing that yeah I would have an interest in in being uh in a working group around the idea of what are what are what's a proposal to this committee around what are some what are some options or possibilities for creating opportunities for for public feedback right no I think that makes that makes sense um Andy and Erica would you have an interest in working on that together I I wasn't really volunteering for that but I was Rafael had also meant had also noted you know mentioned uh various ways of getting feedback you know AB broad net so I just wanted to you know support that support his interest if he's interested yeah absolutely Dan yeah I would I would be interested in doing that also I mean I think a lot of the things Eric has said about what motivated me to do this or that kind of Outreach so it can also be everyone if people have ideas we can send them we can all send them in and and put them together in that way that if it's a working group that would be one of our functions excellent um you Dan and Erica do you guys want to sort of tag team that and if anyone else is interested feel free to speak up yes and it um absolutely and if anyone else wants to participate please I don't know reach out here or or elsewhere we just had to make certain that we're not communicating with a majority of the committee at any given time right because that runs the follow the open meeting law but you know if uh if Dan and Erica go back and forth over these ideas and then come to the committee formally you know if they come to the committee by by posting or giving something to Erica to post for a discussion and that's that's perfectly okay that's within the law as far as I understand it Ro I was going to say I don't mind producing and sharing with chair to review at another meeting I think all of us perhaps could consider like what are some feedback approaches mechanisms that we could employ we review collectively um but I don't mind producing something that I send into you that could be shared that would be awesome yeah no that would be great and we can we can literally just screen share it right here and go through Section by section I think that's a great idea um Erica then Meg thank you I just wanted to uh add that this question that I raised about having a working group I'm glad that there's some consensus about this is potentially a way to work um is also maybe relevant for other areas that we might how we might want to consider breaking down the work that's ahead of us um whether it's topic based or some sort of Subs specialty like public feedback but like we might want to consider um the working group that's not actually a subcommittee um that's tasked with some specific piece h M um just because I didn't understand that I'm taking the minutes did we just say that anyone who has a point to send to the to um Erica and Dan sends it to everyone at the same time no okay good I didn't think so but whatever they'll gather but I love the idea I like the idea of being able to send the two of them and anyone else who joins this working group and then and then at some point um they will forward those ideas as a whole to the committee so everybody in the committee gets them and it's gets posted to the website so that it becomes a public document Ro did go ahead okay great um your hand still up that's why I asked cool awesome um KY yeah I just um I don't I just want to make sure we're that we're not having too much uh deliberation outside of the meetings by everybody um I think we my my my preference I guess would be that we have a couple people designated to do their best thinking on this and bring a list and then we each make our lists and then we we look at the list that they bring at the next meeting and say hey I I also thought of this other thing that's not on the list that's having all to Erica and you know Dan Erica and Dan can work on it but too many people there's the open meeting law and we don't want to have more than three so I think having just Erica and Dan and then everybody else sort of coming back to the meeting with it instead is probably a good idea so we changed the answer to my last question just changed right yes yes my again my my suggestion is that that they are the working group group that we also think each think individually about what we think and then they come back and we see we respond to what they produce by improving it with anything they haven't thought of yeah so I I encourage them then to replay in their minds and I'll try to get it in the minutes I'm have to watch the tape some of the things that were said in the last 15 minutes okay the things we might say how about a meeting you know blah blah this kind of thing or a conver you know I think a lot was really interesting things were suggested already the minutes will really help with that I have to listen oh watch the tape that's for sure just in the um just in the essence of time I'm GNA move us on we've discussed number six we've discussed number four GNA move us on to point number five um and as long as does anybody have any other discussions about number six I don't see um so number five is decide the role of and questions for the legal council um in the potential of having Consultants so any I guess I'll start with do people have strictly questions for KP law that they would like to ask um and I could jot them down in my notes um or something like that and then after that we'll sort of have a discussion of what what the role is and maybe a consultant I know Andy was saying something about that earlier that there's some state grants and stuff we can go after um and then we'll go on to seven and then eight um and then 10 I see Ken and then Meg um I guess uh without sounding too repetitive it's a question about questions um this idea about what uh not this um level that kicks a recommendation into the state legislator's hands uh rank Choice voting was mentioned before but when we when we feeli things I'm like I'm not sure if is is the is the legal firm somebody that can answer those kinds of questions about what what we can't even address because it's a state legislature thing or is that am I can I get that information somewhere else I I'm not totally sure what they're what the I think the legal firm can address that but um if someone else who's more knowledgeable than me knows the answer feel free to blurt it out um M oh just this agenda topic um the role the role of in questions for legal counsel and political Consultants is it the role in questions for legal counsel and the role in questions for poit potential Consultants or no it's the role of potential Consultants is what I meant like do we want to see Pence how Etc and then the other one is what questions do we have for legal council I that's my bad I should have phrase that more clearly those are two different topics okay good yeah yeah we might get clarification for the of legal council on the working group thing yeah can I jotted down your question um Bernie yeah um yes KP law can and will or certainly again they've written legislation um you know KP law can certainly advise us on what is you know what needs to be taken up by the legislature versus what the council can do by a two-thirds vote versus what requires a charter commission if that comes down to that uh what we did when we were reviewing the town's bylaws was we basically built a list of questions for um legal council for KP law then what we did was we looked at what questions they've already answered because some of our our questions were dup duplicative answered them before for somebody else so we already had we didn't need the legal council's opinion we had we had it already right uh KP law also produces regular or they did produce a regular kind of update for all their legal clients that covers broad issues um so we may not need um to refer something to them we just may need to ask can we see KP laws opinion on working groups versus committees uh so so let's let's uh you know let's build a list as we go on yeah uh to uh to as to what we what we wanna what we want to ultimately refer to council yeah that's a great idea um that also that also saves money yeah that's what I was thinking I was like that's smart um yeah good thinging Meg did you have something to lower my hand sorry okay got it um other questions or on this topic I'll just say myself that um Andy brought this idea up to me which was having uh potentially looking at state grants and that sort of thing um if you wanted to talk more about that Andy go ahead uh sure um I in included in the minutes I think is a link to a state Grant um that I that had been mentioned last time around or referred to last time around and it's specific it's a um I don't have it at at my fingertips but basically it's they've specifically added um support of Charter uh processes and Charter review so um it's a it's it's a state good government grant or something and I think it's up to $25,000 or something like that so um in the event that we wanted to get a consultant to work with us that would be something that we could um pursue um you know I I don't know Dan I think you had you had prepared a bunch of um or pulled together a bunch of uh reports from other places and I don't know if your sense is that they used consultants in in most of those other places or or not or if that wasn't visible um because you know I know that the Collins Center was very helpful or Collins Institute was very helpful in um in the charter development because they had a format for doing that and I don't know what what what they do in terms of Charter review but um I would imagine some of that could be helpful um in terms of organizing our work and saving us some time yeah I I think that's excellent thank you um other comment on this agenda point before I move on to our other three Bernie yeah um the M Massachusetts Municipal Association managers group as a form of government committee um that I was on years ago um they that committee is May well be able to help uh advise at no cost so what I would like to be able to do is to uh chat with the um the ad the manager who chairs that committee and see what they're what they have in the files that we could just lay hands on and what they might be willing to do to help us along and bring that back to the group excellent that's that's a great idea Dan um to answer Andy's question um I don't know about Consultants there certainly there are a lot of sources in those other you know if you dig an extra layer of those other reports they talk about what they turn to for for information so we could um go through and gather that together um I think pretty easily and there definitely some of them were you know pamphlets or or um documents put out by the state specifically about Charter reviews so I think there's background info that we can glean from those um pretty easily yeah and I'll just point out for folks if you haven't seen it Dan did a a bunch of great research that is in the document Center um attached to the meeting where you can find some pretty in-depth uh materials and stuff yep go right ahead yeah in particular there's one that's just called um article article 89 lxxx iix and it's an overview of um the laws and it basically saying Charter commission special act it kind of lays out what the men is that's made available under the Constitution so I thought that was a helpful summary um yeah yeah absolutely um alrighty so I guess if I don't see any other questions um or comments for this all move us along um if if you do have anything else for Section Five yeah Andy go ahead sorry I I just uh from in terms of the question about the question that we had in the last meeting was you know when or if we want to reach out to you know the town's law firm and it sounds from what I'm hearing it sounds like uh it would be helpful if they could give us some sort of guidance on what what can be done locally versus what can be done by the legislature versus what could require a charter commission but for the most part we're expect expecting questions to come come up as we go along and maybe we collect those kinds of questions and maybe we don't even need to know you know I'm conscious that that that is sort of the end point category so maybe we don't even need to know that right up front there may be other legal questions that come up as we go along so I'm just trying to figure out like is there anything we want to ask them now or are we saying that we're just going to keep a list of questions and one of them would be as we're preparing a report you know what category do we put things in and how do we know what they going I I don't know what what I'm not hearing a um an urgency on this but I don't know Ken um I liked what Bernie suggested if if they've got a repository of questions that have already been asked faq's opinions that they've forwarded about these kinds of things I want to I want I want to have access to that or if or ask for Access I should say and then um you know have that be some homework before the next meeting at least for me yeah that's great um Dan so just to be sure that we're we're on the same page what I've heard I mean it seemed like the the big legal question last time is what's our scope what what can we do and it seems like we have converged on that that we're going to cast a wide net I've heard that a bunch if that's the case then I don't think we have the urg for for you know legal counsel counsel and we there's a lot of stuff we can learn about the law and move this forward and then that fits in well with Bernie's suggestion that we'll I think we can we can move forward and and ask as needed in the future yeah definitely other questions comments thoughts so so then are are I'm sorry go ahead go right ahead I but then are we are we asking uh for those kinds of um you know any gener any already prepared guidance that they might have at this point that can be distributed or or not I guess I was presuming yes any resources they had um like to send us our way and maybe get um an answer to Ken's question um and then we'd reach out to what Bernie was saying the mass managers or mass municipal Association one one of the things I think um is when we do get into having a discussion about the open meeting law that will take um that will be helpful to understand what subcommittees are and what working groups are and what you can and can't do without uh running a file of the the open meeting law um we're all at some point going to have to uh uh take a take a test on it and you can't flunk but we're all going to have to certify that for the town clerk um so so there's there's that piece and then the Bro the others so there's that mechanics of of how the group can operate and stay within the open meeting law that's one set and we should have that discussion with uh with our staff and then um you know go on from there because none of the questions that have come up um are new in terms of the wi World municipal government uh including the piece about public comment and you know not having a dialogue during the public comment that kind of stuff so there's that and then the second piece of it which is where I'm really suggesting we keep the list is when we begin to have question about what can happen with a two-thirds vote of the council versus what can happen with a tweak in the state laws by the legislature versus this would require an entire Charter commission process to enact and that will build up over time and that that's uh that's where I think we're gonna we're going to end up uh you know deciding where those which bucket things get dropped into and which thing that's dropped in the bucket we're actually going to recommend right um Ken um I'll just Echo what Dan said that I would love love to know these things I don't want to put this on the agenda right for the next meeting necessarily I I would love to know um and we can push forward with with this getting getting comments um I don't want to muck it up with something that we don't want to do we don't want to focus on just just yet but um it's going to help me understand our charge a little a little better yeah um other comments on this section Meg um I agree with Ken and Dan um in addition I don't think we have a budget so we should find out what's costs are incurred by talking with the with the legal counsel yeah that's a good point do it and then find out we can't do it yeah I did speak with Athena about that we do not have a budget we um we can ask for legal advice but the legal advice is done on a contract with the town so they get certain amount of legal advice at a certain rate um I don't know what exactly that is but it is expensive it's like if you were to consult a private lawyer um so I would agree that we should use it sparingly and try to look at the resources like what um Ken and Bernie were mentioning um other questions or comments on this before I move us along Andy yeah I just want to make sure we're clear on what the outcome of this section is what what are we actually asking asking for if anything I believe what we're looking for is we're going to get in contact with the mass Municipal Association or mass Managers Association we are going to uh cast a widenet get as many perspectives as we can and then narrow it down and when we have questions about those perspectives ask KP law and then that we are going to explore some of kp's regular resources that they hand out to all municipalities given that it may have an have the answer to a question like Ken's um and would allow us to uh if it doesn't we would reach out to them but would save money by looking through that first before we reach out to them to see if it has the answer that's my understanding at least correct me if I'm wrong thank you um so last call before I move us along I don't see any other hands um so now I'm going to move us to our next agenda item which is thank you Lynn um which is number seven uh create sections of interest in the charter because we already discussed six so ly would would you mind screen sharing the actual ammer Charter um and folks can pull it up on their computers or phones um or a packet if they have at Handy that might be helpful for folks um and we're really just looking for what are obviously we have the working group who's going to look into it folks can look into it on their own time but what are things that really I presume some of us have read the charter before um the meeting and what are things that really stand out is gez we like to look at that um and that sort of discussion if you will of like not necessarily what do we want to do I think that comes later but sort of I would like to look at this because blank and then we can go to the next section um so I guess I can start with two um pieces of the charter that I would personally like to look at one is our section 5.5 5.6 and 5.7 which is just the budgeting and how the budgeting is done um we have a budget that each year gets produced by the town manager Etc and that's been point of a lot of discussion especially with the school but also with other issues um and residents often will come in and voice their perspective and then the budget will get voted affirmatively without much changes in two weeks right um so basically what I'm I would like us to examine that and look for possible changes to make that uh section more inclusive to members of the public and also potentially apply some more limits on where the town spends how the town spends Etc um other I guess I'll introduce that and then my other one uh that I actually forgot the subsection of which is my bad um but it is uh related to who can run for Council I'd like to look at the fact that we currently don't allow um Town staff and by that I don't just mean we don't allow um the town manager and department heads I mean anyone if you are a teacher if you're a firefighter if you're a DPW worker you are not legally allowed to run for Council so I'd like to look at that section just given that it could potentially um outline a large section of our Town who isn't really allowed to run in the first place if they want it to um I'll look for other people who have sections they'd like to discuss um or comments about mine Andy then yeah I was going to say if we just look at the table of contents it gives us some broad breaks Downs there's the legislative the executive other elected officers financial and so on so I don't know if that just gives us like an initial bucket to say you know we're going to go Section by section and within you know the finance one we're going to look at budget process within um you know elections or other I don't know exactly where where it would be but you know those seem like some logical folder type of things that we could be collecting input on I don't know as a starting point yeah absolutely uh Meg I saw your hand and then Dan I'm just put it down because I'm not sure are we going through the things that we're interested in or should we do what Andy suggested okay we're going through the things so I'm interested in elections and the terms excellent and I'm also interested in broadening public participation mechanisms perfect Dan I'm interested in the legislative branch I mean I'd really like to to um interview you know personally interview counselors previous counselors and really see from the inside what did this what did working with this uh you know there there are people who has have a perspective of this that's uh that's worth something so yeah that would interest me excellent thank you um Erica thank you um I I want to zoom out for just a second not to be contrarian but just to um to think about um how we're how we're talking about areas of interest because I think there's an inherent tension between what our own areas of Interest are um we all care about and have things we'd like to change about town government um there's a there's a tension between that and what our charge is as a committee which is if you really read the charge it's all the committee shall it's really almost all about public uh public input public feedback and us then analyzing the public feedback so that doesn't mean our areas of Interest don't matter but I just want to propose that maybe there's a way that we can use our areas of interest to become sort of like focus groups to frame a process by which we can outline some questions or some uh some high points which we want to bring to the public attention to say what what are we what are we as a town feeling about this financial piece or this legislative process as opposed to coming from our own personal feelings about I would like Our Town Council to look or feel different um to that end just as an example could we have work groups around these areas of Interest with a process that among ourselves that culminates in a set of questions or a set of uh topics that we want to bring to public forum in whatever format that we decide on together um that's sort of like bringing our focused attention to a particular part of the Town Charter that then we take that out to the public I can try to clarify that if I'm if I'm if I've jumbled it but I'm trying to make a point of clarification that we're coming in with our our sentiments our agenda so to speak and but really what we were meant to do is solicit as much intelligible feedback from our public uh from our neighbors as possible H I took my hand down okay that kind of changed my mind um no problem yeah no problem at all other uh I've noted everybody's um suggestions um anyone else who has areas of Interest Bernie well is I mentioned before I'm interested in timing which runs through the charter for different functions and how that might um how changes in that those scheduling and in the sequencing might help the council might help public understand uh what the process is uh to to really take a look at that I also uh you know agree with Dean that we want to talk to uh um and I I would certainly like to talk to counselors current and former uh about what their Impressions were and look at the council's rules of proceedings which is another way of interpreting the the charter um to see where that can get um that can get reworked and improved if if if in fact it needs it um so those are those are a couple of things that I'd like to be able to I'd like to be able to look at um they're not necessarily Cosmic issues but they're stuff that gets in the way of of good functioning and stuff that gets in the way of having a compact and and susin Council meetings uh the um I'd include in that group of people that I i' want to talk to is uh uh some of the some of the Town employees um who are impacted by the the way the charter operates um in in uh in the way the council operates so they get a better idea of that uh and then you know then and we have the whole and and which is not to say we shouldn't I don't want to lose sight of the fact that there's a public out there that we need to talk to but those would be you know there' be some things that I'd be particularly interested in yeah absolutely Dan and then rapael rafhael can go ahead yeah go ahead Rafael for me it's um article eight um what what Erica said I think that's where I'm at in terms of I think in terms of making the public aware letting them sort of shape inform like focal elements is important to me so that's where I'm thank you um Dan yeah I I see these things as going together um and also with Bernie I mean you know when I talk about you know seeing what the what the council says I don't it's really out of curiosity it's not with any agenda about what they should or shouldn't be and I but I think that both of those inside and outside of the government and a lot of the people that work in the government are also our fellow citizens so there isn't a completely um clear line there isn't a clear line there um so so yeah no I don't see these as exclusive at all that we that both two tracks are running along uh running through this yeah I would agree um Andy um so I guess I I'm thinking about two different sort of axes on this one one is the work group that we talked about what are the various ways that we're going to collect input and feedback and then the other is what are the categories within which we're going to ask for that input and feedback and so I I think maybe we've moved on to the categories now but so so I I do think the table of con you know the articles of the Charter give us a starting point for what category you know if we're if we have sort of a um you know if we're looking at the legislative branch you want to get the input of the people in the legislative branch and then you want to get input from the public on how well they think that's working and what could be changed and similarly with finance and whatever so it it we we both need to think about who we want to talk to and how and then what we want to talk you know how how we want to frame the the talk the conversation excellent um other comments sections that folks have interest in off the cuff now I'm hearing a lot about wanting to sort of let some of the public comments and uh that determine where where we go in here which I totally understand understand and agree with um Ken yeah I am I'm falling in line with what Andy said of using the table of contents as this guide um this is this is our Charter this is this is this is the easiest way that we're going to we're going to create buckets is is using the work of the of the charter commission um to go by the Articles to use these these uh these titles as buckets to focus people's questions and thoughts um you know whether previously we talked about I mean May it's way I took it that you have a meeting that's just about election feedback or just about uh the executive branch feedback or something like that um just to focus people so it's not just this this no holds bar discussion all the time which can get really I think frustrating and overwhelming for many people yeah absolutely um Erica yeah I I agree that the table of contents gives us a good framework to to start from my question for the group is how would we proceed because um do we go through that uh as a as a group sort of section by section um to pull out the the pieces the Clauses the the itemized things that we feel need attention or to be addressed by larger groups um or or do we break that work down somehow um among ourselves or on a timeline like what's the next sort of procedural step for us because I think that the table of contents is a good framing device don't see a reason to not use it but just thinking about how how do we use it how do we proceed with the work yeah Andy I'm wondering if we start Broad and just say look we're we're we're here to listen to to the public and we can have some initial things to say you know what do you like about the way the government's working what do you think should be improved and then move to more more section by section okay now we're going to talk about you know what we're hearing what we grouping that into sort of the categories and then taking that out and saying okay now we're g to tonight we're g to or whatever in this next phase we're going to talk about the legis branch and and go go deeper that way I but I I don't know exactly the specifics of that but it seems like yeah people need to be able to just sort of uh access it in whatever way they they can come to it so so initially it might be like what what what what's on your mind about this in general and then we come back and say okay now we're going to talk more specifically got it sounds good um questions comments on this one me see just scroll through to make sure I'm getting everybody I don't see anybody else okay great um so no more questions comments on this one um I guess that will move us uh I've jotted down everybody's um sections of interest and what folks said about public participation and uh that moves us to section eight which is somewhat related or which is the discussing the yet to be enacted sections of the charter and I went through the charter myself and said okay what have we not done so far and pretty much everything in the charter has been enacted in some way or another with exception of the rank Choice voting and participatory budgeting so I want to sort of have a discussion of okay we're making recommendations but we also need to look at this in the manner of how do we assist or move the town forward in either implementing or getting rid of or revising the sections of the charter that um we've chosen for whatever reason not to enact yet um and with rank Choice voting that's a little bit more nuanced just because it requires approval by the state legislature but with patory budgeting that's just been a choice that hasn't really been enacted yet from a budgetary perspective so I want to open that up for some discussion um and then we'll have future agenda planning and meeting schedule in a journ may go ahead um I'll try to be really brief I was on the charter commission I'm very involved in participatory budgeting being part of the recommendation I spent uh significant amount of time in Cambridge and learned a lot about it and I was the chair of the committee to uh propose to the town and uh participatory budgeting plan and my understanding of why it hasn't been approved is largely because of the budget the cost of it so I'm interested in exploring I know a lot of U participatory budgeting programs around the country are funded by independent sources I know the Robert K John the Johnson foundation in New Jersey funds pretty much all of the participatory budgeting programs there so I'm interested in exploring that um because um I I think that was the main problem people had with it yeah I just have a question about that which is was there an amount of money that you guys suggested starting a participatory budgeting thing no okay um but also propos that the uh Community participation officer position was some somewhat in order to staff it um I see that's another another issue is is it requires some level of Staffing not a lot but some because the proposals have to I don't want to again I could I know a lot about this and I don't want to be I I appreciate it I'm sort of with a bone on this but um so I won't but if anybody wants to know more about it let me know but I think the staff the the town has to vet the proposals to make sure they're number one not incurring ongoing costs that they're achievable blah blah blah and so in cambrid for example they propos the students they're in categories so what is youth students they proposed that people can order their lunch in the cafeteria with an app before they get to the cafeteria and that just went out the window because the staff wasn't capable of managing something like that so there has to be a that's a vetting process for example that's my example but I know a lot about it if anybody wants to hear more it's and I'm a fan of it but um it so far hasn't it's yeah I I appreciate that I I'll send you an email about it um because that's interesting um Dan go ahead so we we won't have a whole discussion about it but so so participatory budgeting is really grant money it's not actually taking a piece of the town's budget and taking it it's not a taking from the rest of the town it's added on from outside money is that I'm proposing that we introduce that idea which is often it's out of the Town budget usually it is but where comes from that hasn't been considered before that we that there be an outside funding source the other thing is the committee could theoretically review and enforce an allocation if you will of saying the town must allocate this specific amount of money or involved patory budgeting at this point in the process I guess would be be another way that it could be implemented Dan do you still have your hand up yeah I mean this goes back to it seems like a thing that would really be if it's there but hasn't been acted on if there is really agreement with this in the community this would we'd be a conduit for that to say hey a lot of people want to see this happen let's that would be uh that alone would be a way in which we would push it Forward yeah absolutely I think that's a great idea Erica uh just to clarify is this are these two issues a question before this committee like in general or tonight not tonight specifically but there are question before the committee because there are two sections of the charter that we're reviewing and I brought them to our attention specifically just because they're the only sections of the charter that haven't been implemented so there's not really a way to know how well they've actually occurred because they haven't existed this thus far okay just wanted to understand whether like why this appears on our agenda tonight yeah I guess the reason is because it is they haven't been implemented thus far so it felt like something that might be a higher level priority given that it hasn't happened yet um Andy um I think partly this came out because we had some public comment last time about um you know uh suggesting that we FasTrack the um the uh rank Choice voting rank Choice voting so that UMC because it hadn't been enacted yet but um I kind of see it as being part of the discussion these are two categories you know if we're looking at at the table of content at the various articles these are certainly things that we would want to look at but I I don't I'd want to what you know what are the reasons that they haven't been enacted there may be you know logistical reasons why they haven't or financial reasons or whatever but I I I guess I would say that we should highlight them to make sure they make it into the discussion but I don't know that we want to privilege them over any other categories at this point okay yeah no definitely um also considering like might be a place for specific Outreach to reach out to Mindy D or one of our legislators about rank choice Etc and sort of ask Hope questions about happening why yeah yeah excellent um other discussions on this agenda item I don't see any um seeing none on rank Trace voting by jine wow we're finishing up early folks good job um okay uh future agenda planning and meeting schedule um I'll just say this meeting time seems to work I did want to discuss the hybrid meetings as opposed to just via Zoom I'd like to have some hybrid meetings um in addition to our in-person uh Community participation um and Outreach stuff and then future agenda if anybody has things they definitively want on the agenda I know open meeting law review will be on there for next meeting um as will Erica and Dan what um what you guys have um from reviewing the charter and that sort of thing Andy and then yeah I I just wanted the thing that I heard was that we have a couple of people who are willing to to to give us a FR you know a starting point for that discussion of how we're going to do Outreach and I think that's great and that should be a major piece of our next meeting um the other sort of AIS of that is like how do we dig into these these categories are there particular I I don't know you know how do we want to to figure out how we what we want to talk about Within These categories and I don't know if that comes after we have that I mean I think we should have the other discussion first what kind of Outreach do we want to do and who do we want to talk to but then I think we need to talk about you know what aspects of the legisl how do we how do we frame a discussion of the legislative branch or the budgeting process or whatever it is so maybe it's like a list of topics within those at some point you know within right framework yeah absolutely um Meg just a question have we agreed on the frequency of our meetings yes every two weeks so it's every two weeks at Thursday at six o'clock yes that's correct yep thank you think two weeks from now and then two weeks from them um Andy do you still have your hand up Noe okay uh Erica yeah I think what the points that Andy raised are are really important and are um kind of what I was trying to allude to earlier which is how are we going to go about this and um if that's a future agenda item that's fine but if it's if it's something we need to frame out now related to like what are we talking about on X date for a few meetings going forward um are we deciding as a group to take on sections you know one and two two or two and three um in the next meeting and come out with a sort of short list of topics and who would be best to bring those to um that's along that's the point of my comment is like do we are we outlining a mechanism tonight are we kind of leaving that open for a future discussion um I would I mean this is just me personally I'd like to outline a mechanism tonight where we have you and Dan working on this um and going through well D just I'm sorry to interrupt you Dan and I are going to work on the issue of how we're going to bring things to the public or how we're going to solicit feedback but the I think that the point that Andy was making was how are we deriving the content that we're going to discuss in the Forum like we're going to show up at a public forum but then we're going to have we need to dis know what we're talking about that night or putting in the survey or whatever it is we're going to do and that's the piece that I'm trying to break down from this giant chunk which is the charter into smaller chunks are we doing it all together one week after the other are we breaking it down to subgroups I'm just trying to get a feel for what how people are thinking about that yeah that's an excellent discussion question I'm sorry I misunderstood your question um Andy yeah I guess I'm i' I'd go back to um as you're thinking these two things start to blur into each other I think a little bit as you're thinking about how do we conduct Outreach and get feedback you know maybe it's also thinking about from the general to the specific and I don't know how specific you get in the specific but it's like are we going to start with you know general questions about you know forums and a survey and you know whatever uh focus groups around what's working what's not working and then we're going to then take that and then start to break it down into okay let's talk about the legislative branch or elections or whatever um but I don't know as you're as you're thinking about what kind of Outreach we we want to have it probably helps to be thinking a little bit about what are those conversations going to be like so I don't want to Heap you know have you guys do all the work for us and then you know come in next meeting and and we we thank you for doing all that but I I I do think that it may come up as you're thinking about like what are what are we going to be talking about you know not just how are we going to talk about but actually what's the what's some of the content yeah right Meg no I'm just giving thumbs up oh yeah no I I agree I think there's also a matter of like we need to have a out we have our community forms we have our discussions and sort of processing that data and getting into the right place and transforming sort of say Bob and Joe come to us and say hey we really want this this has not been working because the meeting times don't work for us how do we put that um that feedback into a specific bucket um and actually assign it to a section of the charter where a revision or addition could be made all right other questions um for the next agenda on uh let me just check when that date will be for folks um two weeks from today BC uh that would be we're meeting on the 24th October 24th at 6 PM um which is a Thursday uh I I'll definitely put on the agenda our open meeting law um review and discussion and that sort of thing um and I'll also put on the agenda sort of the report from Dan and Erica and we'll have a better we'll have a discussion about scheduling our public participation and that and also have a discussion of how do we want to outline the buckets of where what goes where um I think those are all good items to put on the agenda other folks with suggestions for the agenda okay um I guess my next question is other comments questions concerns in general items not anticipated um 48 hours before the meeting um and uh if so please bring those up now Erica and then May thank you and this is maybe a point lost without Athena here but um I wanted to raise a question about how we are organizing our information as a committee in the document Center um uh it was really interesting to see the uh the comparable reports from other towns for instance show up in the document Center um but i i i p this is maybe just a personal comment I find it a little disorganizing to find all those reports Loosely dropped into a folder by this meeting's date when I think about I might want to refer to something in another Town's report when I think I'm thinking about that seven weeks from now I'm not going to remember that it came up on o October 10th um yeah and if there's other ways to organize our information I think now would be a good time to to lay that I don't know if that's possible or if Athena is the person to do it but I just want I think Athena is the person to do it and I will send her an email if you want to as well go right ahead about asking if we could organize it into folders by topic having like a general information folder of this section of the charter that section of the charter will make it much easier for us to to go back um and actually look in here I I completely agree so I'll email her and ask about that um and if you want to as well that would be great yep Andy and then Meg or I said Meg and then Andy sorry so looking at the schedule of the meetings which I just I'm looking at we're meeting on the 24th and then again on the October 31st that's only one week the second question no that can't be right well that's what it says here I'm just reading what it says on this list they're all virtual so whether they are hybrid that's something we'll decide yeah I'd like to have some hybrid meetings do we want to agree on a amount of hybrid meetings do we want to do three let me just first point out that on the schedule that was circulated it says October 24th and then October 31st and then yeah I'm not sure why we would be meeting on October 31st because Halloween as well well a week after the pre I'm just the schedule well I'm just pointing it out it's on one week yeah um Andy and then Erica I mean I think we originally had a a schedule every two weeks starting on the third and then that that got moved to the first the next meeting got moved to the 10th so I think everything moved every two weeks after that but um I also I also just wanted to respond to the the previous question which I I believe believe Athena was talking about creating some logical folders for you know resources so I I do think that we're probably going to have you know meeting by meeting folders just so that you know there's an agenda and there's minutes and things like that but when you know and then there were a bunch of things that were submitted for this meeting but that I think if their resources they would you know that are research they would go into a research folder or something like that I think aen had some sort of sense about about some of that and we'll need to prob probe that with her yeah I'll uh I'll set up a time that I can meet with Athena and ask her question about the schedule um Dan and then I'll go back to you Erica that's okay great yeah I mean just in support of Erica's point and and this it's not just for us it's for the public as well this is the library we've been we've been drawing on um and to have that be organized by by subject and if things are in two different folders there's no harm to that if there's a question of clar of classification yeah and I'll just add for anyone watching go online ammer ma.gov document Center Charter Review Committee anyone can look at what we're looking at what we're looking at isn't secret information by any means um Erica yeah I wanted to go back to the the calendar question um there was a an annotation next to that uh meeting calendar that had to do with the meeting time of a of the of a different committee and that's why if I can share my screen I can yeah what I'm talking about um can everyone see that um so there's an annotation here that has to do with the government legislative committee uh that I'm assuming this is Athena commenting that if we were to alternate these dates she's trying to work out what who can who can use the room G given your comment about the hybrid meeting possibility I think that's what that's about that's how I interpret that okay yeah do we want to actually go in here and look like what do we want to be um when do we want our hybrid meetings to happen throughout the year and sort of highlight that I guess I could propose we want to have a hybrid meeting on November 14th a hybrid meeting on the 27th a hybrid meeting on the 17th and then a hybrid meeting um on the thir I guess that way we're sort of mixing in some hybrid meetings where folks can come in person in the town room Andy go ahead you're muted I think sorry I guess we need to think about what why uh atha was scheduling uh meetings two week you know two weeks in a row and whether there'll be enough time for any interim work between that you know I mean we're okay our next meeting is two weeks from now right so then that I guess gives enough time for Erica and Dan and whoever to to do to do their um you know sort of brainstorming and bring something to the table but if there's some work that would need to be done between that meeting and the next one it's only a week and we may want to decide whether that's realistic or not yeah um I don't know I'm sorry but I don't know if she um is scheduling around that committee because the room's not available or because she's not available yeah I'm not sure either um these are these are questions we should ask her at our next meeting um really as much as I would also like answers on October 21st if Athena is able to make that meeting I think that's when we should ask the those questions um just make an agenda item for next time yeah exactly I will yeah um which would be hybrid meetings and meeting dates and questions for Athena excellent okay um Bernie um yeah I'm was just puzzling over um when we do the when we do the the hybrid meetings um is that going to be a particular time that we would invite in someone to do a presentation or invite in a group to to to offer some suggestions and if we're going to do that it might be more helpful to get our you know to get ourselves going first before we start to to plot those out yeah I think that's a good idea you know and I there sort of sort of an interesting thing to be meeting on Halloween I mean yeah I I'm not I'm not sure how I feel about that as a college stud know trick or treat but yeah yeah um yeah I'm not and for like actual public participation means who's going to show up on Halloween um Andy you might not like what maybe we don't I mean I think we want to think about these meetings as you know maybe scheduling a barebones of of meetings where we're going to deliberate we're going to think about what we've learned so far and then when we're doing Outreach and scheduling forums or or you know uh focus groups or whatever that that might be off the you know the schedule because I I don't know that we can schedule too far in advance if we don't know where we're going to be or who we're meeting so it might be that we just meet I mean I guess we need to sort of review that meeting schedule because I just put in every other week because that's what we said last time and now thank you Meg for pointing out that we had two meetings so two weeks in a row and we you know we might want to figure out what's the minimum number we need to keep our deliberation going as we go along and then add in things as we're doing more you know Outreach No I um I agree because I had assumed it was every other week as well so I um made tentative plans I guess you could say with folks for Halloween so it's yeah um I would agree Meg go ahead did you have a question no no I'm laughing okay excellent you don't hit me laugh I'll mute no that's fine go right ahead um alrighty so on that note uh I'll definitely have that as another agenda item I'm G to make a motion to adjourn if I don't see any other questions comments I have a question about the minutes do I call I don't need to take everybody's time do I call you about it uh yeah please you can you can email me call me text me I think you have my number right yep I'll just it's not a business it's it's just a detail of what y please please no problem timing thank you no problem all righty other questions comments before we say good night to everybody all right I move to adjourn second second all in favor I excellent have a nice night everybody bye bye night