##VIDEO ID:V6YvYKmd05I## all right good morning everyone it's 808 am on uh Thursday September 19 2024 I'm uh calling the calling to order the first meeting of the 2024 Charter Review Committee thank you all for uh volunteering to serve on this really important committee I think this is a historic meeting this is the first time we're doing this this is our first Charter um so I'm really excited to be working with you all and I thank you for your service um I'm going to go around and just confirm everyone can hear and be heard since we uh have some folks on Zoom so Andy can you just hold down the button on your mic and say here or hello here hi Meg present here Julian present Bernie here Ken good morning Erica good morning Dan I'm here Raphael here and we're missing Marcus um so I'm just announcing that we're recording audio and video the first thing we're going to do if there's no objection before we um elect a chair and vice chair is just do a short Icebreaker I'm conscious that some of us um don't have a lot of time this morning and it we're starting a little bit late um I was hoping to have a little bit more of a get to know you session but I want to use our time wisely so if you want to go around introduce yourself maybe say why you want to serve on this committee or talk about your previous service um and then um I invite you to say an element share an element of success that you've felt in the past and that can be whatever comes up for you making sure that you have a cup of coffee or a snack in the morning making sure you're you know communicating with with people in a way that feels good for everyone or in a positive way or whatever you want to share in that way and I just ask you to be lean of speech and keep your comments to a minute or two so that we can get to our other important items on the agenda um so yeah um just for um so I can understand can you say how this agenda was determined and um you know tell us the process and also it's a lot of feedback um uh say what what the legal status of it is is are we legally bound to this agenda or do we have any way in in this proceeding so as your staff Lea on I um put the agenda together after you elect a chair and vice chair will be the chair who determines what to put on the agenda for this meeting only we needed somebody to write an agenda and we don't have a chair yet so I took on that task um so we are bound to only discuss what's on the agenda today by the open meeting law unless something comes up that was unanticipated 48 hours in advance of the meeting what would be in that category um those are usually emergency things that really need attention at this point because um the purpose of the open meeting law is to make it transparent what the committee is going to be talking about so the members of the public are informed when they come to the meeting if something comes up that wasn't anticipated and isn't on the agenda there may be members of the public who wish to attend and hear what you have to say about that topic and weren't informed so it's wise unless it's something really pressing that comes up to request that it be on the the next agenda and you would make that request to the chair once we have a chair um and then you can discuss it publicly and members of the public know that it's going to be on the agenda and discussed at that meeting um Julian you had your hand up and down did you have a question Meg um I think I brought this up within 48 Hours of the meeting but I feel quite strongly I've go with whatever everyone wants but somewhat in line with your question sorry I yeah um yeah um it doesn't to me make sense to pick the permanent chair when we hardly know each other there are only two people here who I've I know it all well and one I've met but um so I'm just seems that we could have there's all sorts of mechanisms for a temporary chair if people wanted to do that but I'm not sure that fits within the agenda sure so when when we get to the election of chair and vice chair that's a motion that you can make to elect a temporary chair for however many meetings a period of time I don't feel comfortable being the temporary chair because I'm not a member of the committee so I would ask that you elect a temporary chair if that's what the committee chooses to do at that time um among the members right okay there ways to do that so sure yeah so let's do let's do introductions and then we'll get Char started out that way yeah with a temporary chair yeah thank you introductions I'm going to go around in the order that uh folks are on my screen Ken uh my name is Ken Le blonde um I live in the Echo Hill Neighborhood of ammer I've been in amers for over 11 years um I want to serve because I um I have a master's degree in public administration so I've always been interested in kind of how government works um kind of behind the scenes um and while this is rather public um I think it also I think it also counts as kind of behind the scenes um and that's the kind of job I actually have now um with the University of Massachusetts I'd say a sign of success for me would be to be able to end my each and every day with about a half an hour of book reading in bed that is a perfect end to my day thank you thank you Andy hi I'm Andy Churchill I um live up on Pine Street in North hamers um I've been here since 1995 um I worked in education as a uh policy analist and researcher and administrator for a number of years I'm now retired uh I do occasional Consulting uh jobs but not very often um and I've chaired I I served on the school committee uh for two terms and I chaired the charter commission that um we're now um looking to uh adjust the work of and I'm excited about that um success uh success would be if I could stay awake for half an hour reading a book in bed um that would be great um and I guess you know uh I I think feeling like I am doing something creative with my time and something useful with my time I guess is my judgment of success thank you Meg I'm Meg Gage um I'll I made some notes but I'll Whip through it very fast I retired um from 35 years in Progressive philanthropy about uh eight or nine 10 years ago I founded the peace Development Fund and the Proteus fund of national philanthropy organizations that are still based in ammer working on Global Peace democracy marriage equality range of democracy issues before that I was a high school teacher for uh I don't know eight or 10 years including four years at ammer high which is also my Alma moer um in uh the '90s I led two or three I can't remember override campaigns primarily focused on the schools um one of which with uh Lynn's husband Brian um and I was the founding chair of the amorist cinema board and served from when we bought the building in 2000 till 2010 which is one of my most successful things um and I was in town meeting from 1987 until uh 2017 um I'm very active in the League of Women Voters particularly in the racial Justice committee um I founded the uh district one neighborhood association of which I'm the president which helps um people in North amers participate in community and I was on the charter commission which Andy LED and my big interest reason that I'm on this is I'm interested in expanding meaningful participation and I have a lot of interest in think talking about thinking about with those what meaningful means in terms of participation and transparency I support the leagues uh recommendations and would be happy to send them to you or the leag will probably send them and they raise some questions that we don't have time now to bring up but I'm interested in learning what others think about those recommendations and particularly whether we should even discuss issues Beyond The Limited range of what this review is in the scope of our work um the that document does do that and so it's a it's a strategy question of do we want to um focus only on the limited scope or do we want to also open to the public some discussion about other issues related to our government that could be addressed in other ways down the road if that's what people think so when I've had conversations Meg I'm gonna ask you to wrap up okay thanks thank you on a really success I don't know going to bed on time and ammer Cinema thank you Erica good morning um I'm Erica melin and I um have lived in ammer for uh about six or seven years um I live in South amst um I've my background is in uh a variety of things but mostly in the world of uh media media production and also as an educator um my areas of Interest are uh the intersection of media and democracy and media and society and so on um currently I work as a program officer for a nonprofit so I I am interested I'm very interested in process and systems and good systems for um working with people um and um that was one of the things that interested me about coming to serve on this uh committee was my interest in in process both the details and the big picture and um having something to contribute in the way of good process um success that's a you know that's a tricky one but I would say it's not necessarily getting to the bottom of the to-do list at the end of the day but maybe having a good sense of where where you're going to start the next day thank you Erica Dan I'm Dan Muscat I've lived here since uh 96 and um I think I'll go right to the success part that for me a successful day is one where I've learned something and I want to express my gratitude to the council because I've learned a lot over the last two months and I've really enjoyed it and I expect that that will um really continue um and it's not just learning uh ephemeral things but things that seem um really relevant to all of our Lives um so I'll keep it short at that thank you Julian so press and hold good okay um yeah my name's Julian I grew up here in town um just graduated this year from ammer Regional High School and now I'm at UMass for environmental uh conservation and Community forestry so uh that's a little bit about me I would say I'm hoping to work on this committee with sort of dividing things into having some sessions where we sort of delve into the smaller detail stuff um and some sessions where we think about the big picture so we're able to consider both aspects of the issue but also not be so intertwined like okay we want to remove this word while also thinking about should we have a mayor or a councel or this right we want to bring it back in to sort of be able to focus on have some sessions with the small some sessions with the sort of larger issues um and then lastly uh success I guess I enjoy starting my mornings early which is rare for teenagers but I I like uh 6 7 AM is a good start Julian we we don't have anything in common I'm just kidding Bernie thank you good morning um I'm Bernie kubc let's see I I worked for um almost three decades in human services before changing careers I'm a local government um Fado uh having been a selectman for 12 years in in Belchertown and then I moved to amorist while I was still unindicted um so that 25 years ago I I moved to amorist um I've managed to uh run three towns uh all of which are smaller but what you find when you run a small town is that you have to wear many hats and do many things because you really don't have an extensive staff I have uh a a Masters in Education with an emphasis on special needs and a masters in in um public policy although some people will tell you I'm a master of none uh my uh my hope here is on this committee is that we we stay focused on the what we've been asked to do by the council I will say upfront I'm not interested at all in re litigating the form of government I want to make focus on how well our form of government functions and where we can improve that because the voters chose this form of government um for me successes get waking up and finding a nice foggy morning where I can go out and make photographs thank you Bernie Raphael rapael Rogers um I live I've lived in South ammer with my wife and daughter for over 20 years taught in schools for a little while um ammer Middle ammer High School um all in we been like successes throughout this 25 years of marriage with my wife success um raised a daughter in ammer she just got her masters from Northeastern success um currently a part of the Jedi Library committee um and in terms of another success recently submitted a book manuscript for publication about representation of black girls in picture books um success in terms of joining this committee um ammer has giving given our family a lot um interested in giving back and being more civically engaged um so good to see everyone thanks thank you everyone for sharing the next item on our agenda is election of chair and vice chair so uh I had planned to run this election in the same way that I run the election for the president and uh of the council um if when we get into this there's a motion to elect a temporary chair or a chair for a certain amount of time or a number of meetings then um then we can do that so uh is there any discussion about this before we get into nominations and votes and so on um y i i support the idea of a temporary chair because I believe that um you know people will if if this is the process we're about to do people will submit statements but to really get an assessment of whether someone should get my vote as a chair I want to see them in action I want to see what our process is and what um what deliberation people show during in that because deliberation is such a a prime value uh stated in the charter so I I really think it's appropriate for our knowledge of each other to go beyond whatever three minute um statement each candidate might offer okay are there any other comments Meg I agree yep um I'm just curious how how I've been on school committee I've been on commission I've seen these things happen and I don't remember exactly how people indicate whether they're interested or not interested in being the chair or at the temporary chair okay so um if there are no objections from Members um I'll ask how long you'd like to elect a chair and vice chair and then um I I can walk you through the the nomination and election process are there any suggestions about how long a term you'd like to elect a temporary chair two meeting that's there's a suggestion for two meetings for a temporary chair are there any objections including this one trying to make it as Fair as possible I think two meeting is counting this one or what do you think how often will we meet oh that's we'll get into the schedule yeah after this so two or three a great question two or three I would say three including this one three including this one any objections to three meetings including this one okay so um after we do nominations I'll ask for a motion to elect a temporary chair for uh two additional meetings so um the method we'll do the election is I'll open the floor for nominations you can nominate yourself if you wish um I'll ask if you're not nominating yourself if you accept the nomination uh nominees make a brief statement um then everyone else who's not a nominee can make a a statement and then uh we'll vote for candidates you will vote for candidates so uh if there is not a majority vote then we'll just repeat the process until we have five votes for a chair or a temporary chair Excuse me yes Meg couldn't here sorry sorry I nominate Julian Julian do you accept sure thank you okay um I think um um we'll do statements afterwards so I'm just looking for nominations thank you any other nominations since there are none I'm looking for a motion to elect Julian Hines as a temporary chair for the next two meetings after today so moved thank you Bernie is there a second second okay I'm GNA call for the vote Meg I um Julian I'll call call on you last Bernie yes Ken yes Erica yes Dan yes Raphael yes Marcus is absent Andy yes Julian uh ol stain all right Julian I'm gonna hand the meeting over to you okay sure yeah I was not expecting this uh I can I can help you out I'm here if you help so the next business is a vice chair and we can do the same thing if you'd like to elect a vice chair for the same period of time as we've elected a um I guess I'll first start with I wasn't expecting to be chair but that's okay um and I'm not sure but I hope my schedule would allow to continue afterwards but if we find someone else who we want to do the job better please go right ahead I don't want to cut anybody off if they have an interest um so I'll pull up the agenda here election of Vice chair can I have nominations for vice chair move uh we nominate I nominate uh Andy Churchill for vice chair okay um other nominations um Andy point of order Andy do you accept sorry okay yes neither of us are true enthusiastic enthusiastic acknowledgement so any other nominations see none um my next question is do we want to hi um my next question is do we want to have this be a temporary Vice chair for the same period of meetings or do we want to have this be a permanent Vice chair position my my motion was raised your hand temporary is what sorry you repeat what he said yeah I my understanding was it was a temporary chair for the same period of Time same I support that excellent okay sounds good um then all in favor of point we need a motion to of Vice chair Andy Churchill for a period of two meetings after today okay thank you um motion great is there a second second second excellent okay all in favor uh can we do we raise our hands or should no I'm sorry we need to do a v a roll call vote okay got it um so then I guess I'm just doing this randomly no preference to anybody um Meg go ahead yes uh myself yes yes uh Bernie yes um Andy abstain uh Ken yes uh Dan yes Raphael yes Erica yes and so now Andy congratulations I don't think you called in Ken oh sorry Ken my bad I yes um okay great um so congratulations Andy and uh then I guess my next Point here will be assignment of minutes who wants to take minutes for us um if anybody wants to volunteer I guess we can do it that way is that okay you can have volunteers you can decide if you want to do a rotating schedule okay of volunteers or just go you know take turns however you'd like to do it does anybody want to volunteer I'm taking notes now so I'll we can we can rotate Vice chair and then yeah that's fine my my suggestion would be that we rotate taking the minutes I agree on that idea I think it's a great idea do we wanna I agree okay great so do we want to just to try to do it equitably be like assign each meeting sort of maybe I could create a list and send it to Athena to send out to people of just each meeting and sort of just go down Andy then I guess we can can go this way and around um I'll send that to Athena after the meeting uh riew of open meeting law or no meeting schedule meeting schedule okay so how often do we want to meet when do we want to meet what time do we want to meet how do people's schedules work I guess I'll call on other people before I talk go ahead could we ask Athena to sort of give us her experience on trying to schedule us and if there are any is there any light you know softer targets for scheduling you've really tested the roots of my hair if they were any less strong I wouldn't have any hair left because scheduling this meeting was incredibly difficult your schedules are quite literally opposite of one another so some members are available in the morning others are available in the evening and um so this was literally the only time that I could get all nine of you in a room at at the same time so um unless folks schedules have become more flexible um this is the meeting time I if I am Julian you don't mind me making a uh giving an opinion this is not an accessible meeting time for members of the public I don't think U members of the public are going to be able to participate in your meetings and follow along with what's going on at this hour so my suggestion would be if this is your regular meeting time that you uh consider hold holding listening sessions and public information sessions at a time that's more accessible like the evening I just say I completely agree in fact I hope that this is not our regular meeting time and hope we can schedule meetings outside of the typical work day preferably in the evening I agree I'm wondering if the nature of people's conflict is uh fixed in cement or people who can't meet for example in the evening or late after afternoon a good time for example for a lot of groups is 4: in the afternoon if people have I don't know whose schedule is what but if people have any flexibility whatsoever who can who prevented us from meeting in the evening or in the late afternoon um is anybody hand yeah go ahead yeah well my experience is that town government in Massachusetts is nocturnal um I you know it I'm I'm retired so I have some some degree of flexibility uh and can meet in late afternoon um early evening outside of um school vacation weeks and things like that um so um you know that's that's possibility but I think we need to um we all need to stretch a little bit to to make this schedule work and I U uh I itha also has her m in public policy and I did note in and I I sent her a note saying that none of us who've taken an MPA program have had any experience with cat hurting so it becomes more of a challenge and and I would I would prefer an early evening just because of Parental responsibilities and getting kids to extracurricular activities and picking them up and so forth um that that 4:00 time is right in the midst of everything really uh for me just personally so more in the early evening the 6 o' sort of time is a lot more doable go ahead are we anticipating two hour meeting to are we looking for a two hour slot I would assume I think two hours is a reasonable amount of time I don't want to keep people here for longer than that um I guess one comment uh no Eric go ahead sorry thank you um one question that I think might be relevant to this is is the frequency of meeting are we talking about uh you know six o'clock one night a week for um like every week or are we what's the Cadence of our meeting schedule I guess that would be up for the committee to decide I would personally advocate for a bi-weekly meeting schedule once every two weeks seems appropriate go ahead Meg um just to try to zero in um are there people who are not able to meet in the early evening then we get to how frequently we would do that but that seems to be a time that from the people who've spoken works so after kids afternoon activities or six or seven in that range six to seven range on evenings usually works for me Dan I mean I also think that our essential business or part of it is engaging the public so that listening sessions is a plan is a distant Plan B we really I think have an obligation to oops make it available this the times we're talking about and I will certainly uh I can clear my schedule to make that happen could Here's a thought could we do alternating weeks yeah should we check first if there are other people who can't do evenings yeah that's a good idea it's the same time every time however frequently it's just easy to remember Raphael I can do evenings Tuesday Thursday Friday Monday and Wednesday have standing meetings or clock got got it um so it seems like for everybody I've heard at least 6 6 7 p.m. on evenings Tuesday Thursday Friday works um or Wednesday Thursday Friday or Tuesday Thursday Friday sorry is that in reference to me uh Tuesday Thursday Friday got it um I personally sometimes have another meeting which I'm responsible for on Tuesdays and sometimes Thursdays um but if we did 6 to 8:00 on Thursdays that would work for me how does that work for other people I don't want to sounds good that would work so could I I guess we should probably check with Marcus who's not here but I guess temporarily could I make a motion to meet Thursdays bi-weekly from 6: to 800 PM excellent um so I guess I'll start with Ken agree excellent um Dan agreed Bernie yes uh Andy yes Meg yes Erica yes uh rapael yes excellent so that is our meeting time um thank you Athena that was a lot easier than my experience thanks um one one other point um Julian is the format so um I'm not sure that I'll be able to support an in-person or a hybrid meeting in this format so I'd like to ask the committee if they're a comfortable meeting on Zoom some days um I can accommodate some hybrid meetings some days but I I don't think that I can commit to um doing this whole thing every other week okay at that time yeah I mean I'm personally I don't have a problem meeting on Zoom um I guess if that's okay with everybody else we can meet on Zoom um or maybe we could yeah I didn't mean tot no go right ahead I just I mean my my assumptions we're going to be wanting the public to be participating in our meetings and if it's just on Zoom that is that now an accepted way of doing meetings as opposed to hybrid or participation if I may go ahead um we've had an explosive number of participants since we began meeting on Zoom it's been far more accessible folks who have kids who are home in the evenings are able to listen in um rather than trying to get here and find you know child care bring their kids and um so in my experience we've had far greater engagement um since we started Zoom meetings and um if I were to Advocate one meeting one way or another would be to either meet on Zoom or meet in a hybrid way so that people who um have scheduling conflicts can attend Bernie yeah I think um I'm a member of the international City Managers Association and still um and I think the icma data Bears out what AA said that you know having being able to access meetings remotely really does increase participation uh it's varied over from Community to community but overall it's up um my preference would be that we we you know we inter inter u a a face-to-face meeting from time to time just so we can see each other and check in with each other and and um I I find that uh uh you know Zoom is sort of like Hollywood Squares to date myself um I I get a much better feel for what people have to say and and how they react when I actually can see the whole person or at least most of the person and just the head on neck and shoulders um so that's it um the zoom meetings are fine I think they they do bring people in but like I said I would like from time to time to have a an in-person meeting I would yeah ahead no go right ahead um I agree with Bernie I just slightly tweak that too I I hybrid meetings have all the benefits of participation of full Zoom meetings that we have as many hybrid meetings as we can so that we get as much face-to-face time it's just completely different kind of meeting when we can look across um so I support both but I as many hybrid meetings as Zena can handle I guess here's a yeah go ahead yep I mean my preferen is in person but I also we live in the world we live in um and so when you say you can't support it is it that this am I on okay um if it's a technical thing that you are the person that would have to um you know arrange the meeting and you simply can't and you're the only person that can do it that would be an obstacle but I do I I think the face- tof face thing matters I also of course people will come who who can't physically make it so the the virtue of both seems to me um it should be included in what we do as much hybrid as we can yeah um Erica then Athena Erica go ahead thank you um I uh just wanted to say personally um for accessibility reasons I am unable to meet in person and it's important to me that we figure that into the the um the calendar um I understand what everyone is saying about the value of being face Toof face I certainly miss it I would like to be there in person it's just not possible so I think that um and also I would extend that to the larger accessibility issue that was brought up earlier about making this meeting available for the largest possible input um from all kinds of people who have both you know a schedule Health Mobility any kind of accessibility issue a virtual option is I think critically important so hybrid I understand the the um the intensity of resources that it takes to make a hybrid meeting Athena I'm I'm speaking to you so I I get that but I think that it has a value that we can um if we don't want to meet 100% virtually having a having a having a hybrid meeting schedule so that it's periodic and people can anticipate when those resources have to be expended I think is useful um Dan I appreciate your comment about um my availability uh but it it isn't just me there are staff who have to open the building and close the building make sure that the building is secure after our public meetings so um there are like Erica said a number of resources that we use when we have inperson or hybrid meetings so um I appreciate that you'll keep that in mind yeah absolutely um I guess I'll just say a few process things first I sent you the minute taker designation secondly uh just a question is for folks who don't have a computer can they call call into the zoom meetings yes so when we have zoom meetings you can connect via Zoom or you can call in using a telephone number and a webinar ID okay so folks who have a phone can do that that's makes it a little more accessible second or third is would it be helpful for folks if I screen shared the agenda on Zoom where we're going going so to speak um do you mean right now or in general in general oh and now in in general my experience has been that it's really helpful to share documents as we're working on them or as a committee's working on them so when there is you know in my experience with the with the council we often share the agenda at the beginning of the meeting or the president will go over the agenda at the beginning of the meeting got it um and then if there are relevant documents that we're discussing then it's helpful to have those on screen and I can help with that perfect I will um share the agenda in future meetings at the beginning of the meeting and then um we I can you or I can sh screen share documents we're working on depending on who has them pulled up um but for now I'll just keep it as is um Julian if I may yeah go back so um to someone mentioned having a regular schedule of uh hybrid meetings so that members of the public can anticipate when we'll do that I can work with um the the committee and the the chair when we have an A a permanent chair to develop a schedule so that we know which meetings are going to be in a hybrid format and which are going to be Zoom we can look look at look ahead and get those on our calendars yeah how do folks feel about maybe doing mostly Zoom meetings and then hybrid meetings in this room once a month yeah yeah um before uh you make that commitment can can we come back to that at the next meeting and and talk about more specific format SCH that's fine my my previous comment about um town government in New England being not I'm sorry I can't hear time you speak into your yeah limited number yeah I got it right here um there's a lot of people trying to use the same resources at the same time um and it's not simply a question of of Athena's ability to schedule herself she already stretches herself quite thin so um we we have to be cognizant of that and it used to be for me that Thursdays were a safe night for social stuff not anymore because all the other committees and everything else I'm part of you know the Mondays are out automatically uh and then everything gets piled into the rest of the week so um you know let's be careful about uh let let's give Athena the opportunity to tell us how viable a a hybrid meeting schedule is um just one more thing if I may um I'll also need to check and make sure this room is available on the dates so that's why I'm I'm looking to come back just want to make sure that we sounds good we can do everything we need to on those Meg and then I think I'll wrap up this discussion I just want to be sure that we agreed on one aspect of our schedule which is that generally the meetings will end at 8 um and there was a I think for example you could we have a policy that no new subject will be brought up after before 8 o'clock or yeah I don't mind how we do it but I think if we're in the middle of a discussion at suddenly 8 o'clock you can't say well now the meeting's over but that in general we're going to use whatever tools we have to have two-hour meetings because as I understand it this Review Committee doesn't have a time limit and we're not likely to have things come up that are uh time sensitive correct me if I'm wrong but um I think people stop functioning after a two-hour meeting I completely agree I think uh like obviously if a discussion's continuing it sort of makes sense to continue but if we can agree be after 7:45 to not bring up new or unanticipated issues on the whole that would be muche appreciated uh Dan okay AG great okay great Andy there was the question about whether we have a time limit or not do do is our charge over at any particular time do we have to finish by a year from now or what there is a reporting requirement in a year um but you can ask to the council can extend your deadline great okay um so I guess um I guess we'll call it as we've set our meeting schedules for Thursday 6:00 to 8:00 pm um we set a cut off at 7:45 for new topics and we'll meet bi-weekly probably over zoom and possibly schedule hybrid meetings as that works for members of the committee Athena and the staff people who work here and so your next meeting will be on zoom on October 3rd excellent thank you at six 6 p.m 6 PM great um and that will be posted the town website like this so moving on to our next agenda item is review of open meeting law would you like to cover that Athena or should I um I I plan to do a little bit more of an extensive review of the open meeting law since there are some members who are new to public meetings um I'm just aware of the time and and we don't have a lot of time left um I can briefly answer questions and then maybe schedule a little bit more of an in-depth convers for the people who are new or for everybody for anyone questions about the open meeting law continue to come up with members who serve for years and years so um you know now or at any time I can answer questions about the open meeting law briefly you can't dis discuss committee business with a quorum of members outside an open meeting and that includes discussing that business with one member and then sharing that member's opinion with another and then sharing that member's opinion with another five members is a quorum um and so um Megan asked for email addresses and your email addresses are not mine so I was hesitant to share anyone's email addresses I'll leave that up to you and I'm going to caution you to not discuss any committee business on email um if you want to get to know each other or anything like that that's fine um but your emails that have anything to do with committee me uh business are are public records so anything that you put in writing you should be aware could be read by anyone who requests your records um Bernie you you yeah I was going to say the good rule to follow is never hit reply all unless you're talking about scheduling a meeting which we just did you know so so email communication on scheduling a meeting is okay beyond that don't hit reply you'll notice I I bccd everyone on every single email that I've sent the committee so far and that's specifically to avoid that issue so I assume and we correct me if I'm wrong but I assume that also means just like don't go email one person about committee business or meet with one person about committee business and then even though you quote unquote just met with that one person share it with a bunch of other committee people that's correct exactly okay great um and so any opin opions you have you don't want to share with five members you know I think we should do things this way and I'm going to talk to five members about it you violated the open meeting law even if it's a phone call right um and particularly emails it's such a slippery slope you have people's emails and you want to talk and share ideas and so forth and so like call one person then the next soon enough you're up to five exactly Great Dan but but the to serly speak with people while while not actually discussing in other words okay I want to see what you think I want to see what you think and I'm not being a conduit for um for discussion that's acceptable no it's not no just gauging opinion and not not not debating or deliberating or decided no okay so if you're you have an idea and you want to share it with folks you have to do that at a meeting and you know the the point of the open meeting law is that those thoughts ideas and opinions about the business that you're doing are open to members of the public members of the public want to understand and hear your deliberation process they want to understand the conversations you have the opinions people have and the public have a right to see that happen in person um and so no you don't want to you know take take a a temperature of the committee outside of a meeting at all generally speaking if I bump into anyone on Main Street talk about I don't know the weather how your family is not the committee I'm so sorry Erica I realize I look at my computer which has the agenda and I don't see your hand so go right ahead that's okay um thanks for recognizing I I wondered if Athena or anyone else could address the how the open meeting law impacts the formation of an agenda um if if uh agenda items can be added by communicating with the chair 48 hours in advance how does that how does that work Julian if I may go ahead um so that gets into the rules a little bit and there was a question from one member of the committee about the rules um the the charter requires that boards and committees adopt rules I don't think anyone has done that besides the council um so this committee you know we use Robert's Rules as a default um this committee can adopt rules you can you know adopt certain Council rules if you want to run things that way you can just say we're going to use Robert's rules um if an issue comes up that we need a ruling on um usually it's the chair ruling and then the the other members would object and vote if if that came up I don't imagine we'll have any issues that contentious um but that would be the case so uh the process for setting the agenda isn't really addressed in the open meeting law Erica it's uh the chair sets the agenda members of the committee can request the chair place an item on the agenda and that would be appropriate say if we were at a meeting uh a member wanted to discuss something P specific um the chair could say okay I'm going to put that on the next meeting agenda and we can discuss it then rather than having a discussion on a topic that wasn't on the agenda for that meeting you place it on the next meeting agenda so requests to put items on the next meeting agenda would be directed at the chair and then uh discussed at the next meeting did that answer your question it it does thank you it's helpful I just wondered if U for instance emailing is out for that sort of thing requests to put something on an agenda and and it will be up to the chair if um you know how email addresses are shared and so forth but a request to the chair to place something on the agenda for discussion at the next meeting is appropriate bur okay yeah when when I was on the committee to review the town's bylaws um that was cheered by Bob Richie so you you don't get better than Bob when comes to the stuff Bob would allow uh individual committee members to email him with uh a an agenda item or email him with information they would like to have shared at the next meeting rather than you know shotgunning it out to every I just found this great article shotgun it out to everybody on the committee you shouldn't do that the chair can pick and choose it's really up to the chair if the chair refuses to put an item on the agenda then a member can raise that at a meeting and the and the committee of a whole can override the chair and say yeah we're going to discuss this maybe not now but at the next meeting um and using Robert's Rules again that was Bob's uh Bob handed us all a little Roberts rules uh I have copies if anyone's interested Robert's Rules is like this I have an inbrief that's also not cond the readers the reader digest version so yeah rather than create rules Roberts is fine so I know we're trying to wrap this up I'll just say one thing is we've agreed to not bring stuff up free meetings like before 7:45 bringing up topics then we've also agreed to work on Robert's rules to an extent and um and that sort of thing I'm gonna say Meg then Andy um and then I'm gonna try to move us on to our next agenda item but if people have burning questions go ahead conversations raised a question for me about open meeting law which I've been trained in and so on I'll just give it as quick example so um I spoke at the beginning introduced myself and Bernie did and I think I was misunderstood and I wanted after the meeting go over to Bernie and say I didn't mean I want to in this case r litigate to the town structure um I was misunderstood what I meant was blah blah blah that would be violating open meeting law um just your comments that you made earlier just to correct to to refine what I said so that it didn't the Bernie understood what I I don't want to do it right now but um if I walked over to him after the meeting and said just to clarify what I meant Oh no just if you said that to one member that wouldn't be an issue Andy um I'm I'm wondering if we want to have a section of agendas where we we would be able to raise agenda items for the next meeting you know at the end of each meeting so that we don't have to worry worry about emailing and wondering and then I mean I guess the chairs it's still the chair's privilege but like a sort of at the end of meetings rather than bringing stuff up and discussing the issues say topics that we would like on the next agenda or next agenda planning as like a item nine yeah that's perfectly acceptable could you include that a yep great and then just continuing that um we talked about not starting new top topics after 7:45 I would assume that we could vote to extend that if we had something particularly pressing or you know the majority of people wanted to go later yeah I mean we we'd have to vote on it in the moment but I assume yeah um but is a general rule um then I guess moving us to oh I had a question on it actually so I've seen the Town Council like call recesses and stuff from an open meeting law perspective if we were to ever call a recess on this committee keep well can or cannot go out in the hall and talk with other members Etc so five of you cannot go out in the hall and continue having a meeting during a recess recesses are typically you know we need to take a break there's a question about meeting procedures and we need to pause for a moment to clarify or you know we're having a technical issue there's some other reason we need to take a break it's absolutely not to have continue a meeting in a private way got it that makes perfect sense thank you and um I'm just seeing Oh we have more attendees excellent um so we now have six attendees plus two in person um and so I guess I'll move on to the next agenda item number seven unless anybody oh sorry Raphael go right ahead yeah reached out to Athena I have to exit um so good to see you all see you at the next meeting thanks okay um have a great day sorry about that let's try to wrap up the rest of this quickly so I had put a brainstorming session on this um agenda you don't need to take that up since we we don't have all the MERS here if you want but we do need to include a period of public comment at every meeting okay um I'm gonna go ahead and say because rapael and Marcus aren't here I don't feel good about not including um that in the brainstorm committee's work plan if folks have a small short thing they'd like to say about it or this could be an opportunity for those future agenda items yeah if people want to make future agenda items that sort of thing Now's the Time Andy I think it might be helpful for us to get um just a maybe a legal opinion a clarification of what exactly our charge is what we can change and specifically what can this committee change or with the vote of the council what could be changed with the vote of the legislature or with a new Charter commission and sort of sort that out for us so that we know um what we're you know what what the parameters are and then I would imagine that it could be be possible for us to address each of those categories but um the question would be then are we presenting I mean I think a lot of our work is going to be Outreach and trying to get a sense of what how people in and out of government feel like it's working so if we are presenting our findings are we presenting recommendations from this committee or are we presenting here's what we heard without judgment and so and that might change that might vary depending on whether um it's something that the council can specifically do versus something that would require a broader effort so I don't I don't know what that item yeah is but I think what's our charge and what's the parameters I see an issue with putting that on the next agenda um we can have an like what is our charge what what is our scope of work type discussion sort of agree on that as a committee I presume not vote on it maybe get legal advice um or we can get in our own outside Consultants to discuss um Bernie then Rafael or excuse me Dan um did you have your hand up okay um so I'm gonna go Bernie Dan Meg yeah I I I think a review of our charge and an agreement on what is our charge not a sort of but an absolute agreement on what our charge is is is important um we have uh KP law who is the town Council so if KP law can offer some guidance between between now and the next meeting that would be helpful if we have questions about uh the legal questions about the charter or our charge that goes to KP law because they represent the town as a whole um and it's very competent Law Firm I've worked with them I I'm happy that there are are canel so just to make that clear I mean it it really we really need before we go any further we need to agree on what what what the parameters are and then um in terms of of Outreach and brainstorming I'd like to I I don't know how uh it might be best to do this then if you have any ideas please um share them I'd like to have some mechanism for for randomly sampling voters in the community and asking them questions whether that's a written questionnaire whether that's a telephone interview whether that's a focus group because I'm tired of hearing from The Usual Suspects um I'm very encouraged to hear you each say this because we're a committee working under the law about the law and we do have to have there can't be any this has to be you know decided definitively I want to tie this into an idea I had about the about meeting and content and that's we establish like a little Library that's accessible online of things that we have turned to and for instance we can find other communities that have been in the exact place we've been in that changed from town meeting to council manager or Council mayor and see their first reports like Bridgewater did this Watertown has been doing this for 40 years for people to be able to see their reports and really look at the way that they've addressed this exact question some of them have really laid the law out very specifically for everyone both us and the public who's interested to have access to those documents I think would be very much in the spirit of open meeting law that these are this is our background information that in addition to uh a lawyer's perspective this is these how other people have referred referenced the law and some of them do it in a really very clear and compelling way I think that would be invaluable for us to all have in front of us as we uh wish to Meg all right can't hear I strongly agree with the spirit of what's been said we need to know our charge and particularly with uh when I've talked earlier about meaningful participation that has to be representation of who lives here not just the people who have the time to come to meetings and write letters to the editor um related to that do we have a budget because we're talking about Consultants or using polling you know these things cost M and I'd imagine K will also cost the town quite a bit of money so I agree I think we should set out like can we use Town resources aside from this room in Athena or and if not how much does that cost and being cognizant you know outside of just our committee if things are going to cost a lot of money maybe we should shy away from do doing that or seeking that advice Bernie has a hand up oh go ahead sorry no go right ahead no um local government in addition to being nocturnal is also Frugal um so I would like to point out that the mass Municipal association's uh Mass managers have a form of government committee that's consulted for free right to towns all around the state State um I served on the fog uh at one point in my uh humble career as a town manager uh the other thing that I would point out is that we have couple of people here with um master's degrees in public policy and UMass has uh a public policy program and they've got some talented uh faculty and they've got some talented students and one of whom I won't mention uh who's written about politics in ammer uh that we can we can call on uh as as as consultants let me just be clear if we were to use KP law that would cost the town something um okay then we can use them as the so committee members can't directly okay call our attorneys um if there are specific questions and then I will reach out and ask them for an overview of the process and our specific legal parameters um but you don't have personal access to cap law um it does cost money for them to prepare memoranda and so on the the committee itself doesn't have a budget um I I will absolutely work with the committee to see you know what resources we have available and what we can do there's a grant opportunity for this process if I'm able to apply for the grant and receive some funds that way then we can um you know spend those funds and then there's also the the cins center that does some of this work for communities throughout the state so um there are there are some opportunities so it might be better to look into like what Bernie was mentioning um before we go to KP law regardless I'm just going to try to wrap this up but go ahead um I think that this is an important um legal task that were're the town's required to do um KP law was helpful in preparing the charter and coming and giving us um legal opinions and I think they would be helpful in giving us the scope of of our work um and then we can see me my my suggestion would be then that we use their expertise and have the fact that they're on retainer and that they work with the town to help us understand our scope and then going forward we can say you know maybe if we get a grant may we we use that for for more expensive things but we're going to need some resources for or you know if we're holding forums and we need Refreshments or if we are you know if there's a consultant on a particular type of question that we have you know I'd rather get it right than be than be depending completely on volunteers yeah um Erica um I think that what this leads me to is that perhaps a first item of business or a top of agenda for our next meeting is really identifying what has been written down for the scope of work for this committee what is our charge and what are our remaining questions um so that they can be referred to whoever they need to be referred to whether it's an outside Council or other kinds of expertise or other other sources references Etc um but having some well formulated questions about what what isn't isn't in our purview what isn't isn't uh kind of our jurisdiction so to speak as a committee um could be a a useful discussion to have at the top other than Beyond also the other item I'd like to see on our agenda is a sort of procedural discussion of the nature of our work and how we're going to go about it and all of the various components that we will take into consideration to do whatever that charge is I yeah I agree I think that's great um so for the next agenda we'll definitely have some review of open meeting law a discussion of sort of where our jurisdictional boundaries are what we can do what we can't do that sort of thing Athena um so to use our town resources wisely when we're reaching out to KP law it it does cost we have them on retainer but it does cost us every time we ask them to prepare new memoranda so I can ask for a general memo on the scope of the committee charge and the powers of the committee the committee charge itself is in the the meeting packet and posted online so I'd ask you to review that there are specific things about um what the committee you know develop and deploy a variety of feedback mechanisms there's suest suggestions about those feedback me feedback mechanisms and so on okay um but I would ask that your questions specifically legal questions you know we have we don't have ongoing requests for me from KP law we try to you know collect the questions and then maybe we have an opportunity to meet with one of our attorneys later um for further questions or something but you know requesting memos again and again just isn't a good use of our resources I I completely agree so let's we're I feel like we're bordering on this place where after Dan or after Raphael left and I don't know why I confuse the two of you um after Rafia left and Marcus isn't here we're having a fairly substantial discussion that being said I think that next meeting we can discuss this and we can decide do we want to go forward seeking with the Collins Center do we want to go with KP wall what do we want to do Etc I think that's an appropriate discussion for the next meeting when we're trying to decide our scope I don't want to make a decision on that now without everyone here um I would rather include everybody in that conversation not get memos from kpw in advance or do something I'm not even sure all of us agree on Andy Dan yeah if I understood Erica's suggestion that we would use the next meeting to collect all of our questions about our scope and that we would then give those to KP law before they prepare anything and then they could give us something for the next meeting does that sound is that what other people heard that sounds more reasonable I don't know if we want to use like do is KP law the right place to direct those questions or do we want to have an outside person like the Colin Center Etc to clar just to clarify that was what that was what I was suggesting was that that decision about whether or not to use that expensive resource is the result of an actual conversation about this about what we do know about our charge yeah in the next meeting I feel like we've decided to develop a list of questions and discussed at the next meeting whether we use KP law for that list of questions I think should still be a discussion of the committee given the cost resources that it takes yeah I I think we should utilize K law when there are questions of legality and and then in terms of best practices and what other communities Outreach efforts have been how their deliberative process has been in terms of forming the reports and recommendations and so on um that's where I think a consultant Callin Center or and other sources would be um a better better use klaw can you know give their experience but I think we should rely on them mostly for our legal questions I agree yeah go ahead I think one of the questions I've really had you know meeting you all what are we all looking at what statutes are we looking at just to see because it may be we're all looking at the same things and agree that um that would be a starting point that that that that there isn't a need oh my God we can't look at the same things or can't see the same meaning so we do need the outside so it may be that this isn't um as urgent that will come out in this in this discussion yeah man um I agree with everything everyone said I just want to pull up one thing Andy said a while ago which was while we have a li fairly limited scope of what we can address if we're hearing from the public concerns of other sorts it doesn't prevent us from reporting that this is people were concerned about whatever whatever again though we have to be sure we're hearing from a range of the public and not just the people who keep saying the same thing step there was a question about legal statutes um just to to get you started for some nighttime reading um Massachusetts general laws chapter 43b section 10 addresses amendments to Charter previously adopted or revised rised um that's that's a good it's uh Massachusetts General Law chapter 43b section 10 you can put that into Google it'll come right up as your first uh awesome your search that it's also um it's in your committee charge it's it's uh mentioned in your committee charge so you can if you lose track of it find it there excellent other questions comments concerns on this brainstorming committee work plan and setting the agenda for the next meeting we know a discussion about the scope of the committee will certainly be on that agenda not seeing anybody um okay uh public comment um moving us along to public comment oh sign up sheets um public comment uh I think I'll start in the room and then I will take people online I would say given how many people we have we have 13 online two in the room uh 3 minutes is fine come up to the mic state your name your District or where you live and your public comment and uh other than that I guess that also would remind me if us as members of the committee could try to keep our remarks and stuff to three minutes as well that seems to make it fair for the public so that keep that in mind mind if someone's rambling I will try to uh let you guys know um but folks in the public I'll start in the room and then go to zoom so if you want to say on Zoom you can raise your hand yeah and then in the room you can just raise your hand we don't have a lot of people so I didn't do a sign in sheet um on Zoom raise your hand in person I got you um you have any great um anyone on Zoom please raise your hand not seeing anybody on Zoom so Lynn your time good morning my name is Lyn grimer I live at 83 flath Hills Road and it has been my honor and privilege to be on the Town Council for the last six years um first of all I want to thank all of you for stepping forward this is a really important important job and one that I know based on the conversation we've heard today and the interviews we did and selecting you that you all will take most seriously so I just want to congratulate your temporary chair your temporary Vice chair and all of you for joining this meeting and at some point I am sure that individual counselors past and present will weigh in I don't intend to to do that today but I'm sure at some point I will I just wish you luck and I look forward to the education that not only you will have but I will have about what we can change what we can't change and what the public would like us to do thank you we are in Reverse role but thank you for your comment [Laughter] ly Al righty uh go ahead state your name and District or address my name is Andy Anderson I live in District Five uh as some of you know I have been a longtime supporter of rank Choice voting which was included in the original charter and expected to be used with our Town Council and as melti member districts because we removed preliminary elections for them uh it was it was uh given to a charter a rain Choice voting commission as part of the charter process they came up with a solution the Town Council was supposed to adopt these this solution as bylaws to implement rank Choice voting they instead chose to send it to the legislature the legislature has now for two sessions sat on it and did almost nothing with it it's pretty clear that the legislature wants nothing to do with it and is not ever going to approve it so uh it has been suggested to me that possibly this committee uh recommendations could include that in the town could then Town Council could approve that give it to the voters uh for a second consideration um this is going to be a legal question because Constitution says modes of election can't be processed this way but um it's been two elections already we're facing a third Council election without the use of this important procedure so I hope that is something you can consider and prioritize and get out the door to the council before your final report so that possibly it um gets processed um or gets put before the voters um as soon as possible um so that's sort of the the question here and I hope that this is something that you all will prioritize um sort of separate from everything else um again you don't have to do anything thing the r Choice voting commission has produced a wonderful document that just has to be um voted on in general so uh hope that's a uh something that you will uh put forward uh in your agenda uh for a rapid consideration thank you thank you so much for your concerns I appreciate it um have you jotted that down for the minutes thank you awesome um public commenters in the room that's it anyone on Zoom raise your hand last call not seeing anybody nobody on Zoom okay um I'm not seeing anyone on Zoom who'd like to comment I did have one question about public comment Athena I know on some committees that I serve on we have discussion with the public when they come for public comment and committee members are welcome to ask questions dialogue Etc and I know the council does the opposite of that they don't have dialogue with the public is there any rules on where our committee stands is that a decision for our committee to make how is that approached it's it's a balancing act so say for example a member of the public brings up a topic that was not listed on the agenda um if the committee wants to get into a discussion about that specific topic it's wise to hold that to the next meeting so that it can be listed on the agenda and members of the public who are also interested in that item can come and speak um if it's about what you're already talking about then um you might answer questions um we as the council doesn't engage in a public dialogue I think in terms of transparency it's helpful to have specific meetings geared toward sharing information having a dialogue collecting feedback rather than trying to have those conversations at a meeting and that's you know not just the open meeting law but just meeting management in general um if we include every member of the public in your deliberations then I think it blurs the line between who's sitting on the committee and members of the public it's your responsibility as committee members to do this work and I think if um you know it's unclear who is doing what then that becomes a murky situation and you know your conversation can get unmanageable if if you're having a back and forth um so uh the the open meeting law doesn't require a period of public comment that's in our Charter um and if you were to adopt rules similar to what the the council rules are then um you would that's methods of regulating public comment um there are certain things that we can and can't restrict during public comment because it gets into issues of free speech in the Constitution I think the three minute limit is appropriate um but I'll call on you in one second and then you um I'm just thinking I guess it seems like it's sort of a gray area murky as to whether committee members how committee members are engaging with members of the public I'll just say as my discretion as the chair I don't want to have us bickering back and forth across the line like going out and saying hey you blah blah blah blah blah let's avoid that as a committee let's not um go out and randomly bicker with members of the public but if you have questions want to sort of pick someone's brain have a dialogue maybe encourage some Community discussion talk across the table I don't see a problem with that if other people if it gets you know over the three minute if it's within the three minute limit and the member of the Public's okay with it I'm not going to stop it followup I assume but we wouldn't if something huge came up and it wasn't on the agenda related to a public comment it would be appropriate to say I'd like to put the subject in this case of rank Choice voting or whatever on our agenda for the next time sort of to establish that there was a lot to say but we're we're not going to say it now because people aren't prepared yes yes yeah I'd just like to uh remind folks that there are many ways to communicate with the committee uh you don't have to wait for a meeting and you're you're three minute the three minute is an arbitrary limit that can be shortened um you know you you you there's you know there's email U for everybody there's phones if you've got the time uh you you can reach out in in other ways uh you don't have the benefit of having your smiling face be on the local TV but you know if you want to make your point across and you want to be precise and detailed it's better to put it in writing uh and get it off that way the other thing is is that the chair can I think allow for comment from the public when you're discussing a particular item so that people who have interest in an item on the agenda can defer their comments from the rather than making them during the public comment period they could just let the chair know that they will be interested in talking about item three or item seven or something like that so that they there's a little bit more freedom there and you can go back and forth a little bit excellent this goes back to um just earlier about hybrid meetings that the suggestion has been made and I think is a good one is that they be full Zoom meetings so that everyone is here we can see their faces and the people at the meeting can see the other faces there I don't know if there's a technical reason that can't be done but I guess so this is a webinar is that technically what we're doing and so if there's a way that if we're going to not have the iners the advantages of inperson who at least would um have little boxes with with the faces of everyone here excellent thank I'd like to be intentional about developing a really positive committee culture so for example not texting each other during meetings or getting text from well that's an issue with some committees particularly with zoom when you're home and nobody can tell what you're doing so I just uh it's obviously a honor system that we won I don't want to say we'll all sign on the line that we won't text anybody but um just that kind of thing that would be intentional about the authenticity of our time together and not be distracted by people either texting each other that's just one example but that's the downside of Zoom is that um it's it's not as visible it's not as clear the the quality of participation I don't laugh at your comment I laughed because I got a textt from a member of the public as you were saying [Laughter] your so it's a question of where is your phone you know while yeah it's just we have I think this kind of thing we have to be intentional about because the culture is so counter to that um I me I've seen people texting during movies Andy just uh so we can inform folks what is the email that people would use to communicate with this committee that's mine my contact information is on your committee web page um it's up to you members if you want to share your email with members of the public um and collect information that way your neighbors and friends and other members of the public might want to talk to you about your work and what you're doing and that's perfectly appropriate to have those conversations and bring what you learn and what you hear back to the committee so um it's up to you how you share your email addresses but if uh someone wants to communicate something specifically to the committee then they can email me um and I can pass that on to you um typically the the council's policy isn't to um post all the emails we get we have a feedback portal so that people can post their comments online and that allows them to affirmatively say yes I'm okay with putting these comments on the website um so if we want to look into doing something similar to that so that people can feel like they can see what other people are saying and so on then um I can look into that for this committee as well um but our practice because we have to go back and Reda personal information from those emails when they're shared if there's a public records request or whatever then uh it it's very cumbersome so those the feedback portal is a lot easier for me to manage and post the the feedback um to Meg's point if I may um your text messages with committee members also are a public record so I would caution you about talking about committee business via text as well I wanted to say something about much like your your text that you received just now I mean I've had grocery store conversations already with people who want to say I want you guys to look at this this and this I don't see myself as a conduit for anyone else um because they brought that up to me at the grocery store I don't feel compelled to bring it up to you um I would consider consider I would turn to them and say this is something you need to send to the council or to the committee itself um if if I may it's it's up to individual members what you hear and what what ideas you hear that you want to bring up to the committee and what you don't so you know that if you feel like yeah reach out and have public speak during public comment or email the committee your comments or whatever that's fine um but you can also hear feedback and go yeah I like that idea I'm going to bring it up or maybe not Athena the official place for your emails send emails to Athena we'll all get them and read them if you do want to email me my email is 1 jrin gmail.com feel free to send me your concerns but public comments go to Athena um Erica go ahead thank you and if this question is better for next week please let me know but um the idea of public comment is is what's on the agenda um and the methods that we're talking about are s of um a little bit like uh the mo the more um passive ways to receive public comment like people just you know it's unsolicited people come come to a meeting and talk about whatever they would like uh or email generally um thoughts about um the committee's work and so on to a a general email and my question is about more if the committee decides to take on a more active um pursuit of specific questions to direct to the public um my question is uh what what methods are open to us that are not just sort of passive you know receiving General comments but just as a just as an example and we don't have to take this on today if it's not appropriate for today if we wanted to conduct a survey if we wanted to put up um some sort of means online for people to with our specific questions to solicit specific feedback from the public about XYZ issues uh are we able to do that independently of the methods that are the kind of standing email that's just available for anything that people want to talk about are we able to more actively solicit on specific questions through other means Athena I saw your hand and I honestly do not have a good answer so go ahead well I'm gonna scold you both for not having read your charge because because it does the charge does speak to that so your charge one of the bullets in your charge is raise public awareness of the charter review process through various community outreach efforts I.E Town websites request Community organizations to include information in their newsletters Etc and also develop and deploy a variety of feedback mechanisms I.E surveys invitations to testify public meetings focus groups Etc throughout the review process next is Analyze That feedback from the community prior to initial preliminary and final reports um and you're also required to hold a public forum um on your final report so yes absolutely I agree and your charge speaks to that that public comment is one way to hear feedback from the community but it's really going to be incumbent on this committee to get out into the community and be active in that communication and feedback process with community members um not only are these meetings less accessible to the public but you really have to have your finger on the pulse of what's going on in town hall to even know that these meetings are happening um so I encourage you to think about ways that you know unfortunately we weren't able to meet before today but the block party is today that would have been an opportunity for us to table and share information and fre you to get out there and start talking to people but looking for those opportunities is going to be a great way to collect that feedback and have conversations in the community and then more formal ways of getting out there and you know having meetings maybe out in the community is something that the the committee could consider as well great questions thank you was excellent thank you and I'm all in favor of having meetings listening sessions discussions tabling we don't have another block party but events Etc um if we want to Table app I'm happy to do that too I think it's also important where if we're going to go canvasing or going to go hold community events to be Equitable about it I have been canvasing and holding community events for other organizations and have found that the message you get and the opinions of people in town politics can be very different depending on where you go geographically racially and economically in town and I think that it's important we be Equitable in our approaches to that go ahead one caution when you're speaking to a member of the committee you are speaking to a member of the committee and not the committee as a whole and I I found this to be un unfortunately um people unfortunately make get into this misunderstanding uh I've certainly discovered that as member of Select board I've certainly discovered that as members of other member of other committees or as an administrator to have someone come into my office and say well I talked to so and so and they said the planning board is and I said no you talk to a member of the plan so if you're having discussions please make it clear that you're talking to one person you will do your best convey that to the committee um I would also um suggest that if someone's going to be invited to testify uh or to to offer information to the committee as a whole that that that be announced in advance of that person showing up um so that there can be some small screening by members of the committee to just to kind of ensure that who's ever going to present is um is is going to do something that's relevant yeah M go ahead I agree related to that and something that worked with the charter commission was if we have a meeting where we're going to discuss something big to let people know so that the the attendance you know improves when people know what it is you're going to talk about rather than just come to a two-hour meeting and you're not quite sure what's going to come up those don't attract very many people yeah aena thank you we have a terrific new Communications manager here in town hall um and she's been really great at um getting information out on social media on the town website and uh thinking about ways that we can get out into the community and and offer information and collect feedback that way so um I think I'm I'm very excited to do this this type of work and work with her about how we can share information about what the committee is doing um in a in a more robust way yeah I completely agree and we could even in addition to that create our own Instagram account or our own social media Etc um to share what we're doing we could also no people are opposed yeah we just have to be careful about that okay yeah we we'll we can we can be a future agenda item I have um I know I have a few different groups that we have accounts for but regardless other comments before we adjourn the meeting Andy just to note that the charter commission did have its own Facebook page so there's no reason I mean there wasn't any reason then not to have that but it would need to be the stuff that goes on there would need to be approved by the commiss yeah obviously yeah yeah yeah Meg I want to thank the temporary chair Vice chair for doing an excellent job without you know on on the spot thank you um I was just going to say one thing about public comment which is for folks in the public if you're issue is not on our agenda we probably won't discuss it with you if it is all within the three minute limit uh allow some discussion picking uh of issues between members of the committee and the public if you are so interested to ask questions or that sort of thing I welcome that Athena did you have your hand up earlier I I did have goe a quick comment before I forget about uh public comment on Zoom so uh one of you had suggested that you you're able to see faces on Zoom because we set this up as a webinar we do this specifically to avoid Zoom bombing and to Pat myself on the back we haven't had many issues like that the council because we manage meetings this way in other communities who do meetings instead of webinars anyone is allowed to come in and mute and unmute and share screens and they've had really terrible experiences with that um and also in terms of equity who some people have computers with a camera some people are calling in so we treat everyone the same um so that's a a mute and unmute function rather than allowing people to turn their cameras on and and be on screen yeah thank you um that is important as well um other questions comments um next agenda could you remind me like a general idea of what the next agenda might look like uh my notes say uh some legal advice Gathering questions reviewing your charge and the parameters of what you're able to do and not do um looking into other Community Charter review reports so I will begin looking at other communities looking for those if there members who find those they can send to me and I can share them out into the next meeting packet so that you have an opportunity to look at those before the next meeting and get an idea of what other communities are doing um I had excuse me uh rank Choice voting was brought up today um and then uh procedural discussions about how you're going to take up your work that's the the list that I had we could also have a discussion about like Outreach and that um both me social media outreach but also like inperson Outreach that might be a good agenda item um other than that legal advice I did have one question we're not seeking any legal advice be before that meeting we'd be seeking it after that meeting is that correct so I can um work with the town manager to see you know what the best use of our resources is there I think it might be helpful to have just a general memo about your scope and then request you know gather questions um and then we can put those together to request legal advice but like I said if we can do that kind of in a batch rather than ongoing questions to our legal council um so that we're not racking up a bill that way yeah I agree and let's be creative about like using other resources given how costly can probably be go ahead so as an open meeting question I mean I will send you information I have and I think it can be shared without any this is just information publicly available information we can share that without uh violating open meeting is that not true right I can I can pass information to the committee members no I found a bunch of things I think that would that would really be hang on you can you can share information with committee members I'd like to discuss this at the next meeting but not I think or I feel so thoughts ideas opinions are not for email but you we can share documents so documents that members would like me to post for the next meeting you have a page on the town site um there's meeting packets for E each meeting I've sent you links to everything um so for each meeting you'll have a a folder on the town website anything that I receive that you'd like to share with the committee in advance of the next meeting I can put in the folder for the next meeting um so you all have access to it members of the public have access to it and then there was some discussion about you know a library or repository of some information I think I I mentioned that in the one of the emails that we can have a conversation about how you you'd like to organize those materials if you'd like a separate F folder for background materials or a separate folder for legal advice and a separate folder for public input however we want to organize that information so that it's you know clear what we're doing with it meeting packets it's you know difficult to find we got a legal advice and I have to remember which meeting we got it in which packets it's in so um I find that trying to organize things in a way that's logical and not necessarily chronological is sending documents and stuff that I'll keep the emails nice and short and avoid violation so if we just want to send documents so so any documents that you'd like to share at the next meeting you can send to me and I'll put them in the next meeting packet for discussion but please don't I think we should talk about this because okay uh mag then Bernie um briefly for now but there's a large group of Amis residents who have studied our process the League of Women Voters and have a memo that went through a consensus process it was months of study of exactly what we're doing so I'd like to have at some point on the agenda down the road a consideration of that piece of work because it is a high level of participation in our process that dozens of people participated in but I don't think we're ready I just want to I'm sure it'll be sent to everyone but not by me but Meg if you'd like to send it to me I can put it in a meeting packet okay yeah I just don't I wanted to be at the right time not rushed necessarily at the beginning but it's very detailed and I'm not sure I support every single thing in it uh but I'm not advocating that I'm just thinking a group of we want meaningful participation a large number of our residents worked on this that we we should be giving us some serious attention absolutely yeah Bernie yeah I was just going to say that if you're going to send material for and V say she's going to put it in the packet that means it's going on the website it's public so you you can't send us a secret report from that you found on you know um fix yourg government.com you know you have to it's it's there um the other thing is I forget the term but to keep um keep in mind that you can do by email nuts and bolt stuff I can meet on this day I can't meet on this day you need me to sign a letter I'll be in on Thursday you know that kind of uh that that that kind of of U administrative duties are okay but if you want to express your opinion sorry right Andy so our next meeting will be primarily about how we want to do our work is that it's sort of you know the you know we we'll hear our Char we'll get our charge again and then we can talk about these issues of how we're going to collect in information and you know we we get down to more of the nuts and bolts of how we're going to do the work that's what it seems yeah given the agenda that's what it seems and I think that's a good appropriate time for that so to speak um oh I had something to say completely oh I remember I'm sorry I should have touched upon this earlier um is everybody okay with first name basis is that like yeah great okay good just wanted to make sure um comments questions before we Jour seeing none do I seek a motion a second in a Jour okay great so do I have a motion to it Jour great second um great perfect anybody um and roll call Vote Yes got it um so I'll do this quickly so we can get out of here uh Erica yes um Bernie yes Dan yes Andy yes uh uh Ken yes Meg yes myself uh yes we're adjourned um have a great day everybody thank you thanks everyone thank you