Speaker 1: So it is seven oh one and I'll call the meeting to order. I want us to do this by roll call. Chris, are you here? We're Speaker 2: I'm here. Speaker 1: Saul here. Harriet here. And I am here. So we have a quorum. This meeting will be recorded on Natick Pegasus and is being recorded, I believe, on Native Pegasus. So the, after the call to order, the next item on the agenda is Citizens' Concerns. Is there anyone who wants to talk to the committee about something that's not on our agenda?
I don't see anyone other than the four of us. Chris, is there anybody waiting to get into the room? Speaker 2: No, I'm gonna keep that open if I can. Speaker 1: Okay. Alright. So we'll move. Seeing none, we'll move on from Citizens' Concerns. Chris, do you have a brief update on the special act? I have no news. It's still with the third read committee. That's what I heard. Speaker 2: It is with the third read committee. I talked to Representative Linsky, Jeff's coming in. I talked to Representative Linsky at DIC days last Saturday and I asked him what it takes to get the third reading
and his response was that the speaker of the house has to deem it, you know, so it's like he's Speaker Moran has to say yes. We'll do the third meeting. So then I asked David and what does Speaker Moran, not Moran, Speaker 1: Mariano, Mariano, the speaker, Speaker 2: Moran's second and his second lieutenant. I asked him what Mariano thinks about home petitions. Said highly. So David's kind of walking a little Dan. Speaker 1: Okay. Alright. So it's, it's it's on Beacon Hill in process. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And David will just check in periodically and he told me to check in with him once a month, so. Speaker 1: Very good. Okay. Any, anyone else on the update on the special act? Alright, seeing no will go onto agenda item four. All of the bylaw changes from that we sponsored to fall 2024 town meeting in the past were approved by the Attorney General. So the, there are some of those were, are not germane to how town meeting runs. Some of them were, you know, the clerk
or someone else, you know, the, you know, the treasurer collector. But the town meeting procedure is revised because the motion to question can now be taken even if three or more hands are up. You know, if the opinion of the discretion of the moderator, the topic's been exhausted, the motion can be, that motion can be taken. So it's one of many things in a long list of it know modest improvements that cumulatively are hopefully making town meeting more efficient. So go
Speaker 2: Ahead. I just wanted to comment in case anybody pulled up the agenda, you know, and was wondering what that, those documents were. I did put the materials that you sent to us, you know, with the attorney general's approval into the meeting material. So you know, they are publicly available. Speaker 1: Okay. I know you've got the finance committee, this jumping down to agenda item eight finance committee scheduled, that's impacting the CBRC. They have us on their agenda for FE February, not February, excuse me, September 16th, which is next Tuesday.
But the motions we voted our last meeting are going to them. But one of the things that I would like to do, you know, tonight is to try and get through any motions that we have on our one remaining article, which was, which is Article 32, dealing with the new town meeting time version and whether or not to adopt it or whether or not to change the bylaws and then adopt it. And we can go at this in one of, of a couple of different ways. You know, we could have a broad ranging discussion on all
of the research items that we assigned out last week and or and then go into motions. But I think it might be more efficient if we kind of went into motions first on those things that have been identified as something that, you know, probably merits a, a change or at least merits town meetings consideration of a change. But it's the pleasure of the committee on how to proceed. You mean a change to the bylaw? Yes, a change to the bylaws. We have four of them identified and reduced down to motions.
So, so if we could go through those motions first and then, or at least some of those motions first and then, you know, go back up to talking about the findings that different people had reviewing different sections of the new versus the old town meeting time. So, and I know it may be difficult with Bob not here yet, and Donna not feeling well,
and hopefully she'll be able to join the meeting. But if we got into some of the motions first, then hopefully they're able to join and we can get the benefit of their reports. Speaker 2: I'm okay with that. Speaker 1: Okay. Har you okay with that? Speaker 3: It's fine. Speaker 1: All right. Saul, you all right with that? Good? Yeah. Okay. So Chris, before you, you know, pull motion a up on the, on the screen, the brief introduc motion a I think is going to deal with seconds being required
at town meeting the new version of town meeting time. So if you're looking at your, I have my, my paperback copy is, is blue. If you go to pages 1 27 and 1 28 of the fourth edition, it talks about seconds for motions are not required. And there's, you know, there's some a lot of follow on discussion about how they can, you know, at the discretion of the moderator, moderator can require them or you can do it by bylaw or if you vote we've done it by practice. Maybe you continue that practice.
So motion A is just to put a change in the bylaw that says, you know, motions require a second. So Chris, do you want to display that on the screen if you've got it so we can take questions, questions, comments? Speaker 3: Did anybody find out why they have the, the elimination of the second in TMT four? Speaker 1: It's because it's there, there's no legal requirement for it. Right? But you know, I wasn't, we, I didn't talk to the committee. I don't know if that wrote it
and spent a couple years on it. I don't know what drove their thinking, but I can't find anything in the statute that says you even require a motion to begin with. So it's like, if there's nothing in the state law that requires a second, I don't know if there's anything that requires a, you know, a motion. So Speaker 3: Well does Robert Rules of order doesn't require a second Speaker 1: Robert's rules of order does, but we're not under Robert's rules of order. Speaker 3: I thought I read in in the bylaws, that's why we're on this time. They time Speaker 2: Town meeting time. Speaker 1: Yeah, town meeting time is, I'm sorry,
the town meetings run under town meeting time, which is a, is a much simpler version of parliamentary procedure and it's different than Robert's rules of order. So anyway, the motion that is on the screen, what it's looking to do is just to focus on the red line or the blue line down at the bottom is to just insert language that says motions require a second when offered for the consideration of town meeting and shall be in writing if required by the moderator.
Chris, Speaker 2: So quickly the moderator would require a motion like indefinite postponement to be in writing. That's kind of like a, just a motion that, you know, people can offer. But this would cover that, right? Because it says all motions require a second, Speaker 1: Right? So like a motion to adjourn would be a motion that is, you know, probably is not required to be in writing, but it would require a second, right? A motion to dissolve would require a, require a second.
The motions being in writing is kind of a subset of all motions. That's the least the way that I read it. I think Jeff has his hand up and his his camera's off. But Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm here just, just to state that I'm, I'm here as a resource and so you don't have to speculate as to what the rule would be or what the perspective would be. I can give it to you straight up. So on this one, I, I, just to answer your question, the, the key phrase there is if required by the moderator tradition for town meeting for Natick is that the, the moderator does have some discretion in terms
of accepting motions from the floor in practice, if it's a well understood motion, indefinite postponement tabling an article, things that are more procedural that don't require a lot of explanation, that are not edited really. They're, they're sort of standard form, if you will. We even have them all prepared with the technology vendor, right? Like if someone says ip, it's like they have a standard form, you know, move indefinite postponement for the subject matter of the current article. It's not even like specific to the article language. It shows up on the screen. I would wanna say though, I I did have a question if I could about this Sure, sure.
For the chair, it, it, it, it looks like you're proposing this motion because there's a belief that we should have a requirement for a second. Can I ask for a little explanation as to how you reached the conclusion that we should other than it was just tradition? Speaker 1: So the, I, we, I sent around to the, the committee members, but I don't think I sent it to anyone else's, you know, 'cause it's kind of like a draft of the Sure fin com, you know, questionnaire and it's basically, you, we tried to,
the whole reason we looked at this is to go in, go through and say the the old slash current version of town meeting time, third edition, it's the old version of town meeting time, but it's the one under our bylaw that currently applies to us versus the new edition. So comparing the, you know, those two editions, is there anything that changes that would alter our, you know, our practice or alter our procedure? So, and the seconds could be one that, you know, it's ba it that, you know, that people might say, Hey,
I want to keep that practice. I personally don't have a strong feeling on it. So it's not that, it's not like I could, I could come up with a big compelling argument for this. Well Speaker 4: That, and that was why I was asking the question. If there's no compelling reason to keep it, do we need a motion to keep it? And I guess that's, I guess that's the puzzle like that from my, from my perspective, if, if the discretion still wr rests with the moderator, that if a, if a second is not provided based on the current interpretation of town meeting time four, if this, if this motion does not pass, the moderator would have the discretion of choosing as
to whether a second is required or not. Speaker 1: So the, and so now you, I'll give you what, it's not a compelling reason, but it may be, you know, persuasive last town meeting, I think we had a couple of motions a couple times motions were made and they died for lack of a second. Speaker 4: Correct. Speaker 1: Right. So they, because I think they were just widely like not viewed favorably. Right. Or, or whatever. So the, the, the, how do I say this? I think it creates problems for the meeting and also problems for the moderator.
If when a motion is made that sometimes seconds are required and sometimes seconds are not required. So that if, you know, and if you had a motion that nobody wants to talk about other than the person who made it right, it, it can't, it's, you'll be hard pressed to have that one die when you, when all along, you know, we've gone through, we go through 19 motions that, you know, all didn't require seconds and the 20th one, you know, does or, or some motion gets made
and now we have to talk about it. So it's a, what we're trying to do, the, the, the whole intent behind this was to at least preserve the practice that we, you know, that we have. It does apply only to those rare instances, but they do come up at every meeting where somebody makes a motion and it just craters 'cause nobody seconds it. Yeah, Speaker 4: No it's a, that's a reasonable explanation. You know, I think the, I think the focus on the consistency of how we currently practice is fine unless there's more or less flexibility introduced If you don't do the motion and, you know, I think from my perspective, I think it's,
I think it's fine as as written. Thanks for the clarification. Speaker 1: Okay. You're welcome. Thanks Saul. Go ahead. Speaker 3: Yeah, on page 49 on TMT four, I, I think there's words there that you could actually not do anything and still require a second. If, if you look at the second paragraph, it's talking about the modern, the, the massed court, well lemme read it. It says the mass appeals court upheld the valid validity of a town meeting vote on zoning bylaw amendment challenged the ground that the moderator's rulings erroneously departed
from Robert's rules of order. The court reiterated the settle law that a moderator's good faith judgment on procedure matters is not subject to judicial review. So it looks like we follow Robert's rules of order. Speaker 1: No, I actually think that, I don't, what's the footnote say? I don't know what, so that's the village houses versus Kingston, you know, Massachusetts in 2010. I don't know if their bylaws or their charter could, you know, require following Robert's rules and we, we we, there's nothing that prevents a town meeting
or you know, any town council, city council from saying this is what we're gonna follow the, you know, the city forms of government town councils and city councils have to follow Robert's rules 'cause they're not town meetings and so they don't follow town meeting time. But a town meeting could have a bylaw that says we follow Robert's rules of order. Right? But we don't, we have one that says we follow town meeting time Speaker 3: Or at the beginning of the town meeting, Jeff could say, I am going to have a second as part of our town meeting. Speaker 1: He could. So Chris, which Speaker 5: Brings to the fact that in the bylaw three we need
to delete the part that says that we're following the old town meeting thing and, and re and put in that we're going to follow the new one. Speaker 1: Well that's, that's actually teed up as the last of these four motions, Harriet. Okay. Right. For the, so the sequence would be that if we're, we're trying to do is find with motions A, B, and C tell town meeting, there's a thing here that's changed, right? Okay. In town meeting time, do you want to change your bylaws to keep your current practice? And so we're, you know, alerting them first to the things in
that change from one version to another of town meeting time so that the last decision they can make is do you or don't you want to adopt the new version? But that's motion d actually no, it's called motion last because I didn't know if anybody else had, bo had other motions, so, Speaker 5: Okay. Speaker 1: Okay, Chris. Speaker 2: So I have been of the opinion all along that we should have this motion, but when I was reading this section of Tom meeting time four, starting on page 1 27,
it, it does say where seconding is customary, which is the norm. And since it's the norm for us to have seconds, I just was wondering whether we need to codify that in, you know, an actual bylaw when for us seconding is customary. So that, that's the only thing that I was struggling with. I do like the fact that if emotion is a second is required and no one issues it, then you know, then that motion dies. So I feel like that's, that is a huge advantage.
But that happened anyway without meeting time for saying that, you know, without, that's already happened where something would die. So, 'cause we didn't have a, so anyway, my point is that seconding motions in Natick town meeting is customary, which is what's addressed in paragraph two of page 1 28. So does that mean we don't need this because it's already customary for us as a Speaker 1: So, but then Speaker 2: To practice, Speaker 1: Yeah, I read the same thing,
but then read the following sentence, it says, a moderator may choose to pause upon failing to hear a second. And I think that puts, as I mentioned earlier to, you know, I think that puts the moderator in the meeting in a, in a tough spot. Like if there's, if you're always having a second, then have a second. But if you're going to, if you're gonna say if it's kind of like, well it's optional, there's gonna be somebody whose motion gets, gets made and doesn't have a second and the meeting is gonna go yg, right? Well, you know, now we have to debate this, right? Because nobody would've seconded. There'll be somebody who, you know, you know,
the meeting the motion dies be because of a ruling of the current or a future moderator and it didn't have a second. And somebody goes, wait a second, how come only my motion required a second. It's like the, there's the, the language on page one, in my opinion of the, it's a pleasure of the committee what you wanna do with this, but my assessment of the language on seconding motions that's on 1 27 and 1 28 is that it's very soft. So Speaker 2: I do agree it's soft, but Jeff wants to talk too. Yeah, Speaker 1: Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 4: Other than just to point out, the only thing that makes it customary is the moderator's routine and consistent enforcement of the rule of the ruling. So it's been customary for us because historically we've always done it and the moderator has always looked for a second and has declared a motion out of order if no second was given. What this, the, the big change here, which I'm sort of poking at, was, was this takes the question of the ruling out of the hands of the moderator and makes it a requirement. And, but it does. And so that, so while there's that,
that trade off of power, the trade off I think is a decent one. If, if only because it sets the clear expectation for people to bring motions, then a second is required. And there's what Paul said, there's no, or I forget who who just said it. The, the, there's no clear, there's no confusion as to why one motion might require a second, another one might not. And, and we don't wanna let that happen. So I, I, that's why I'm fine with the, the limited giving up of that, of that discretionary role the moderator plays in the second and just having it in writing. Speaker 1: Yeah. And they, and the, the,
the language in the old town meeting time on 60, page 63 and 64 is not as soft. It's more, you know, it's more directive. So the, it's a pleasure of the committee to see what you wanna do. Chris, you drafted this one. Speaker 2: I did, and I drafted it because we kept talking about it and I just wanted to have this conversation about, about the, the seconding of a motion being customary. So I appreciate Jeff's explanation of that.
And so now I believe, my opinion is that we, we need this motion for in addition to our bylaw. Speaker 3: Yes. Speaker 1: Okay. So Speaker 3: I would agree that by putting this in then there's an old question, so it relieves everybody of having to worry about it. Should there be a second, an auto second be in black and white. So I think it's a good idea. Speaker 1: You knows, you just said something that I just wanna give like a double thumbs up to because it'll also eliminate all sorts of points of order. Hey, we can't vote that there's no second, right? And it just is like, what do you mean we don't need seconds?
It, it's kind of like this, you know, town meeting members of court has sort of been trained a cer you know, a certain way. And you know, I, I think you said something right on there. So Chris, I just wanna double check. Is there anybody else trying to get into the meeting? Speaker 2: I have to stop sharing to make sure Bob said he'd be in at seven 30, but let me, no, no one else is trying to get in right now. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 2: I'm gonna put it back up. Speaker 1: Okay. Anyone on the committee wanna make a motion? Speaker 3: I move. We've, we vote on the first item on your list.
Speaker 1: Is that, so you, you move favorable action as printed on the screen Yes. Or shown on the screen. Speaker 3: Second. Speaker 1: That's moved by Saul. Seconded by Harriet. Any other motions? Not we'll vote this. Saul, how do you vote? Speaker 3: Yes, Speaker 1: Harriet, how do you vote? Speaker 3: Yes, Speaker 1: Chris, how do you vote? Speaker 2: Yes, Speaker 1: And I'm a yes. That is 4 0 0. Speaker 2: Hang on for a second. I'm gonna let you guys see this. I'm just gonna put it in the letter. I find to do that.
It's hard to do that. Is it okay with you guys if I take it off? I'm just gonna put in the footer that we voted this 4 0 0. Speaker 1: I can do that on my end Chris, if you want. Okay. Okay. Because I gotta package these things up and send them to send 'em to Todd with little writeups. This next one, motion B before we put up on the screen, it actually probably deserves a little bit of discussion because it's not the simplest thing in the world. So under, under the third edition current, the old
but currently applicable edition of town meeting time, there is discussion on page 64 and 65 about motions of doubtful legality and the, the that for the older version of town meeting time specifies three one such motion of ieg, of doubtful. Legality is where the town seeks to do something illegal, something that violates law. Second is where the town meeting seeks to do something that it's beyond, that's beyond its power. And the third is where
mandatory conditions precedent have not been met. So this whole section of the old town meeting time gives guidance to the moderator and to the meeting as to what to do in each one of these situations. It's the third category of mandatory conditions precedent where that they, they talk about on page 65 of the old, of the old version, and it talks about the moderator ruling a motion out
of order when the moderator is aware that mandatory conditions precedent have not been met. It goes on to say the old version, for example, the Massachusetts general laws require the planning board conduct public hearings prior to town meeting consideration of zoning articles. I actually think it's only the adoption of zoning articles, but that's neither here nor there. It then goes on to state as a blanket rule, if the required public hearings have not been held, the moderator should rule as a procedural matter
that the motion in question is not properly before the meeting and no vote should be taken. We had a pattern or practice that was developing several years ago, maybe 10, 12 years ago, where some sponsors of warrant articles were avoiding the finance committee, which is whole purpose of a finance committee is to allow in-depth consideration of matters and a lot of like, you know, public input. But there was no, that's not a, it did not used
to be a, you know, a public hearing. We also had, you know, so we had people putting things on the warrant. Some of them were pretty long and complicated and this didn't go to the fin com, they showed up on town meeting floor and they moved a multipage, you know, amendment or you, we even had sponsors go to the finance committee and make proposals and the finance committee would hear those. And then on town meeting floor there would be a totally different proposal or radically different proposal that the sponsor would make and that, that had a, that was creating situations where
town meeting was now spending a lot of time asking really detailed in-depth questions, which they can't do if they're under 10 minutes or five minutes per speaker, whatever the speaking rule is. And it was leading to a lot of questions, a lot of people talking, a lot of confusion was bogging when that was happening. It was bogging down the meeting. So several years ago, I think it was around eight years ago, the town meeting voted to amend the fin com section of the bylaw. And the finance committee's consideration of matters of business within the warrant for a town meeting
was upgraded to be a required public hearing where members of the public resident residents and taxpayers, not members of the public residents and taxpayers and town employees would've a reasonable opportunity to be heard. So if someone needed 15 minutes to give you 12 reasons why something was a not a good idea or was a good idea, they could get that all out at the fin com and that could be reduced down in the book. And people, you know, speakers could be much more efficient with their time point to the page in the book. Kind of summarize the, you know, the arguments as opposed
to, you know, the, some of the articles that bogged down a town meeting one article bogging down a special town meeting for two nights. I mean, it was, you know, it it was, it, it became an issue that town meetings sought to fix. So flip over to the new version. The new version maintains the three categories of motions of doubtful, legality keeps the one on mandatory conditions of precedent, but it moves the goalpost or the, or the foul line to say
where the statute requires the public hearing, the moderator should so rule. So it's no, you know, the, the old version of town meeting time with any old public hearing, the new version is just statutory. The new version also has a section on finance committees that talks about you can put in your bylaw that their meeting is a required con, you know, public hearing or required condition precedent. That's what this motion seeks to do. So the, I actually spent a lot of time
with this one and I thought about just putting in a simple sentence that says, for the purposes of our bylaw, we'll regard that fin com hearing as if it were statutory. But the way that the, and then let it let the interpretation all fall to town meeting time. But the new town meeting time kind of says if it's gonna be a local hearing, like a FinCon hearing, you have to kick it over to a bylaw requirement. So anyway, that's what this one, that's what this one is. This one is true that designed to preserve our current practice of making people go through the fin com.
They're the people that spend the, the, the long hours they get into the, you know, into all the details that's impossible to do in a town meeting of 120 to 150 or 180 people. You, we have a fin com of 15 and a fin com of 150 is hard. So I dunno if you can call that one up, Chris. Speaker 2: Yeah, I just was you're, you're painting article three, right? And then it's Speaker 1: One, one article 32. No, Speaker 2: No, no, no bylaw. I I know that What we're the, the area
of bylaw is bylaw article three Speaker 1: And bylaw article three, section one, rules of procedure. Speaker 2: Okay. Which is right now very simple. I can pull that. Speaker 1: Yeah, why don't you, you can pull that up and then we can focus on the red line. Speaker 2: Oh, you made a red line of this. Okay. Lemme that Speaker 1: The red line's a little bit further down the page. Speaker 2: Oh, is it on the same, is it on the same Speaker 1: It's in the same document. Speaker 2: Okay, hang on. Okay. No, that's rule precedent. I had it up and then I, okay. Okay. Let me just put this down and I'll share my screen.
Speaker 1: And one of, one of the things you'll see in the red line paragraph is that we, and when the FinCon bylaw was changed, you know, eight or nine years ago, we inserted that the, the, the, can you scroll down to where we can see the red lines and yeah, there we go. So we, in addition to changing the FinCon bylaw, which is Article 23, we at the same time was part of the same motion inserted the language that you see there that says the representative town meeting made by a two thirds vote waive any requirement in the bylaws for a public hearing unless required by the statute
or charter on specific matters that was designed as a safety valve that says if the fin com couldn't get to it or if there was something urgent that came up, that meaning could by a two thirds vote, say, yeah, we aren't supposed to take it up even when the fin com hasn't, but we can by two thirds vote, vote to take it up. Anyway. So that's the, that this the background for what this whole new change is about is we,
we addressed this like eight years ago in our bylaw. And then the, the and the new, the old town meeting was really clear about, you know, the public hearing hasn't been held. You don't bring it before the, you know, the motion's not like, not in order with the new town meeting time, it requires something. So this is a, this is what I drafted and you know, it says in addition to any statutory requirements for a public hearing in advance of the consideration of articles by representative town meeting, the public hearing held by the finance committee in all matters of business of the Warren article for any town meeting pursuant
to Article 23, section four, that's where that public hearing requirement is stated also constitutes a required mandatory con condition precedent to consideration by town meeting when the requirement of a mandatory condition precedent has not been met. The moderator should rule the motion has not properly be before the meeting and no vote should be taken except as otherwise provided in this section one because the town meeting, this new town meeting time says, no vote should be taken. The way we had applied this in the past was
you have three options, you vote no action, right? You can't take a positive action on it. You take no action vote to postpone the thing to a time when you could actually held hold the hearing or, and then we added this requirement of a two thirds vote to waive the requirement. So the intent of this, and I think it's effect is to preserve the practice that we've had for any number of years. And that wave mandatory conditions precedent is al was also embedded in the motions table. That's, no, that's not new. So the, the non redlined part of the
or non blue lined part of the blue line paragraph is part of the existing bylaw and the wave mandatory conditions precedent is part of the existing table of motions. Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right here. Speaker 6: So Speaker 2: I guess I just have a question on the exact language. So what the language I have a question about is constitutes a required mandatory condition precedent to consideration by Tom meeting. So you're just using the language
in here from Tom meeting time four, but I I, to make that statement, what I think could be confusing to people is calling our public hearing a required mandatory condition. So, but that's the whole purpose of Bob. By the way, Bob Awkward is here. He came in at 7 36. If you wanna Speaker 1: Hold on. Bob, can you announce that you're here? Bob Awkward is here. Thank you. This is part of the roll call Bob, part of the rolling roll call. Speaker 2: But I guess what I'm trying to say is, is
that the right language or do we think that Speaker 1: So the reason those words are chosen Yeah. Is because those are the exact words that are used in both the old version and the new version of town meeting time. And Speaker 2: What we're doing here is creating, you know, making it clear in our bylaw that our bylaw, that we have to have a finance committee hearing for articles before the warrant, which is an Article 23, section four, we're calling that a wired mandatory
condition such that it meets this new definition. Is that correct? Speaker 1: Not quite. Okay. It, the, the better way to describe it is under our current bylaw, as they are con constructed both within Article three of the bylaws and article 23 of the bylaws using the prior ver or the old version of town meeting time. We already have this, it's the new version of town meeting time that moves the goalpost
and says, the old version of town meeting time is if you have a required public hearing and it wasn't held, you don't take up the matter. The new version of town meeting time says when you have a statutory requirement for a public hearing and it hasn't been held, you don't take up the matter. But in an earlier section it says, but if you wanna make your finance committee's hearings required, you do that by bylaw. So they, they, the the new town meeting time changes the rules against which are ex are existing bylaws
would be measured and applied. That that's the, Speaker 2: I think we probably wanna pull out that other section then, you know, like when we write this up to say the new town meeting time says if you want to make the finance committee a statutory requirement, it needs a bylaw. Speaker 1: Yeah, well that was in the draft that I sent around about reasons for these motions, but Okay. You know, that's, anyway, that's what this motion is. Speaker 2: So Speaker 1: Can I, and also the other thing that this does by the way, is the new town meeting time says if the required public
hearing hasn't been held, no vote should be taken. Right. And you know, and so you can't even vote to po you know, it's like no vote. It's like what they mean is no vote on the substance of the motion underneath the warrant article. But in the past when we've had these, we just move to postpone to a time certain, you know, you know, or, you know, take no action. Right. Which is because we also have a, an issue we cannot dissolve unless all warranted articles have been disposed of. So that you can't lead, you can't just leave one hang there
and say there's no public hearing and just say, let's move on to the next one. You, you know, you gotta, you deal with it, you postpone it, you turn as you turn, whether it's a planning board or whether it's a finance committee, when, you know, when do you think you'll be able to hold something on this, you know, next Tuesday, you know, how about we postpone this to the following the Thursday following that Tuesday. Right? The, but the new town meeting time actually has some stronger language about, you know, no motion should be, you know, should be taken. And you know, it's really, you don't wanna take a sub if you had to, if why do you want a public hear hearing so
that all people in the public can be heard? Right. That's the benefit of a, of a public hearing and not, 'cause not everybody gets to come to town meeting and the, if you haven't had that public hearing, well the public hasn't been heard. So the meeting doesn't actually take up the substance of the matter, but you could reschedule it. Right. Or you could vote to take no action. Like you're at the end of the warrant and you say, you know, hey, you know, like, you know, we're, nobody's gonna hold this hearing, you know, for a couple of months. So let's take the, you know, take a motion
for, you know, for no action with the statutory requirements for the planning board hearing in advance of a zoning article or the select board public hearing in advance of the layout of a street. That's the new example that gets used in town meeting time. There's nothing you can do about that. The statute says you have to have these, you know, first with our bylaw, with our current bylaw requirement for the FinCon to hold a public hearing so that the citizens can get hurt on stuff. The, we gave ourself an escape hatch said, we said since we put that requirement on ourselves
and our bylaw, we already have baked in, in the existing bylaw. A two thirds vote of town meeting can dispense with that and say, we're gonna go on with 'em anyway. Speaker 2: I get it. And Speaker 1: That's so, and that can, that can be like, you know, we've got two articles left to go and they, they didn't get heard. We've been here for four nights, you know, we can get outta here in 30 minutes. Let, let's take the, you know, somebody makes a two-thirds motion to take it up and waive the requirement for the fin comms public hearing and move forward. Right. Right. So this is just designed to preserve our existing practice and what's really happened is town meeting time kind of
behind the scenes has, that should be precedent by the way the, the town meeting time has kind of changed behind the scenes and it's just, it's moved the foul line. So Speaker 2: I have another Chris. Yeah. So I, I I don't have any comment on I, when we get to the motion, I wanna make an editorial edit, so, Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 2: It's a lot of new wording, Speaker 1: Questions, comments, discussion. Speaker 3: How about a motion? Speaker 1: Well, I want, I wanna see if anybody's got anything to say. So, but if you're ready for I'm not seeing anyone. So Saul, if you're ready
Speaker 2: For, so I guess I need to make my editorial comment. So I was thinking that you had this duplicated, but you're, you're basically, you're saying what we have to do in the second paragraph because you're also changing capital letters, right? Yep. And then this, this, the third paragraph is actually gonna read at, and then you have the red line. So I was wondering, but the third paragraph is, but it's actually not right. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: Okay. Speaker 1: Sa Speaker 3: Okay. I move favorable action of section one
Speaker 1: As, as as printed with the cur typo correction. Speaker 3: Yes. Second. Speaker 1: That's moved by Harriet, moved by Saul, seconded by Harriet. Any other motions? Any debate team None will vote this Saul, how do you vote? Speaker 3: Yes, Speaker 1: Harriet, how do you vote? Yes, Chris, how do you vote? Speaker 2: Yes, Speaker 1: Bob, how do you vote? Yes, and I am a yes. So we are 5 0 0 and okay, so the,
the next one is similar but simpler. So just setting the table for this many years ago, and it's, I think it was like 20 some odd years ago, we had a provision in our bylaw that said the motion to dissolve can be taken at any time. That was, that was something that was in our bylaw. And there was a town meeting that happened and it dissolved before the warrant articles were all heard. Oh, oh yeah, yeah. So the,
and some people said, you know, but town meeting time says the old town meeting time on the, so it's the old book on the bottom of page 1 31 talk says A motion to dissolve the meeting is not in order as long as any article in the warrant remains undisposed of. But when, but so our old bylaw going back like 20 years supersedes town meeting time and it said a motion to dissolve could be made at any time. Motions to dissolve are not debatable
and they're not amendable and they pass by simple majority. Right? Actually the, the war story is, that's how the town of Wellesley got created. People who lived in the part of Needham that's now Wellesley put an article on the warrant was an open town meeting back in the 1890s. They packed the meeting, they moved to take their article out of order and put it first they all voted it and then they all voted to dissolve. So that there, you know, that nobody could even reconsider the thing. So that's the, that's the, I don't know if it's a true story, but, so what we did is we went, you know, we went
as a town meeting, we changed our bylaw to take out the bylaw provision that says you could dissolve at any time, which then means you drop to town meeting time, which the old version or the currently applicable version says you can't dissolve as long as there's an article that has not been disposed of. That's actually the language that they use. The new version of town meeting time. If you look in the, it's the second paragraph on page two 13 of the new town meeting time. It's the first full paragraph states, a motion to dissolve is typically not in order as long
as any article in the warrant has not been acted upon or passed over. So the words disposed over, gone and they're replaced with, acted upon or passed over. So the it ra so if you, and there's a lot of discussion in town meeting time about the effect of laying an article on the table, you know, tabling an article, meaning is laid on the table and then you need to vote to do that. And then to take it back up, you need to pick it up off the table. If you had a tabling motion that was successful, that art
and you, what that does is set that article aside and move on to the next article. That's what tabling does. So the, if you had a tabling motion on an article, you would be passing over it and therefore you could dissolve ever without ever disposing of it taking up its substance. Mm. Right. The same thing that can happen is, is acted upon is like, well we take articles like we move the warren around all the time, right? And, you know, move this to here, move this to here, move this to the, you know, and you know, sometimes the, you know, the articles are kind
of like moved to the end of the warrant because we know they're gonna like this. The there've been articles that have been moved to the end of the warrant because people know they're gonna take a lot of time and sponsors want still more time to get their act ready, et cetera. But rescheduling is, could be viewed as an act. So the, what this motion does is simply say what the current version, the old version currently applicable version of town meeting says, which is, it's not in order until the article has been disposed of. So c can you put it up on the screen? Yeah. And just for the record, I wasn't in favor
of the bylaw change back in 2005. I thought, you know, if the majority of the meeting wants to go you, you know, you know, they could, they could get up and leave and just tank the quorum. So I just thought, you know, we should keep it. But you know, a lot of town meeting wanted to change that. So this is trying to be very respectful of maintaining our practice. Our practice is, we don't dissolve until we've basically, you know, disposed of all of the articles and reschedulings not disposition, like postponing it, you haven't disposed of it, you just said I'm moving it to then it's time then I'll dispose of it.
So it's a simple motion. There's no red line because it would be a new third paragraph under rules of procedure and it just quotes the current but old version of town meeting time, even with that hanging participle at the end. Because that's literally the way that it, that's literally the way it's worded in the, in the current version. Speaker 2: So there is a typo 'cause it said three rf instead of third. Yep. Speaker 1: Thank you. I, Speaker 2: I think this is important. Thanks for catching that. Speaker 1: And I just put the, you know, the precedent
of motions there so that people could see it like dissolve is, you know, and you know, we have, you know, second required and that's the other reason by the way, for two doing that other thing on seconds is we have a table of motions that basically has a bunch of things for which you need to have a second. Right. The but it, you know, disillusion is not debatable, it's not amendable. It's a simple majority vote and the town meeting is finished. So, Speaker 2: Hey Paul. Yep. On this precedent's of motions, I saw that, you know, if someone calls the quorum that doesn't require a second.
Is that, should that calling the quorum be within? Speaker 1: No, it's like a point of order. Speaker 2: Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Speaker 7: You added the solution into the table Speaker 1: Table. No, no. It was always there. Speaker 2: Always, always there. There's no red line versions here. 'cause it was always there. Speaker 1: Yeah. The only thing this motion does is add a new third paragraph under bylaw article three, section one Rules of procedure. This is the way town meeting's been running itself for over 20 years.
Speaker 2: We could do, you know, if we don't do this, we could do tricky things with annoying articles. Like, I won't use examples like loud noises, you know, getting rid of loud noises by moving something to the end of the warrant. So there was action taken and then dissolved before we take it up. Speaker 1: Or more importantly, you table it and then you skip over it. Right. Right, Speaker 2: Right, Speaker 1: Right. You, you know, you've right. Passed over it. Right. It's a and I don't think, I think most people, you know, are Not gonna know that there's that level
of like parliamentary maneuvering that can happen. But you know, it, it, that doesn't mean that it couldn't happen. Just be, just because you don't know that the effect of something like a tabling doesn't mean that it couldn't be used, you know, against somebody. So, hey, there was a, Tommy felt very, very strongly about this, you know, however many years ago it was that the bylaw changed and we deleted the provision that said the motion to dissolve is an order at any time we wipe that out of the bylaw.
So the town meeting requirement that says can't do it can't dissolve as long as any warrant and article remains undisposed of that popped up and, you know, as the, as the rule by which town meeting was run. Speaker 2: I'm good with this. Speaker 5: Can we go to make a motion? Speaker 1: Yep. Any dis any other discussion? Yeah, Saul, you had a comment Speaker 3: On the screen. I'm seeing those statements in parentheses. I mean not parentheses quotation marks. You're not gonna use quotation marks in the bylaws, right? Speaker 1: No. That's part of calling out what the motion is.
So yeah, Saul's got, Chris Saul's got a good point where it says the motion to dissolve, there's a quote in front of the, that should probably come out 'cause the motion begins with quote move and ends with disposed of period quote. Does that work? Sa Speaker 3: Yeah, it works if you need the, the quote. Sure. Speaker 1: Well no, you, it's a convention for putting the, the for signaling when the motion begins and ends. Speaker 3: Okay. Speaker 1: So, but the bylaw won't have quotes in it. Speaker 3: Okay. Speaker 1: Harriet did, did you have your move to Speaker 5: Move to do motion C
as shown on the screen? Speaker 2: Can you still see it? Because I have a note that I, that I paused it. I don't know how to unpause it. Speaker 1: We can still see it. Okay. Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay. Speaker 1: Alright. Is there a second? Second, Speaker 3: Second. Speaker 1: Second by Saul. Do we vote this Harriet, how do you vote? Yes. Saul? Speaker 3: Yes. Speaker 1: Bob? Yes. Chris? Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker 1: And I'm a yes. That is 5 0 0. The last motion that we have prepared tonight, I would be where we would propose a motion
to change the reference to the Johnson Truman Waters version of town meeting to the fourth edition is published by the Moderators Association. But I'd like to suggest that before we do that, we had a number of assignments from the last meeting where people were gonna look at different sections of the bylaw. I mean not different sections of the bylaw, different sections of town, meeting time, old and new, and compare and see if there was anything that was worthy
of perhaps a change to our bylaws. I know that personally I didn't find anything else, but I know Saul, you and Donna were separately gonna look at consent agendas. Harriet, you, you and Saul were gonna look at remote hybrid town meetings and I'm just looking back at my notes here. And Harriet and Bob we're gonna separately look at elect electronic presentations Speaker 5: And I also looked at accessibility Speaker 1: At accessibility. Thank you. Is there anything in those
that you think would cause enough of an effect that we should be considering about a modification or an addition to the bylaws Speaker 5: On the remote? Lemme ask. I did not, I do not know where to find in the, Speaker 1: Hold on, Saul, you're next. I got Harriet first. Speaker 3: I just wanna ask you a question, what you just said, Paul. Speaker 1: What? Sorry? Speaker 3: You said we want to see if it's important enough to put in a bylaws, some statement or some paragraph. But I thought if it's in town meeting four and we're referring to four, we don't have
to put it in our bylaws. Speaker 1: No. So that's correct. So, but there could be, is there, so maybe I should rephrase that. Is there something in town meeting time, you know, fourth edition that we basically say, whoa, we don't want that, or we don't quite want that, that way such that the only way that we can avoid town meetings time fourth additional applying is to do what we just did with those other three motions and make slight modifications in the bylaws. So I, and sounds good. Speaker 3: That sounds good. Okay. Speaker 1: Right. So, because otherwise we'd be fine with town meeting time
as it's, yeah. So I know that I didn't see anything but Harriet, your question, was Speaker 5: It, when I read on the remote, it says that according to the new town meeting time, remote meetings are allowed for representative town meetings. I did not know if it was somewhere in our bylaws referring to the state statute that needs to be in there. Speaker 1: I Jeff, I I don't believe that we need to have our bylaw refer up to a state statute because the statute is
higher ranking than our bylaw. Speaker 4: Yeah. The, the order of precedence in terms of what we're beholden to for any town meeting, the, if it's in state law already, it's already on the books. We don't have to to cover that. We're, we're subordinate to that. Speaker 5: Okay. So that we don't have to worry about the remote because all the rest of the article talked about all the, the procedures for testing it and making sure that everyone gets equality. Yeah. I and this time we did it. We worked on that. Speaker 4: So, so Harry, you may be aware, art, there's another article that's being proposed.
Article 15 on this warrant for fault town meeting is to establish a hybrid town meeting review committee who would take up any issues related to, you know, go, go going more in depth into whether a bylaw change is required or not to facilitate a hybrid town meeting. And that, that they would make a different recommendation at, at a future town meeting, maybe the spring, maybe thereafter if there's any changes required. Speaker 5: No, I I I didn't see anything that I had to do anything on that remote. I was just concerned whether
or not, I didn't know that there was anywhere in our bylaws that talked about the remote meeting. It Speaker 4: Does, it doesn't exist. It was never considered as an option. And, and so there's nothing in our bylaws that reference a, a remote or an online option for town meeting. That's that's what the, the charter, if it, if it gets voted for this hybrid review committee would propose if there'd be any changes to bylaws, any changes to the town meeting member handbook, rules and procedures, otherwise, as well as also maybe even recommendations for,
for technology purchases or a proposal for a project that would've to be funded by town meeting. So the, that all that would cascade out of the findings and whatever the directed action for that committee would be. But yeah, you're right to say there's nothing in our bylaws that say that. Now, interestingly enough, we could, we, we don't necessarily, my my understanding right now is we wouldn't even need a bylaw change to use the state law and pursue a hybrid meeting and just work with a vendor and get it done. But that's not, that's not what we're proposing on this fall town meeting in terms of our process. Our process is gonna start with a, a review committee before we act. Speaker 5: That that part of it is fine.
I I just figured you had to lay it out there, whatever it was. Yeah. And in so far, in so far as accessibility, the only thing that I, from what I can remember of what town meeting is, the only thing it did we don't do is signage saying that there's designated spots for those who need the accessible. So the signage is not being used. And I also didn't know whether we do anything on hearing devices for accessibility. I know we do the braille, but I don't know if we do the other,
Speaker 4: We do hearing devices. We work with not just na Pegasus, but the people on, in the facility at Kennedy, they offer headsets that are plugged into the audio feed for the whole room so that people can have assisted devices for that Interesting point on the signage. I I would suggest we probably don't need a bylaw change for me as the moderator to enact things that are related to policy about how the room is managed. That's my responsibility. I'll take that absolutely very seriously. That that's a, that that's a, that's an outcome that we should be doing for improvement. Speaker 5: 'cause everything else I thought we were already doing, you talked about closed captioning,
but I think that's overkill Speaker 4: That's provided, there's an automated service that Natick, Pegasus provides for captioning for video streams. But whether it's done in the, during the real time broadcast, that's a question I can bring up with Randy. But again, those are things that we don't need bylaw changes for this's, just really more around right. On the execution side. But, but those, those are really good. I I'm, I mean I'm, I'm, I'm really committed to accce an accessible town meeting. So those are really good bits of feedback Speaker 5: And, but Speaker 4: You're right. I don't think it, yeah. Speaker 5: And the last thing that I was on the electronic presentations and stuff, it was very interesting that if it,
if you had written material, it said it should be in the room and that outside the room should be non related to the motions coming up. So that if it talked about a flu clinic or whatever, that would be on the outside. But if it was referring to any of the motions of town meeting, it should be inside. So I was wondering if you needed to perhaps change the, the room a little bit to be able to handle that. Speaker 4: It, it, it's an interesting thought on the point of logistics in terms of how we've always managed the flow of people because we usually use one main primary entrance
for the meeting room and the meeting room. Like, you know, the, it's a school auditorium, so the ability to have tables in the auditorium to have materials for the meeting. That's a good point. In terms of separation, I'll, I'll discuss that with the clerk as well just to figure out if there's a way to separate the materials, whether it's more informational for the town versus germane to the articles being considered and maybe have 'em separated. That's an interesting logistical point. And, Speaker 5: And in so far as any of the electronic stuff, as, as far
as I know, we have been doing it all along that we allow it to be done and that whether it requires you to see it in advance, that's up to I think something that has been done already and that they have, the town already has to know what it is to be able to put it up. Speaker 4: Well, a little more specific than that. I, I don't allow anything to hit the table if I haven't seen it 48 hours in advance. So that includes anything that's supplemental material for an article. So it's posted to the website and, and if, if it's been posted to the website, it's part of our review process that I've seen it in advance
and it will also be on the table. So there's nothing that shows up on the table that hasn't been posted in advance in a digital form online, 48 hours ahead of time. Speaker 5: I think it was talking about the electronic stuff that was on the screen that somebody sitting there with a clicker showing the pictures. But that I think we've already taken care of. We have that it's already part of Precedences. Speaker 4: Yep. Speaker 5: That was my bit, my bit. Speaker 4: I think the only Speaker 1: Other one we had was consent agendas. Saul, did you have anything on that? Speaker 3: I also had the remote and accessibility.
I just want to add that I agree entirely with Harriet that we don't have that change the bylaws. These are good guidance in town. Meeting four. Now I on consent agenda, the town meeting three doesn't say very much about about consent agenda, but in the town meeting four, they go in with a lot of suggestions. Well, not a lot. They go in with six suggestions or six key principles as guidance to the moderator. It looks like it's good guidance, but it doesn't seem to be any need for it to go into the bylaws because this is, this is the guidance for the Tom moderator.
So I don't, I did not find anything that should go into the bylaws in consent agendas. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 7: I concur with that. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 7: Honestly, that's what was there reflected our current practice anyway. Speaker 2: Well, one, one question that I, I guess I would just raise to this group because it calls, you know, it allows for people to call out for holds, but we usually have to have a certain number of people hold something out. Like if some, if one person calls for a hold,
it doesn't automatically monitor the consent agenda. Like where's the, what's the right word? Where's the common practice for what that number is? Is that in our town meeting handbook? Speaker 1: No, it's a moderator rule. Speaker 7: Okay. It's a moderator rule. Speaker 1: Mr. Fox put that into place. Speaker 7: The language is fluid in that regard. It says these are, some towns have different practices around that and it's up to the moderator to decide how they want to manage that. Speaker 4: Yeah. The, the floating number is, and, and this is something I'm looking at considering as well,
when I look at the guidance for the consent agendas, the, I think Frank had a certain number of people he wanted to see rise to call out a hold. I'm of the mind that if one person calls out a hold, I might remove it from the agenda just to be conservative in terms of the implementation. But that, you know, that's that finding that number in terms of, okay, how few could just arbitrarily like eliminate the purpose of a consent agenda versus how many need to, to, to do it. I mean the, there's already a lot of like judgment being implo employed here. Like what goes on a consent agenda is
judgment of the moderator. What, you know, how many people can call it a hold is judgment of the moderator. These things already exist, but they're not, they're not in a bylaw because we give it to the moderator currently. We give it to the moderator's discretion to do that. And so I guess the question is do we need a bylaw to codify those practices or we do, we trust it's doing it. I will be experimenting with a consent agenda in the fall meeting. I do believe, and you know, it, it, it'll be an interesting thought. I'm gonna look at what the rule, I think I, I forget it was, if it was three, five or seven Seven, Speaker 7: It was seven.
Speaker 4: It's seven. Right. So it's, it's a pretty high bar to not have it. You have, you have to kind of get it. Like I would, I would put it another way. You, the moderator kind of had to get it wrong to put it on the agenda in the first place. If seven people rise and say they don't wanna, you know, they, they wanna call it hold. So, so I think that by having arbitrary high number, it, it, it really is a good gut check. But, you know, IIII think it's fine as a discretionary item. Now, if I, if it were my perspective, Speaker 1: Just a, a quick aside on another perspective on that.
The, the special counsel that's worked with this committee attended a, a couple of our town meetings and said, wow, you really do consent agendas differently. What a lot of towns do and what, what a lot of moderators will do. And I think some of this is mentioned and might, you know, I dunno if it was in an article or it's in the new version, allow, you know, one person to call out the hold but get their name and then before you like re you know, you, you kind of like be you, you know that okay, you have 10 ar articles on the consent agenda, you got holds on three of them. You, you, now that you know that there are no other holds,
you go back and say, can you briefly state your reason? What do, why do you like, you know, wanna hold on this? Right? And it could be that, you know, a quick question answers it and they withdraw their objection. It goes back into the consent agenda. Or somebody says there is a real problem, you know, you know, with this and I've got, you know, my lawyer here to say how this will affect my commercial property. I really want to talk about this. You know, there, there could be somebody that like, no, you wanna keep that off the consent agenda. Speaker 4: State, state the purpose of the debate
without going into the debate. I think that's the other art form is like you, why, why do you wanna pull it? Don't tell me, don't tell me the debate now, but why do you wanna pull it? Right. And we don't, we don't give that affordance today in terms of help someone to say why they're calling out a hold. Right. Speaker 1: So this, that's just a thought to think about that Speaker 7: In the fourth edition. It talks about you could seek clarification. Somebody has a question of clarification about the article that's allowable, but if they wanna start trying to debate the thing, no. Either hold it or let it go. Speaker 1: Yeah. So the, the interesting thing that I thought,
just jumping back to the one on written materials and electronic materials, the new town meeting time is acknowledges that some people want electronic copies, but that there are some people who want, might want paper copies and that the provision should be made for, you know, both. That's a, you know, and I think that would, I kinda like that particularly if it's like a long motion. It's gonna be sometimes very hard to read on a screen. Speaker 5: But I think that's what we've been doing anyway Speaker 1: Generally.
Yeah. Alright. So the, the, what I'm hearing here is that on all of the tasks we're that we kind of divided up, look at the old town meeting time, look at the new town meeting time, there's nothing else that would rise to the level of saying, Hey, we really need to modify our bylaws because of this new town meeting time. I'm not hearing that anyone's got any more of that. Speaker 7: You talked about second seconding a motion already. Speaker 1: Yep. We already, yeah, we already voted that one to put seconds in Speaker 7: To put it in. Yeah. To make it part,
but to conti continue our existing practice. Speaker 1: Yes. Speaker 7: Yes. Good. Speaker 1: So if nobody else has a, has a motion that they wanna bring forward to accommodate the new town meeting time. Can you put up Chris, I think I called it motion last, which we could now call motion D Speaker 2: Why are we doing this last? Speaker 1: Because if other people had motions that said, oh, we need to do this for consent agendas, we need to do something else. The, the, the, the suggested structure was let's get
through everything that, where something changed from old town meeting time to new town meeting time. If we need to, if call out something that would affect our practice and might merit a bylaw change, put those in front of the meeting before we say now change from version three to version four. Speaker 2: Okay. So we do all those other things first. We change the things we wanna change and then we change to the new town meeting. Speaker 1: Right. Regardless of what the meeting wants to do, they at least know about them before they, you know, they, they understand some implications
of this, of the, of this change. So, and I think this wording does it and I went, when, when, when I tweaked it this afternoon, Chris, I went with the actual wording that was on the front cover town meeting time, a handbook of parliamentary law fourth edition. Yeah, because that's its technical name. Speaker 5: I do have a question on that. Speaker 1: Sure. Speaker 5: I didn't, well I had chosen when I looked at that, not to list specifically that it's the fourth edition because what if next year they come up with a fifth and then four years later it's another six,
why not leave it at the most current town meeting? Speaker 1: So, great question, Harriet. So the, the, the thought on this one, we, we talked about this at our last meeting, which was if they didn't really make any major changes to, from version three to version four and nothing in that they did would affect our practice or require a bylaw change, then we could just say let's whatever the most recent version of town meeting time is. But the reason to call it out this way, you know,
we can vote a motion or propose a motion that goes in a different direction. The reason to call it out this way is it kind of says when you want to go to a fifth edition, it will give people a pause to say, alright, we had the couple things that where they move the goalposts or they changed the rules in a, in a more substantive way going from third to fourth. Right Before we go to fifth, let the next edition or the sixth let's at least be able to take a look at, you know, at least give town meaning the option of understanding what might have changed in order to,
to, to go from a fourth edition to a, you know, further future edition. Speaker 5: Okay. Speaker 1: That was, but you know, that we could word it the other way if the town meeting wants to say it's just whatever the most recent version is then is the most recent. So Saul Speaker 3: Way you have it here is very good because it sets the baseline. There's no question as to what is in the bylaws. It, even if it's not the most recent. It's, it's definitely the fourth edition. We go to the fifth edition. You can change this paragraph. Speaker 1: Hopefully at least one person would ask, is there anything to change between the fourth
and fifth edition that we should worry about? Right. And did anybody look at that? No. Well, maybe we should, before we do that, Mr. Moderator, can we get through this meeting or, or the next meeting with the fourth edition, can we limp by and you know, maybe, you know, just like you had the hybrid committee, can you have one that takes a look at, you know, takes a look at the, you know, the new NFL rule book because you know, these, these kickoff rules are driving me crazy, so Speaker 7: Yeah. Speaker 1: So anyway, yeah. Open to the floor for and Chris discussion. Speaker 7: Could you, can you enlarge that just a little bit, please?
It's hard to read that sign and as in blue, ah, ah hmm. Speaker 1: Jeff, that Jeff, that is the correct name, right? Speaker 4: Yes, I have it right in front of me. Okay. Town meeting time, a handbook of parliamentary law fourth edition published by the Massachusetts Moderators Association. Speaker 1: Yep. I wanted to be very, I wanted to be very specific so that there's no doubt the, Speaker 4: The, in the in copy in copyright, the, the one fallacy which would be more specific is the date of publication, but
they might make a clerical changes and still call it the fourth edition and public republish it on a different date. So a date would be a, would be a, not a path to go down. Speaker 1: Okay. When did they publish this? 2024. Yeah. Are you s are you suggesting that we add 2024? No, Speaker 4: I, I was just sort of cautioning that we don't add a date to make it more specific. The only, the only way you can make a published date a a, a reference to a book. More specific 'cause either through a use of an ISPN,
which is a, you know, the the code. The code on the back of the book for the publisher's use or to the fix and the date. Speaker 1: Got it. Okay. Speaker 5: Can we make a motion now? Speaker 1: Sure. Harriet, Speaker 5: Move to accept motion D as shown on the screen. Speaker 1: That seconded by Saul. Yeah. Any other motions? Okay. Harriet, how do you vote? Speaker 5: Yes. Speaker 1: Saul, your vote? Saul? Yes. Oh yes. Okay. Bob? Yes.
Chris, was that a yes? Yes. Okay, sorry, sorry. My connection was cutting in and out and I'm a Yes. So that is 5 0 0 the Bef. We, we have a special counsel invoice on there that, but I'm not putting it forward because I think there's an error on it and I wanna get the error fixed. It's not, it's not a lot. Bef Before we leave this whole discussion of the fourth edition of town meeting time, one of the things that we had talked about at our last meeting was if there was anything regarding our reviews
of hybrid town meetings that might be good to, you know, report out either to the moderator or to town meeting or to the finance committee. You know, we said that we would talk about that, you know, we know that there's another committee that's actually gonna deal with it. Does anybody have anything that they would like to talk about as something that they would like the moderator or a hybrid town meeting study committee to look at? Speaker 2: I have notes in last the, I think, or maybe I didn't put it in the minutes from last meeting
what your comments were. I might have just said we talked about it because you, you had a number of notes. I know you wanted to call out to Jeff. I Speaker 1: Don't. So I'm, I, I'll, I have, I'll give 'em here now. Right. One is monitoring the quorum, right? You have half the room on the screen, half the room in the meeting. And how do you know when you actually fail a quorum? It's the right of every member to question it to be responsible. You don't question it just to annoy the meeting. But if you can't really observe how many people are there, you no member can actually practically exercise the
right to question the quorum. You also have an an issue of, you know, not just people being logged into the meeting, but when they disappear from the screen. I think the last meeting I said some, I actually, you know, demonstrated somebody dropped my pencil ducked out of the screen to, for a second to pick it up. That's, you know, a temporary, you know, absence is very different than walking away and having dinner for 90 minutes and you know, and not really being, you know, part of the, the meeting. Speaker 5: I think that, I think that that, that, that you could not have people being part of the quorum who
take the screen and don't show their faces. Speaker 1: That that's another one is like, how do you know that somebody's really there? You know, how do you control who's actually doing the voting? It's a little bit more complicated than, but still in a, in an in-person meeting, somebody could grab the wrong device or grab two. But the, so some there are other issues re relating to amendments, right? So we have a practice right now where you have to give your, if you have an amendment or a motion, you know, other than procedural, you have to submit it in writing, right? Someone who's in the room is, you know, who wants
to write something down, hand it to the, you know, to the moderator and the clerk is a much better position to do that than someone who's remote. So do you have allow for someone to type in an email and send, you know, and say, I'd like to make a motion, Mr. Moderator or email it to you. Right. And do you have the ability to check email while you're running, you know, running the meeting if someone has handouts, right. That they are putting up you, if the motion's short, like a lot of the motions we had tonight, you could, you could see it in hard copy
or you could see it on the screen. We've had motions that go two, three pages and you have to scroll the screen in order to read it electronically. And lots of people in the, in a room like to say, I'd like to see that in hard copy. How do you, when someone, when there's a new motion or an amendment that is kind of long or it's, there's a five page motion and somebody's making amendments in multiple sections, do you, do we email to the people who are participating remotely? This is, so the, these are just things that,
'cause you can't see this some motions, you can't see it all on the screen at once. And you know, those are just some of the things that I thought would be, you know, helpful. I know in the le in the hybrid meeting that we had, not the hybrid, the remote meeting that we had during COVID, the moderator had a whole bunch of like assistant monitor moderators, monitoring phones, monitor, you know, and that's the other thing. How do you, somebody's internet doesn't work but their phone does. How do you make sure that the public can get in? How do we make sure we have a charter requirement that says everybody's got the same right to speak And that's,
we gotta keep that equal between the in-room versus the at-home people. I, I think it's a lot for that, that, that that committee to be, you know, to be thinking about. I think most of it ends up as a procedures that the, you know, that they would recommend to the moderator to adopt as a rule or a practice. 'cause there's a lot of good stuff in the new town meeting time on this. But you, you, they could, the new town meeting time could go even deeper. So throw those out for consideration.
Speaker 4: J just the, Speaker 5: I think that you also have to educate the, the users a lot better than it went on the last one. There were too many people who got so flustered by trying to figure out the two systems, one to be able to participate and one to be able to vote and they could not get it straight. And there were more phone calls to change the voting because that's not what I did or I, it didn't count me or whatever. Speaker 4: Yeah, I think, I think one of the couple of the observations to make is, it's been a long time since
that short term response we did for our online meeting. The technology has advanced quite a bit. These issues are not unique to Natick. The vendor that we work with serves other towns today with hybrid town meeting representative town meetings successfully. And the technology is pretty advanced. I I participated in a forum with Wayland town of Wayland, even though that's an open town meeting, they had a really great presentation that they showed prototypes 'cause they were actually working with a vendor to design a solution for open town meeting, which is a much more
of a difficult proposition. Wow. And they were actually showing some prototypes of vendors and some of these issues actually Harriet, the one you said is, is, is case in point. They're actually creating a, a single software solution that handles all of the workflows, including the material sharing that Paul was talking about, such that when I, it, the moderator could click a button and now everyone on their, their tablet, their device at home is seeing exactly the same thing at the same time. And that the moderator not today would. And it's just different than what we do today. Today I have to rely on the, the, the technology staffer
to decide to put something up or not. And that is gone and some of these online systems. Wow. But the actual, the actual choice of what's being shown at any given time is for someone that's skilled can do that. I think you're right there. There's other assistance, there's other delegation that has to still happen as well. Paul's, Paul's points are spot on. But, but there is, there is a pr the good news is, is it's, that was five years ago. By the time we roll out anything in terms of it getting through a committee with recommendations with the vendors, it'll be six years plus. And also the, the other thing is in terms of, the other thing about time I'll say is
we can be very deliberate in our process of adoption and not be hurried by external factors. And so the ability to do a pilot or a test case or I would say a parallel experiment along with a live meeting, like for those that want to like test it operationally while we're doing an actual meeting or we do a mock meeting, you know, there's no reason why we can't do a subset of town meeting members that want to volunteer or participate. So there's lots of great ways of testing the technology. So it's good to hear this feedback because I think that what the committee has to make a recommendation to if, if, if,
if it gets chartered is not just about the factual, you know, the, the technology. Yes, there's procedures, but it's also the, the timing, the process and the testing. We didn't have that luxury last time. And, and, but I think we did okay with what we what with what we had. But we got a lot more time this time to do it that way. Speaker 1: Alright. Yeah, that's good here. The, the other thing I, when you get to the motion for this don't include the words two 11 e in the motion. 'cause I think the Warren article says create a committee pursuant to two 11 E two 11 E of the charter I think is the stand. It's where town meeting
by bylaw creates a standing committee to whom warned articles will be referred for study, recommendation report in advance of town meeting. I just think you want this one to be a plain old, it's a committee at town meeting. I don't, I don't think you're, I don't think you're, I don't think you're, I think you're creating a committee to study it and basically come up with recommendations to advise you and implement it and how much it's gonna cost as opposed to you want to create a bylaw that says we'll have a committee and this category of warrant articles will,
it's a, a standing committee. Well this category of warrant articles will always be referred to them, but I think that's what two 11 E is the motion text doesn't mention that. Yeah, no, that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. Don't mention the motion. So, alright. We have, I think we're done with everything but minutes Speaker 2: Second. Yeah, minutes is next. I wanna know procedurally, I guess this is related to minutes, I hope, but you know, so we have minutes. We have tonight's meeting, which we'll have another set of minutes for. And then are we envisioning there
would be any more meetings? We would only have a meeting if, if a finance committee, we would only have a meeting if finance committee had changes to our motions. Speaker 1: We'll need one more, which is our final for our final wrap up report to town meeting. Oh Speaker 2: Yeah, we're gonna need it for the report. Right. So Speaker 1: And that, and then I think we would do, we might even do the minutes for that meeting. At that meeting. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: Okay. And then not meet anymore. Speaker 5: And that last invoice, you could do that. Speaker 1: Yes. Right. Speaker 2: Okay. All right. So we will be meeting. Okay. Speaker 1: I would envision the la the, the meeting where we discuss the, our last report is committee,
you know, debated, drafted, and voted the, you know, the report and the committee, you know, did whatever it does with the, you know, with the, with the invoice. And then we review those minutes, we adopt those minutes and we adjourn, we disolve and then, and then we, then we wait, we disappear. Then we'd wait for, you know, town meeting to dissolve and then, then we can all go have a cocktail somewhere or a, or at least a cold beverage. So Speaker 5: Do it in the afternoon. I don't drive at night. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 5: Alright. Speaker 1: Alright. Speaker 2: Right.
So you have two sets of minutes that I provided to you before our August 27th meeting. I sent the July 3rd minutes. But you have any use to that? Speaker 5: Get my, my email? Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that, we'll do that on the next one. I'm gonna pull that one up for you. That's the August 27th minutes. Speaker 5: Okay. Speaker 2: Did you guys read the July 3rd minute? Speaker 5: I only saw the, the August 27th. I didn't see the July. Speaker 2: I sent the July 3rd minutes, like the day before August 26th. I sent that out. Speaker 5: Oh, Speaker 2: You wanna wanna wait and table those
Speaker 5: Please and possibly resend it since it's lost somewhere in Speaker 2: Space. Yeah, I send, Speaker 5: Thank you. Speaker 2: All right. I wanna pull up August 27th because I sent you two versions and I, the second version I I gave you was Speaker 7: You incorporated Saul's feedback, right? Speaker 2: Yeah, I Speaker 5: He, he included me at being there. Speaker 7: Yeah. Oh, and, and Harriet including and Harriet that she was there. Speaker 5: Yeah. Speaker 2: So, so the second version which was dated, you know, was kind
of called draft two. So saw, I gotta put this in your screen. He found a typo that I fixed but I didn't resend it out. So I just wanna show it to you on the third page where we were talking about Jeff's comment that he was committed to accessibility issues for Tom meeting not Jeff is very committed. So accessibility issues. So Scott, Charles sent me that edit. So I, I did a red line so you would see that I made that change. But did anybody else have any other changes?
Speaker 5: Move to accept the minutes of August 27th. Seventh Speaker 2: August 27th. Second. Speaker 7: Second. Speaker 1: Second. Move by Harriet. Seconded by Bob. Any other motions? We'll vote this Harriet. Speaker 5: Yes. Speaker 1: Bob? Yes. Saul? Yes. Chris? Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker 1: And I'm a yes. So that's 5 0 0. Harriet, were you seeking the floor? Speaker 5: Oh, I was, I moved to adjourn. Second. Speaker 1: Moved by Harriet to adjourn. Seconded by Saul.
We'll vote this Harriet. Speaker 5: Yes. Speaker 1: Saul. Yes. Bob. Yes. Chris? Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker 1: And I'm a yes. That's five. Zero, zero. Thank you all very much. We got this done in 90 minutes. So thank you all very much for Speaker 5: Thank you. And thank Jeff for his Yeah. Engineering with us. Speaker 4: Yeah, this has been great. You guys have really been making short work of this. I appreciate it. Speaker 1: Okay. No, you're welcome. So, alright, thank you all and appreciate your, your time. And I don't know if the Red Sox are on tonight,
but I'm gonna go check.