Speaker 1: It's, it's 7 0 2 and the meeting recording started before I got on. 'cause when I got on it said the recording was in progress, so, oh, Speaker 2: I didn't even see that we started recording. Alright. So yeah, we have a quorum. Speaker 1: We do. Did you get the motions that I sent today, Chris? Speaker 2: I did. Speaker 1: Okay, so we've got a quorum. We'll do it by roll call. Chris Weiman, Speaker 2: Present on Zoom. Speaker 1: Okay. Harriet Markowitz Speaker 2: Here. Present remote. Speaker 1: Paul Connolly.
Paul Greer is here remotely. But we have to wait for Paul to confirm. Speaker 2: Donna is coming in now too. Speaker 1: Donna, we're doing roll call Speaker 2: Present remotely. Speaker 1: Okay. Paul, I can see you, but you, can you hear us? I don't know if your speaker is on. Speaker 2: Doesn't look like he's muted. Speaker 1: Well, no, I'm not. He, I'm not seeing him speaking. I'm seeing him looking at his screen. Speaker 2: Yeah, I see that too. Speaker 1: Well, we have, we have four of us here
and when Paul comes in we can add him to the roll call, but right now it's 7 0 4 and we have four people here, so we have a quorum. So I'll call the meeting to order. Paul, do you have, can you Paul Conley, can you hear us? Can you hear us? Paul Conley. I think you're muted. Is it backwards or can you see it? Speaker 2: It's perfect. Oh, now he's connecting to audio. Paul, can we hear? Can you hear us? I can hear you. Speaker 1: Oh great. Speaker 2: Oh good. We can Speaker 1: Hear you. We can hear you good. All right. So it's 7 0 6
and we've got Paul Connolly added to the roll call. And Bob Awkward, can you hear us? We're doing roll call. Speaker 3: Yes, I'm here attending virtually. Speaker 1: Okay. All right. The, so the roll call is done. The next item on the list of the agenda is Citizens' Concerns. Is there anyone who would like to address the committee about something that is not on our agenda? Speaker 4: I would, Speaker 1: Yeah, Donna, Speaker 4: I just wanna briefly say that the Charter Commission effort is gearing up again
and I just wanted people to be aware of that, that there's gonna be like a huge effort and I find myself, I don't know, I I, I have to get around feeling like, you know, I haven't wasted my time on this committee with the implementation of the Charter commission if that happens. So I just wanted to give people a heads up that you might have some questions or people might be asking you about it. 'cause there's gonna be another really concerted effort to get signatures.
Thank you. Okay, that's all. Speaker 1: Thank you. Anyone else for Citizens' Concerns Speaker 3: Are, are you planning to speak ab is there an update on Special Act status? There is. You say anything about that? Okay. Now I'll wait till we get to that. Speaker 1: Okay. Alright. Anyone else for Citizens Concerns? Seeing done, Chris, do you want to give a brief update on the status of the Special Act? I know you sent me an email. Speaker 2: Yes. I, I also sent to everybody a summary document of what I know to this point. And I did act also add that to the meeting materials as a Word document.
So we are Bill H 3 8 9 8 and it's called an act to amend the Town of Natick Home World Charter. And in the document I sent you, which I have also sent by email, I sent you a hyperlink that takes you right to the bill Committees have now been assigned, so we are assigned to the joint committee on municipalities and regional government. And I've also, in the document I sent you, I gave you a hyperlink to that committee today. I went on the website to see if there was a way to identify
or learn when hearings would take place. So I made a phone call to the committee and that message was forwarded on to the proper location because the website is not up to date with all the current, like all the, all the committee members have just been assigned, but the website's not up to date. So anyway, I was able to hear from a staff member on the joint committee on municipalities and regional government and I've signed up for an email for all of their hearings.
So if this committee scheduled a hearing, I'll get an email about it. So at least we'll have, you know, an opportunity to hear, you know, to, to find out. As soon as it not that, not that Representative Linsky wouldn't tell us that, but at least we will have confirmation of when the hearing is. 'cause that would be the next thing is that we would, the bill will come before a hearing and then, you know, members of the town would be expected to testify. So that's the update at this point. You guys have any questions, Speaker 1: Bob? Speaker 3: Well, I was happy to see that the Senate chair is our former,
at least from Precinct 10, where I used to live the former state senator for 80 for Precinct 10. Rebecca Roush. Speaker 2: Yeah. So now Speaker 3: Of course we know Rebecca Roush, Speaker 2: But what I'm wondering about is, since what I haven't done is I didn't update the list, I I literally pulled this off the website. So the house chair is Jack Patrick Lewis. So maybe that is correct. Yeah. Do you have a relationship with her? Speaker 3: Yeah, Speaker 2: Yeah. I just never really got to know her even though I, because she was just Precinct 10, so.
Right. Okay. That will definitely be helpful. I would agree. Okay. You know, we just, we kind of just have to wait to see like if you want, I can send you notices when they start having hearings, but there's a lot of bills, so, and there's a lot of committees. Speaker 1: Okay. Anyone else on Special Act status? Okay, go ahead. Paul Conley, we Speaker 3: March inexorably forward. Speaker 1: Paul Conley, you have the floor. Speaker 5: I I, my understanding is that the legislative on the legislative committees who are going
to basically give approval for some of the things we've done that none of those have been actually done. Is that right? Speaker 1: I think the bill has been assigned a number and it then has been assigned to a committee that will have to hold hearings on it and then report back to the house and to the Senate before the House and Senate can vote. So that's the status. Speaker 5: That's the status. Do you have any vision on how long all of this will take before such time as, as we can actually
go to the people at town meeting and say all of these things we have done and hopefully they can be affirmed by town meeting. Is there any good news there? Speaker 1: So I don't think there's a timeline that can be ascribed. I know that Representative Linsky has asked for fast action and consideration by the committee. Mr. Ensis says everybody who files the home rule petitions for the on behalf of their district re typically requests the same.
So the committee has to deal with its own schedule. So Mr. Duris advised that the schedule will be determined by the committee and until it's determined we don't know. So, but I do know that you, Speaker 3: Anything else Christine? Speaker 2: Sorry, what? Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Speaker 3: Did you, Christine, did you, I thought you put your hand up. Speaker 2: I was gonna say something similar to what Paul just report on. Speaker 5: Okay. Speaker 1: So that's the status. Cool. Okay, moving on to item four on the agenda Motions for town meeting warrant articles, all of our motions were recommended favorably
by the finance committee with the exception of two, where they asked us to actually go back and clarify wording. So one was motion E, which was the chemical storage tanks and systems where we were dealing with adding in propane in one area and then, you know, making, making it not apply, you know, to other areas. And then the other was the special zoning advisory council. So I drafted up, I took the finance committee comments, I spent a good deal
of time with them last week after the finance committee meeting, sent them around to you so you could start looking at them. And then today I got some minor comments very early this morning from Mr. Duress and I set out new ones. You should have received them in your email. They're three word documents. They all begin with the prefix. The title of the document begins 3.3 1 2 0 2 5, so that you know that they're from today. So one of them is mo a revised motion E
for the article 81 of the bylaws on storage tanks and systems accompanying that is a redlined copy of the entirety of Article 81 of the bylaws. And then the third document is our previous motion f redlined for special zoning council. So tracking with Speaker 3: You. Speaker 1: Okay. So Chris, I don't know if you can put that up on the screen, starting with the red line of Article 81 of the,
the Red Line article. I also was able to meet on Friday with Michael Boudreaux and get clarification to something that I couldn't answer at the finance committee. Speaker 3: Oh good. I was thinking Speaker 1: And he responded Go ahead. I'm sorry about And he responded early this morning because I sent him the draft, the, the red line and he's fine with it. So, good. Who's Speaker 3: Michael? I was gonna say I was gonna send this to him because I, I just saw this this prior to the meeting and I was like, he probably should see Michael,
Speaker 1: Michael Boreux is the director of health who works for the Board of Health who oversees things under Article 81. Speaker 3: Okay. Speaker 2: I'm sorry it's taken me so long to put it up. I ended up saving the, oh, oh, here it is. I did have it. Okay, here we go. I put this on the screen all Speaker 1: It's not up yet, so, Speaker 2: Oh, I'm just looking forward. I think it's this one. Can you see my screen? Speaker 1: No, that's the motion. Can we get the article?
Speaker 2: You want the article, the red line for the article? Speaker 1: Yep. Speaker 2: This one? Yep. Yeah. Speaker 1: Okay. Okay. So what we had originally done is in section two where you see it on the screen under a, we had originally proposed adding in the first line, adding after the word fuel, comma propane. So it would've read underground fuel comma, propane
or chemical storage tanks and systems. And that's actually where the fin com had an issue. And it was actually a good issue that they caught, which was is is this referring to underground propane? And I didn't know and I thought that it was not. And but rather than try and fix it in a meeting, they wanted us to go take a look at it. So I actually met with MI Mr. Boudreaux on Friday to get clarification and he said no. In fact that is the case.
They, you know, what they, what the Board of Health wants and, and he feels he needs is the director of health is the ability to regulate underground propane tanks. Not, not anything dealing with a big storage of like lots of little barbecue cans at, you know, places like Home Depot or not dealing with the big above ground tanks. It's dealing with the underground stuff. And the reason it that he said that is if an underground propane tank goes in and it's too close to a septic system that causes a health issue,
or if an underground propane tank goes in and it's in a drainage area that can create a health issue. So that's what they want to, they want to, they, they, they want the ability to make it clear that propane is part of underground fuel if it's an underground propane tank. But then as well as we scroll through this bylaw, you'll see that there are several places where the, so the bylaw was originally designed for underground oil tanks that were outdoor, that were outdoors.
And, you know, so that's what the underground fuel originally meant when this bylaw was created. And there are several places that follow, and we'll get into those in a moment. As I walk you through this, there are several places that follow in this bylaw where there's an annual tank testing requirement. There's an annual inventory control, you know, report of how much got pumped into the tank and how much got pumped out. And that's all designed to detect whether or not the tank's leaking.
'cause if you put in 10 gallons and you only took out, you know, five, but the tank is registering, like you took out 20, that means 15 went into the went, you know, went into the ground, so, or some number went into the ground. So, and there, there were requirements on the design of the tanks and what they had to be oil tanks and what they had to be made of. But the bylaw didn't mention oil tanks back when it was drafted. Nobody anticipated underground propane. However, a lot of developers are working this according to Michael with properties that
are not on streets or locations that have natural gas piped in and available in the street. But they, they're dealing with people who want homes that have some form of natural gas supply, but they don't want a big propane tank sitting on the lawn. They want the entire lawn to just be green space. So they dig a hole and they put the propane tank in the ground. So the whole purpose of the bylaw change was make sure that propane is in the scope under applicability. And then let's remove it from certain places
where the requirements for the onerous requirements for reporting underground oil tank usage and monitoring don't apply to propane. Michael just summarized it in saying oil, if the oil tank leaks well you got a problem. It's going into the ground. If a propane tank leaks, it's just going into the, so, so the you Speaker 6: See me do Yeah, I know the spiel. Speaker 1: I saw you doing it. Right. So the so under, so the, the change that would, that was developed
since the FinCon meeting last week was to add the red line sentence that you see in applicability, which says that the word fuel in the term underground fuel includes propane unless otherwise accepted and you know, in other words pulled out. And then Chris, can you scroll through Right And there, right section five, there we go. Section five A one right there, which is monitoring every January 1st Michael said that shouldn't apply to underground propane tanks.
So that's why it's, you know, it's the red line is there that that section five A one does not apply to propane. And then if you can scroll down further, then there's this, all of this inventory control, you know, with a, if you can scroll to the top of six, Chris, you know, it requires every underground storage tank to have an accurate, you know, gauge for volume and measuring the quality removed and metering has to be accurate. And then you have to keep inventory control records
and then keep, if you can scroll down the, and the owner has to submit a certified inventory and he was just basically saying that subsections, CD and E should not apply to propane underground propane tanks. Speaker 2: So only A and B do. Speaker 1: Right. Alright. The, and then under a replacement and tank type of tank installation, this was really designed for, if you go to back to that previous page, it's the,
they're talking about fiberglas construction and other underground storage and the, if you could keep scrolling and the, what he was saying is that the provisions of eight a one and eight C do not apply to propane underground propane tanks. He did clarify that the, the sub clause f which is dealing with cathodic systems is, you know, only conditional. And he said those systems are only used for oil.
But so he said since they're never used for propane, you know, it doesn't really apply to them anyway. 'cause it says where they're used, it does not, you know, and since they're never used for propane, F would by itself never apply to propane. And then if you could scroll down into nine, this is the tank testing. And he said none of this should apply to propane underground propane tanks. And then in section 10, the he said, you know, the, this section 10 will not apply to underground propane tanks
for his adding a new section because you can put in what they, what they didn't want was underground oil tanks in the aquifer protection district. So those are the changes that he asked for. Any questions on those? And otherwise we can take a look at the motion that acco that I think accomplishes this. Speaker 4: I just have a couple questions because Sure, sure. I'm not sure I understand this. And is it, are we talking about commercial underground tanks or, because I, I thought I read this really quickly and it said it, it's like 25,000 gallons.
That's not like re these aren't residential tanks, are they? Speaker 1: So no, Donna, the, can you scroll back up to where it shows the size of the tanks, right? The, you know, that's a, it's a subset of the inventory control under six that Yep, it's right there. So that's an inden inventory control provision. Okay. Right. And the, that is, the propane tanks aren't that large,
Speaker 4: So it's the oil tanks that are that large. Speaker 1: Right. That's what he said. Speaker 4: And I don't know, this maybe isn't even relevant to the discussion, but did you get any sense from him, like how many of these underground tanks we have in natick Speaker 1: Of underground propane tanks? Speaker 4: Yes. Speaker 1: No. Speaker 4: Do we know even how many underground oil tanks we have? Speaker 1: No, but that's actually not part of the scope of the article. Speaker 4: Okay. The, I'm just curious. Speaker 1: The article's only dealing with propane. So if you can scroll up Chris, to the beginning of this document, you can see why
after you go through the exceptions, you can see why they wanted this change. Because if none of the red lines were made, you know, and I literally asked Michael this, I said, well, isn't propane a fuel? And he said, yes it is. And I said, so you could just, you know, assert that it's you, you already have the ability to deal with underground propane because propane is a subset of fuel in the first line of two A. He said, correct. But if we assert that its propane is fuel, then all of the stuff in the remainder of this bylaw
that really should only apply to oil we'll now have to apply to propane and it's too onerous. So they needed to go in and make this, you know, specific insertion that says yes, it includes propane unless it's otherwise accepted and removed from the requirements later on, on in the bylaw. Speaker 3: Okay. Speaker 1: So it's kind of like that's Speaker 4: That's very helpful. That's really helpful. Thank you for explaining that to me. Speaker 1: You're welcome. Speaker 3: I also add that he reviewed this with the fire chief too, who's fully supportive of what we have here.
Speaker 1: Right. So Speaker 3: Actually the fire chief and his chief inspector both. Okay. Speaker 1: You wanna see? So yeah, let's go to the motion. Speaker 3: Oh, the motion, right? Speaker 1: No, that's the other one. Yeah, Speaker 2: No, I'm gonna, Speaker 3: That the one pager. Speaker 1: No, it's good. I think Speaker 2: It says moved at the town, vote to amend article 81, Speaker 3: Like a page and a third, Speaker 1: Right? Speaker 2: Yeah. Then yeah, that goes here to here. Does that not look right, Paul? Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. That's, that's a motion. Okay. And right, and the part of our motion that I took, I redlined our old motion so the people could see the,
what we changed from the old motion to the new. And if we vote this, you know, well, it'll obviously be with the stipulation that the red lines are, are, you know, taken out and just made part of the document so we would accept the changes. The Speaker 3: Red underline is the new, the red strike through is the O. Speaker 1: Correct. Speaker 3: Got it. Correct. Speaker 1: Any, anyone question, anyone you have questions or comments on the motion? Thank Speaker 2: You for doing all this work. Speaker 1: That's okay. Speaker 4: And our legal counsel looked at this, so it's all fine.
Speaker 1: Yep. Speaker 4: Thank you. Speaker 1: All right. Seeing none, pleasure of the committee. Speaker 3: I So move the motion e as revised, dated 3 31 25 Speaker 1: And re and to, you know, to rescind our previous motion. Speaker 3: Oh yes. And to rescind. Yes, we have to do that and rescind our previous motion. Second. Speaker 1: So that's moved by Bob. Seconded by by Harriet. Are there any other motions? Any debate?
Speaker 4: I just wanna, I appreciate all the work that went into this. Thank you. Speaker 1: Okay, you're welcome. So we'll vote this. Chris, how do you vote? Speaker 4: Yes, Speaker 1: Harriet, how do you vote? Speaker 4: Yes. Speaker 1: Let's see. Donna, how do you vote? Speaker 4: Yes, Speaker 1: Paul Connolly, how do you vote? Speaker 4: Yes, Speaker 1: Bob. Awkward. How do, how how do you vote? Yes. And I'm a yes. So I believe that is 6 0 0. Okay. The next one is
a red line of motion. And this bob your motion. I think it was understood that that would be with the red lines accepted. 'cause I think I, so we'll, we'll accept those. And with those changes, the, okay, so Chris, can you put the motion F up? Okay, so in this one that's on the screen, this is our, a red line of our previous motion. F And so this ran into a lot of questions from the finance committee where there was generally everybody who spoke
expressed support. And one member who made a motion made the, a motion for referral back to us literally for wording changes. So they actually asked us to like go, you know, take this and look at, you know, some wording changes and that's the only motion that was, that was made. And the problem that we, that we ran into was the, was in the very first line where it says the select board. So if you're reading what's on the screen, the the red line
that says, you know, our other appointing party provided by low, you know, below shall annually appoint a specialized zoning advisory council who shall be legal counsel who with specialized knowledge. The way that it read when we last did it re ignore the red lines. It literally said the select board shall annually appoint with specialized knowledge in zoning and land use matters. It didn't say who they should appoint, you know, as one, the one of the members said is, you know, we kind
of have a subject, we have a verb, but we don't have an object. It's like, who they are pointing. It's like, oh my goodness, how'd that get past us? How'd that get by, you know, uxo, who was assisting Mr. Duris? So we fixed that. Then they also said it was kind of, there were a lot of long sentences, so they added them to break them up. They, and so I went back and, you know, looked at it and made the, you know, the changes to the, you know, to the first paragraph. And then they, they wanted to know if this would be counsel
that would handle litigation. And we made clear in the, in section B that though this is advice and assistance that would be, you know, given and then they were wanted to, one member wanted to add that the planning board could at least make a recommendation, you know, on the appointment in the last paragraph. So those, that's the broadly what happened at the meeting. So the issue with the,
and then once the recommendation gets added, you've gotta clarify that, you know, whoever the, the appointing authority is, they make the decision. They're not bound by the recommendation. So the, if you can go back up to the top, okay, the, we, we had had the, we, we needed to add the, you know, because of the paragraph C, we need to add the or or other appro appointing authorities provided by low below, you know, well appoint special zoning advisory council
who will be a legal counsel, right? It's not just a person who you know is off the street, right? It's le it's legal counsel and they have knowledge and experience they wanted that added in zoning matters. And then, you know, as we discussed it, you know, as I was there that night, we said one of the things that would be different about this zoning council versus the the others, we've had three ad hoc zoning councils in the, in our history. One was on the original rewrite proposal of the zoning bylaw 2014 or 13.
That failed because a lot of errors got, the attorney left out a whole bunch of sections and messed up one section. And then we had another rewrite in 2016 with a different attorney and similar stuff happened. And we also had marijuana council in I think 2018 where they did a pretty, I guess, I don't know, probably a pretty good job drafting marijuana zoning that didn't fit within our bylaw because it didn't reference any of the right sections.
It didn't fit in the bylaw, didn't use the right terms, didn't use the right definitions. And so one of the things that the, the, that we had discussed as a committee is that this would be kind of hopefully a standing council who in addition to being knowledgeable has to become knowledgeable in addition to being knowledgeable about zoning generally has to be knowledgeable about our bylaw. So that when that there are changes being proposed, they say, wait, all right, you're gonna shoehorn this in here, but that one change affects three other places in the bylaw
so that we just get a kind of a coherent hole. And then they wanted some elaboration that this was advice and assistance that this is not, and it's only advice and assistance on zoning bylaws. It's not showing up at the planning board meetings and negotiating with the developers on language for special permits or you know, or zoning changes. It's not handling litigation on part of the town. It's just an advisory role. A lot like, and I use the analogous or the analogy a lot like the role that Mr.
Duris has had to our committee in assisting us in, you know, considering things and drafting things to then bring them to put into articles to then bring them into motions so that they're clean. And we don't have some of the zoning hiccups that we've discussed in, in our prior, in our prior meetings. So, and then appointments get made before fiscal year end, not calendar year end. So those were the ch those are the changes that were looked at. Mr. Dures has reviewed and approved this as well.
Speaker 3: And if I understand this, it's the select board has the first crack at this. If they don't act, then the planning board could then act. And if they don't act, then the town moderator can act, Speaker 1: Right? And the reason for that is the, the, the, the, the key party that needs this is the representative town meeting that has to make the vote and doesn't wanna vote and shouldn't want to vote anything that's got errors. And you know, the, everything from the initial concept
proposal to the drafting through the planning board hearings and you know, through and through the fin com hearings, all leads to town meeting. And if we had somebody upstream of town meeting working with all those parties, should they want to do, should they want the service, it would help the town meeting not only go better, but it would help the zoning bylaw changes be better. A lot like Mr. Duress has worked upstream, you know, from the town meeting process with us. And even at the end of the day, you know, the town council often, but not always takes a look at things we've proposed.
So that's kind of the analogy. The other analogy that I didn't use was, and Bob you may remember the 22 Pleasant street zoning classifications study committee. Right. And we had a lot of hearings, we did a lot of work, but we actually had a dedicated attorney, John John Flynn with Murphy Hessey, who was the town council, was too busy, had too much other stuff on his plate, and the amount of things that needed to be researched and considered at 22 Pleasant Street were
so substantive they had to dedicate an attorney within Murphy Hessey to work with us. And that attorney, by the way, was Kara North. So who was the current town counsel? So who lay who remarked after the, the job was done. This was a whole heck of a lot more work than I ever anticipated. Right. So, but it was, but we all that. Yeah, but it was, but so the, and so this could be, this attorney could be separate from town counsel or associated with town council. It doesn't, so the, the goal is get somebody
who just basically will help ride herd on, on wording, as I explained to the FinCon, there's zoning concepts that have to be dealt with. Then there's the, you know, zoning practicality, trying to flesh out the concept and make it, you know, a little bit more concrete and give the basic, you know, parameters. And then there's the zoning wording and the, and the technical zoning wording and the breakdowns that we've had, which are well over a dozen in the last several years, are all in that last ca last category.
They're breakdowns on technical wording and some of them are, would would've been catastrophic if they'd been voted so. And the FinCon was, you know, it it, I didn't hear anybody at the FinCon, at least at that meeting, think that this was a terrible idea. And several people say we the town need this. So, but then they, they, they said consider wording changes. And so that's what you have in front of you. It was also in your email. Speaker 7: Yes. Speaker 1: Any questions Mr. Connolly? Speaker 5: I, I don't understand exactly what the moderator is
being tasked that to, to do in some of this wording. 'cause I haven't read the whole thing, so to speak. But the, the moderator is main claim for anything there is, he knows how a town meeting should be run and he is good enough to really do that. I don't exactly think that he really is, we'll have an opportunity to, to tell the council how things should be done. Because essentially in town meeting
it's many people can suggest the town meeting the way things should be done a certain way. And the, the moderator, Speaker 1: So lemme let, lemme let me clarify that. You know, if I, if I could, the, this council does not tell the moderator how to do anything. The what this council is, is available to the moderator. Should it pass so that if the moderator is trying to consider something like, Hey, is this in the, you know,
zoning's got all these technical words, is this in scope of the article that was put forward? Or is this something that's outside of the scope of the article or you know, the, you know, and when will you be available in case people have questions? That's Well, and, and so if you can scroll down a little bit, Chris, what it says, says in that middle paragraph in the bottom where you have a lot of red lines is that the quest, the special, you know, zoning advisory council were
to answer the questions that the moderator may direct and the moderator runs the meeting. So the moderator takes the question and can direct it. But so the, the what we're saying is that this council would be a resource that the moderator can call on to answer the questions of the representative town meeting members. And then in the last paragraph c we're saying the select board should make the appointment. But we're also saying it's so important that this thing that this happened, if they don't, then the planning board does. And if the planning board doesn't, then the moderator does
because town meeting needs us. And so we're, we're, you know, hopeful that the, the planning board makes the appointment. But at no point does the, this would this special council tell the moderator what to do? Quite, quite the opposite. The moderator would be the one who would be, you know, telling the special counsel, I either do or don't need you to provide an answer on this question if a member raised it. So does that help? Speaker 5: It, it helps to make it more under the most standable to me. But you know, this isn't the job of the moderator
to make an appointment with these other people having done something. I mean, typically what happens and what should happen in town meeting is the people of town meeting to say, we don't have enough information that we have, so we are not going to go forward on this. That's what they do. Speaker 1: Well actually with zoning, they, they, I, you know, actually with zoning, I think most town meeting members sit there and say, I really, this, this is like really complicated and I don't really know what questions to, you know, to ask.
And it's, and nobody's made a motion like that in a very long time. Nobody's made a motion like that in since I think 2014. So what this is the, the moderator has appointment powers under our bylaw and can have, and under our town charter has, you know, any other authority that happens by vote of town meeting. So this is a bylaws of vote of town meeting. The goal here, Paul, is not to put the moderator in the primary role. Hopefully the select board would just do this and,
but if they didn't, we have a backup. You know, it's kind of like, you know, the, you know, we've got linebackers, then the planning board can step in and if they don't, then the moderator can step in and, you know, and make the appointment. So that town meeting, you know, and you know, and the whole process including the FinCon hearing, et cetera, that could use, you know, a specialized expert as we vote on these complicated and really important zoning articles and know has that we ha that there is an, that there is an expert available. That's all this is really trying to accomplish.
Speaker 5: So you are saying that the moderator in some instances may be making the appointment of counsel because no one else did it. Speaker 1: If no one else did it, then that's what this provides. Because if we didn't, you know, if, if the, if there was a failure to appoint then you know, we could say, hey, we have this great provision where you could go get it, but we don't get it unless somebody appoints you put, you know, somebody in the first position failing that you got somebody in the second position failing that you got somebody in the third position.
You know, if if all three of those fail, then we have a much bigger problem. Speaker 3: Yeah, Speaker 5: I so I, I still don't like it. I think if, if no one no, it could come to the town meeting and ask the town meeting to make the appointment. Speaker 1: We've been advised by special counsel and town council. The town meeting as the legislative body can't make point. Speaker 3: Doesn't have pointing. Yeah, exactly. So, Speaker 1: So any other members? Speaker 3: No, I think, I think it's an idea that I've, every one of us on this committee has now come to realize the value
and benefit of having specialized town coun specialized council. Just thinking about the work that we've done here. I mean, Caris North certainly not have time to have done all the review work and attend meetings that, that Mr. Duris has done or the, quite frankly, the scope of experience he's had from doing this both with the legislature and with towns and cities all over the state. And we've really benefited from that. And they need it. There been too many hiccups there,
too many town meetings and we've had to stop, pause in town, me, come back another day. It's just crazy. Speaker 1: So anyone else from the, from the committee? Anyone from the public? Seeing none, pleasure of the committee. Speaker 3: I'll move the motion. Motion f as amended, dated 3 31 25 Speaker 1: With the red lines accepted and rescinding Speaker 3: The underline. Yes, the highlighted underlines accepted Speaker 1: And, and all the, all the re red lines accepted and rescinding our previous motion.
Speaker 3: And rescinding our previous motion. Speaker 1: We got that moved by Bob, seconded by Harriet. Are there any other motions? Okay, we'll vote this. Bob, 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 5: Yes, Speaker 1: Paul Connolly, how do you vote? Speaker 5: Not voting. Speaker 1: Abstain. Speaker 5: Abstain. Speaker 1: Okay. Donna, how do you vote? Speaker 5: Yes, Speaker 1: And I'm a yes. So that is 5 0 1. So that's, that's all I have for item four on the agenda.
The next item is the ongoing meeting schedule. I don't know about other members, but I don't anticipate many further meetings after this. If we get notified of a hearing on Beacon Hill, we may want to have a meeting so that we can prepare and, and go to that. And then we do have a, probably a need to develop a report that we would make to Springtown meeting. And probably at that report I would expect
that there is a special counsel invoice that will come through. But at the moment, moment we've got one and it's, you know, it's like $150 and it's not worth dealing with until the next one. 'cause we're all caught up on invoices. So, but then that's what I see on the meeting schedule going forward. And then I think we get through this SPRINGTOWN meeting and we might be I pencil's down. You mean sunset? Yeah, we'll just let it sunset for the fall.
We don't have an article to shut us down earlier, so, Speaker 2: So Tom meeting starts. Can I speak? Speaker 1: Sure, sure. Speaker 2: So to Tom meeting starts on the 22nd. So we, we, I mean ideally we would have the report out a week before that the moderator would send people, which is the 15th. Speaker 4: So, but the first meeting isn't until the 29th, the 22nd school vacation. So they're just gaveling in. Speaker 2: Oh, okay. That's good to know. Okay. All right. So the 29th, so maybe
that toward the end of the week of April 7th, we try to have a meeting to review the report. I haven't started the report yet, so it would be nice to, or maybe the week of the 14th have a, a meeting before school vacation so we can try to finalize the report. Speaker 1: So how about ki would this be okay that after you get a chance to start thinking about the report and then if that's early or earlier, later middle, then you can se we'll send around an email and look to schedule it.
Speaker 2: Okay, that sounds good. Speaker 1: Okay. But is that, I don't think that our workload has got a lot on it from here on out. We've been through all that. We've been through the charter, we've been through all the bylaws. Speaker 4: I, Speaker 1: We take the, we take the summer off Paul Conley. Yes. Speaker 5: Could you just refresh my memory? After all these, these things come through the committee that's looking at them. Does the town meeting have to vote again to authorize the final thing or has town meeting done? All the voting they're going to do
and basically it just depends on this committee, this other committee, the the partial legislative committee, they just say this is okay, it just goes into effect. Does, does, does the town voters basically, Speaker 1: So so the process, if you're, if you're referring to the charter changes, the, it's right now it's at the, at the, at a committee on Beacon Hill. From there it will go to the house and to the Senate where it would need to be voted favorably
and then signed by the governor. Then it would be sent back to the town of Natick where the select board would put it on the ballot and the voters would sit, vote yes or no, it does not come back to town meeting. Speaker 5: Okay. Okay. It it will go to the, the, the voters though Speaker 1: The vote. Right. Speaker 5: Okay. Thank you. Speaker 1: You're welcome. Alright, seeing none on the meeting schedule, I can report to you that we don't have an invoice for tonight. Chris, we have minutes. Speaker 2: So I did send out two sets of minutes. I haven't given you a long time to read them,
but I did send out minutes from February 4th and February 18th so we could give you more time to read them. And I do actually have the other set of minutes from January done, but I didn't wanna send them out where you had no time to read them so we could do them all the minutes at the, you know, the report meeting or unless people have read the fourth or the 18th and they want to take action. Speaker 1: I have not read the minutes 'cause I was working on red lines. Speaker 2: Yeah, no we can, we can take them up at the next meeting. Everybody good with that? I'll also send out the 28th, so then we'll have three sets
of minutes that people can review. Speaker 1: And today's, Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I gotta do today's, but I can send the 28th on that. Speaker 1: Alright, so I, without objection, we'll do catch up on meeting minutes at our next meeting. That's it on the agenda. Ms. Berkowitz, for what purpose do you seek the floor? Speaker 5: I move to adjourn. Speaker 2: Second. Speaker 1: Moved by Harriet. Seconded by Donna. We'll vote this Harriet? Yes. Donna? Yes. Chris? Yes.
Paul Connolly. Yes. Bob. Awkward. Yes. And I am a yes. That is 6 0 0. We are adjourned at 7:58 PM Thank you. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you. Good night. Yep, good night.