Speaker 1: All right. 7 0 6. Chris Weisman, you're here. Speaker 2: I'm here. Speaker 1: Harriet Markowitz, you're here? Yes. Present. Don Don McKenzie. You here? Speaker 2: Here participating. Ready? Speaker 1: Okay. Saul, are you here? Here? Yes. Okay. And I'm here. We have five, that is a quorum. Time is 7 0 6. First thing we'll do, that's the call to order. The next thing we'll do is citizens concerns. If there's anyone looking to talk to the committee about something that's not on our agenda now, we'll give that an opportunity. I'm not seeing anyone.
Chris, is there anyone still trying to get into the meeting? No, Speaker 2: No one. Speaker 1: Alright, so we'll move on to agenda item three, which is an update on the Spec Special Act. It's with the committee on third read at the, at the house from the committee on third read. It goes to the floor, you know, of the house and of the Senate for a vote. And that's about all the update that I have on it. Chris, do you have anything else? No. Okay. So on tonight's agenda, we've got a couple of warrant article and warrant articles and motions. Our original intent would be that there were going to, there were two items that the finance committee asked us to
look at some revised wording. And we did, and we voted that and we brought it back to them. And they didn't hold their last meeting. They were gonna be meeting on April 3rd, and they actually finished everything on April 2nd. So they didn't get to hear those motions. So we have two articles that were basically holdovers from things that we sponsored in the spring. And you were sent motions earlier today on those, just as a re a re a refresh, excuse me. They're the same motions that we voted unanimously in the spring.
We voted them 6, 0 0. And I'm gonna, when we get into the discussion on the Warren articles, we can open up the floor for discussion when, and hopefully we just get motions to approve those previously approved motions. The other area that I kind of wanna like reserve more time for is this whole discussion about time, meeting time and how to adopt it and update the, you know, the town bylaw. That was something that kind of, we added to our agenda based on some communication in June from the moderator.
And we held a meeting, I think, was it July 2nd or third, Chris? July 3rd July. We held a meeting on July 3rd and we voted a warrant article and we put that on the, put that on the warrant. So that's the overview of the agenda for tonight. We also have meeting minutes. Minutes, you know, hopefully we can be, you know, fairly efficient this evening. But anyone have any questions about the order of business and the, by the way, did I forget to announce this meeting's being broadcast on Pegasus and recorded? Yes, you did. Okay. So I'm making that announcement now.
My apologies. The, anyone have any questions on what we're gonna do here this evening? Speaker 3: I looked at the things that Chris sent out for today and on, oh wait a minute. They're all Article 24. Speaker 4: I, I didn't, Speaker 3: I seem to be Speaker 4: Article 81 Storage tank, red line and then Article 24. Speaker 1: So we had a, a process last year going through the, coming out
of fall town meeting in the, to the winter in the spring, working with any department heads who wanted to have the bylaws updated and the health department wanted changes to the town town's tank bylaw, which is Article 81. And we worked on those, but there were some problems in the draft of the motion. We got the FinCon wanted those cleaned up. We went and cleaned them up. We came back and voted a revised motion from as a committee, and then the FinCon just didn't have another meeting. They were, their schedule was gonna go a bit longer, but they wrapped up all of their business prior to
to April 3rd. So the motion that Chris sent out earlier is the same motion that we had from the revised motion from the spring. And that is the one where the health department is looking for the, the health department is looking to be able to regulate underground propane tanks to determine whether or not they can be placed anywhere. But they want to, so they want to include them within the scope of the, the town's tank bylaw, if they're underground propane tanks.
But they want to exclude them from the inventory and leak monitoring aspects that are used for underground fuel storage tanks like oil and gas. Because if propane leaks, it just evaporates into the atmosphere. So as opposed to pollutes the ground. So that was the, the background on that article from the spring Speaker 4: That, that I did send today. What I, what I didn't include, 'cause I sent the article 81 storage tanks twice, is I didn't send the special council one. That one.
Speaker 1: Okay. Hold on a sec. Speaker 4: That do, Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you, do you have that one, Chris? Speaker 4: I, do you want me to share it? Speaker 1: No, I would like, let's take the, the article 81 on the storage tanks first. Speaker 4: Yeah. Do you want me Speaker 1: To, you can, you can put that up on the screen redlined or changes, except it doesn't really matter. Yeah. Th thank you. The red line. Thank you. Speaker 3: At 24, Speaker 4: It's, it was me, it was warrant article Speaker 1: 24 in the spring. It was warrant article 24. It's now warrant article 31 for the fall.
Speaker 3: But I thought the chemical storage tanks was Article 81. Speaker 1: So it's warrant arctic for the spring. It was warrant article 25 to change bylaw article 81. Okay. And for the fall it will be, oh, it's bylaw, it's warrant article 31 to change bylaw article 81. Speaker 3: Okay. Speaker 1: Okay. Sorry. That's alright. Speaker 4: So I did a side by side to make sure this was what we voted on that day. And it's, Bob moved it and Harriet seconded on March 31st. So it's, it's the exact same, it's the exact same motion
that we, that we voted when we ended, you know, when we went back and fixed the language they Speaker 3: Wanted. You're fading. Chris, I'm not hearing you. Well, Speaker 4: This is the same. I, I, I looked at it side by side, so Speaker 3: Oh, okay. Thank you. Speaker 1: It's, I, it's identical to what we voted in the spring. Speaker 3: Okay. Speaker 4: So do you want, do you wanna, do you want a motion to, Speaker 1: Well, no, I wanna see if there was any discussion first, if there's anyone from the committee or from the public Seeing none, if there, you know, if anyone would like to make a motion. Speaker 3: I move. We, we Speaker 5: Accept this article 24.
Okay. No, 31 article 31. Speaker 1: But the motion is printed on the screen with the red lines accepted sa Speaker 5: Yes. Speaker 1: Okay. Is there a second? Speaker 5: Second, Speaker 1: Harriet. Okay. Any other? I have Speaker 6: A que I have a question. Yes, I just, I just received these attachments at like five o'clock tonight and I haven't had time to read them. Were these changed from what we had before or? Speaker 1: No. Speaker 6: Okay. So this is exactly what we had before, Speaker 1: Exactly what we voted on. March 31st, 2025. Oh,
Speaker 6: Thank you. Speaker 1: You're welcome. Any other motions or discussion? Seeing none will vote this Saul, how do you vote? Speaker 5: Aye. Speaker 1: Harriet? Speaker 5: Yes. Speaker 1: Chris? Speaker 6: Yes. Speaker 1: Donna? Speaker 6: Yes. Speaker 1: And I'm a, yes. So that is 5 0 0. The other one that we had from the spring was a change to bylaw article. I believe it was bylaw Article 24 Town Council. And what that was to add a spec,
a standing special zoning advisory council that would be available to everybody. All the boards and committees that touch zoning planning board if they want to use it, fin com if they want to use it. But also available to, to town meeting to make sure that the wording is without defect. We had in the spring, we just had gone over the history of any number of zoning changes that had, what's the best way to, you know, to, to describe it. You know, great concepts,
but sometimes potentially problematic or even catastrophic mistakes in the wording. And those have some got passed and had to be undone. One got passed, we got sued, and a bunch of them been caught last minute on, you know, on town meeting floor. But the idea behind the article that, and the motion that we sponsored was to have a standing reco resource that would be competent legal zoning professional dedicated
to supporting the needs of the town. So, and Chris, I think that motion is identical from the spring as well. Speaker 4: It is. I just didn't send this today by mistake. I sent two of the same thing, but I'm gonna put it up on the screen. Speaker 1: Thank you. Speaker 4: So Paul, this is identical and it has the identical typo in, so Speaker 1: Yeah. Which we need, which we need to fix. But I, if, if you're sharing something, I'm looking at the underside of a bridge Speaker 4: Instead. I was, Speaker 1: I might be stuck up in the rafters there somewhere, Chris, but that's a, it's a great screenshot by the way. Speaker 4: Add it on. Yeah, it's random. Here we go. Is that right?
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 4: Okay. Speaker 1: And we need it. You Speaker 3: Got the change planning board from panning board. Speaker 1: Right? Speaker 4: So, but I wanted to do that. Speaker 1: Do it on do it. You can do it right now. Speaker 5: So what's the number of this article? Speaker 1: So this, I'm sorry, this is warrant article 31, bylaw article 22. Speaker 7: I Speaker 5: Thought the one we just did was 31 Speaker 1: No warrant article. They're both under the same warrant articles. Oh, okay. Okay, okay. They're both under We, we've, that's the way, those are the warrant articles. We voted back on the 3rd of July.
Speaker 7: Okay. Speaker 4: What, which year warrant article is Speaker 1: This? 31. So any questions on this one? Speaker 6: I just wanna reiterate my strong support for this. Okay. I think it's a great idea to have somebody doing zoning specifically. Speaker 1: Okay. Any other discussion? Anyone from the public? Does anyone care to make a motion Speaker 3: Move to accept article 31 as presented for spring and now fall town meeting? Speaker 1: For, for warrant Article 31 for bylaw article 22.
Speaker 3: That's correct. Speaker 1: Okay. Moved by Harriet Saul. Did you second that? Second? Speaker 7: Yeah. Speaker 1: Okay. Any, any, any debate? Any discussion? Harriet, how do you vote? Speaker 3: Yes. Speaker 1: Saul, how do you vote? Speaker 3: Yes. Speaker 1: Chris, how do you vote? Speaker 6: Yes, Speaker 1: Donna, I have to ask, even though I think you're gonna say yes. How do you vote? Speaker 6: I mean, yes. Speaker 1: Okay. And I'm a Yes. That is 5 0 0. The the other thing that I think that we need to have a, a motion for is for article
warrant Article 30 and the, I didn't actually draft a motion because I I got busy on something today. But Article 30 would be to hear a report of the charter and bylaw review committee extend the term or appropriate money. It's the clear sentiment of this entire committee, as I recall from the spring and from July 3rd, that the only thing that we want to do is make a report and it's hopefully our last one.
Speaker 3: Amen. Speaker 1: So I would, unless other people have different thoughts in mind, I would propose a motion that, you know, move to hear a report of the charter and bylaw review committee. End of quote Speaker 3: To Don't we have to ask to be dissolved? Speaker 1: No, that will automatically happen if we don't extend. Speaker 3: Oh, okay. Speaker 1: Right. If we want to extend, we would have to seek a vote of extension. But this committee dissolves when fall town meeting dissolves. Speaker 3: Okay. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 3: I move to hear the report
or for Speaker 1: Rob her report of the charter and bylaw review committee. Speaker 3: That is what I'm saying. Speaker 1: Okay. Moved by Harriet. Seconded by, seconded by Saul. Any other motions? Too bad Bob wasn't here. I'd ask him if he wanted to make a motion for extension. I just Speaker 6: Have a quick question. Speaker 1: Sure. Donna, go ahead. Speaker 6: Will we be done with what we might need to do with the town meeting time stuff? Speaker 1: I, I think so, but if we're not, we can always make a come back
and reconsider it and make a motion to include an extension. Speaker 6: Okay. Speaker 1: Okay. All right. Harriet, how do you vote on that one? Speaker 3: Yes, Speaker 1: Saul? Speaker 3: Yes. Speaker 1: Donna? Speaker 6: Yes. Speaker 1: Chris? Speaker 6: Yes. Speaker 1: And I'm a, yes. So that is 5 0 0. The, Chris, you do, we have meeting minutes ready to go. I saw Speaker 4: We, I just sent them, so. Speaker 1: Okay. Alright. So we may need to do those at a subsequent meeting. Alright. If they were, I recall
that they were fairly straightforward, but, so one of the warrant articles that we sponsored was for potential changes to the bylaws regarding the new version of town meeting time. So the old version of town meeting time was, I believe the third edition, I think was the, you know, the third edition last published in 2001 and there's now a fourth edition. Did everybody get their fourth edition copy? Yes. Okay.
Okay. Everyone's got that. The, has anybody had a chance to, you know, read through it or flip through it? Speaker 4: We were waiting for direction. Speaker 1: Yeah. So now that everybody's got the books, Speaker 4: Sorry to interrupt you. I just wanna let you know Jeff does have his stand up, so. Speaker 1: Oh, who? Oh, Mr. Speaker 8: Chair. If I could be recognized. Speaker 1: Sure. Okay. I didn't realize you were even in the meeting. Sorry, Speaker 8: I had my hand up two articles ago. Oh, I'm, I just, so not to rehash old business, but I do wanna point out something in the
text of your motions. You're, you're, you're, you're continuing the motion lettering from the spring town meeting. And so your motion lettering picked up with like e and f as opposed to if you were to letter them Oh. Under a new article for this. I just wanted to point that out in terms of not creating confusion for, for town meeting members. They know what happened to A through D. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. 'cause you know the, Jeff, you're right. I'm sorry we missed you. That's okay. It, it doesn't, it wasn't so without objection from the committee. I do what Jeff, I think what Jeff, what you were saying is in the spring we had,
I think we had five bylaw article, what changes under five separate bylaws being changed. Under one article there was motion A, motion B et et cetera. And three of those things, you know, passed. Two of them were referred. And so without objection, we will change the lettering to be motion A and motion B. Is that where what you were referring to, Jeff? That Speaker 8: Purely clerical carry on. No Speaker 1: Thank, thank, thank you. And I'm sorry that I missed you. The No, Speaker 8: I'm, I'm here as your resource. You call on me when, when you need Speaker 1: It.
Oh, no, no. We're you're here for your, your, your ears. You had a right to be heard and I just, I didn't see it. So, but who? Wait, who? Well, Speaker 5: I didn't either, so don't feel bad. The screen is kind of funny this time. Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I can only see six people on the screen. Speaker 5: Right. I only see five. There's also, you see one more than I'm, there's, there's also a resident of Natick citizen there. Do you see him? Randy Brewer? Speaker 1: Oh, he's Natick. Pegasus. Speaker 5: Pegasus. Oh, he's Pegasus. Speaker 1: But he is a citizen.
So thank you Jeff. So in looking through the, the, the town meeting time, now that everybody's got these, the, I actually flipped through some, you know, from through some sections. And if you turn to the, you know, the table of the, the table of contents. Well let's, let's back up. We have a bylaw that says we follow the charter and the bylaws. And in all other matters we cover, we we follow town meeting time. Wait a second. Jeff, are you still here? Speaker 5: Yes, he Speaker 1: Is. Okay,
because he's disappeared from my screen again. Oh, there, there, Speaker 8: I blocked my video. I'm just going incognito while you carry on, I think. Speaker 1: Oh, no, no, now you're back. Okay. So the town meeting time is actually kind of like important because if the charter or the bylaws don't say anything, then the moderator is guided by what it, you know, on otherwise open matters is guided by, you know, town meeting time. And then you know, the moderators, you know, you know, decisions. And when you look at, when I was looking at the, when I was looking at the table of contents,
there, there, there's a lot of stuff in chapter one, which is on town meeting, which is really just background information. I, I don't, and I'm, I'm throwing this out there as just an initial opinion, not only, you know, for everyone in the committee and the public, but also for Jeff that there isn't in, in chapter one, there isn't anything that ne necessarily is gonna dictate how the meeting is run. It's just kind of like the organization of the meeting and some suggestions for the moderator in advance of the meeting. There are some things under, you know,
chapter two when I actually read through it. And one of those actually concern concerns the finance committee. And I'll, you know, get back to that in a second. Then the, the duties of the town clerk that is specified in our charter and bylaws. It's actually when you get into chapter three under preliminary considerations. And then also when we get in into motions under chapter four that I found some stuff that might be worth us focusing on
and seeing if it requires some mention or modification in our bylaw. So one of the things that we have under chapter three is subchapter 3.1 0.3 on consent agendas. So that's brand new consent agendas have been in practice, but this is the first time they've been used in practice. But the first time they're actually mentioned in town meeting time. They previously were not something that was mentioned in town meeting time. Then there is reference under 3.1 0.7
to remote and hybrid meetings. And I know that there's an article on the warrant to that, that the mutter and the select board of started to actually look at kind of best practices and how to implement, you know, a hybrid town meeting. But there, so there's stuff there that I think another committee is gonna touch. There is some stuff under accessibility that I don't know that it rises to the level of a, of a bylaw. But you know, one of the things that has, well, and it's very likely to come up more readily under a hybrid
meeting, although it could come up now, is we have people in town who are residents of the town who don't speak English. And that's, that's not, that's not a physical a DA issue. It's a language issue. And, you know, we could mention something about that in the bylaw, but I actually think that that's probably personally, that that's something more that the moderator like needs to, you know, look at because that may involve resources like, you know, translators or, you know, or, or other things.
But accessibility I think is a new paragraph or a new section in town meeting time. There is stuff under three dash one dash 10 on electronic pre presentations and written materials. I kind of quickly read through that and it didn't seem to, you know, prevent under town meeting time. It didn't seem to prevent a motion from being typed on a screen and voted according to what's on the screen. Our practice has always been, it has to be in a hard copy document
and that's really so that there's actually something that is physical that can be inserted into the record of the meeting kept by the moderator and the clerk. But that may be something to, you know, to take a look at. And then under chapter four, they have moved the goalposts so to speak, or adjusted the foul lines on motions of doubtful legality. And now thrown in a reference to the fin comp. So the historically there is a state law that says all towns over a certain size have
to have a finance advisory or warrant committee that will hear all business within warrant articles and make recommendations. But that, that has been held as something that is not a mandatory requirement, such that if the, that the hearing isn't held, the meeting is held town meeting can still go ahead and vote. Back in 2018 and 19, the town looked at this and said, we have a num we had, there were a number of things were bogging downtown meeting. One of them was people would put warrant articles on, some
of them were citizens petitions, but some of them were committee articles and they didn't go to the finance committee, they just showed up on town meeting floor. And some of these were with big long, complicated motions and everybody was limited by the five or 10 minutes to discuss something that was very complicated. There wasn't the opportunity of the public due diligence process in front of the finance committee in other situations where proposals came forward and they were, you know, somewhat involved and the sponsors at the last minute would show up at town meeting with something that was equally involved but different. And nobody had had the opportunity
to really, really hear that. So we actually changed our bylaws to make the finance committee hearings. And I think they're under, what is it more an article. They're under bylaw article 23 or something that what they have, what the finance committee does has, it has to hold a public hearing and it is a public hearing and the at which people have an opportunity, a reasonable opportunity to, you know, to be heard. The effect of that under the old town meeting time is if you had a requirement that there was a public hearing
for something before town meeting action and that public hearing didn't happen, town meeting wasn't gonna vote on it. We built in an escape hatch in our bylaw that said two thirds of town meeting can vote to waive that requirement. There may be something pressing that comes up, we don't wanna trap ourselves. But that bylaw got put into place and it has pretty much cut down the practice of people evading the public public scrutiny process of the finance committee and dropping new stuff in the, you know, on town meeting floor and turning town meeting into a giant foot fin income
where nobody can speak for more than five minutes. The way that the, it's been modified now under section four is they refer to statutory requirements for public hearings and they use two examples. One is the classic planning board hearing on warrant articles for zoning changes, but the other is also select board public hearings on, you know, changing or, or doing road acceptances. And then they have footnote discussion that says, finance committee meetings don't fit this criteria. So it's like they, the old wording was if you had a public hearing that was required
and it wasn't held town meeting times said, you're not supposed to, it's not supposed to go forward at town meeting. So we built that into our bylaw with this escape hatch. The question is whether or not this new language kind of, if we were to adopt town meeting time, basically takes the Fin comm's public hearing and kicks it down to an optional level because we never really said, we never really say in the article three town meeting procedures that that finance committee hearing is a mandatory public hearing. What we just said is it's a, it's a public hearing
and then the provisions of version three or edition three of town meeting time made it mandatory. The new town meeting time kind of puts the fin income in a, like a different category. So those are the, the issues that I identified looking through this. Others might identify more, but it seemed to me that the main motions, the incidental, the privileged motions, the incidental motions are all the same. There is further discussion of consent agendas under main motions under
chapter five, section 11. But that's all I had from reading through this. I probably had a head start on people because I had a copy of it, the third edition. And right after our, excuse me, our meeting on July 3rd, I ordered a copy of the fourth edition and I received it on July 10th. Right. And I know that there was a holdup in the, everybody got it in the town's order processing for a whole bunch of copies for the fourth edition. There was a holdup and people just got those. But th those are the things that I identified as kind
of like, you know, significant differences. And the only other one that I saw was the new town meeting time basically make seconding a motion optional. Right. So you wanna have a by, you know, one thing to think about, I'm not saying we should or we shouldn't. You wanna have a bylaw that says motions must be made and seconded. Right? You wanna have a bylaw that you know, you know, or, or leave it to the moderator and to a rule as to how consent agendas are handled. The, I think Jeff, the, my view of the consent agenda language in edition four is it leaves a lot of latitude, right?
It leaves a lot of latitude. It may be best just to leave it there. I do think that the motions of doubtful legality needs to be tightened up because I think addition four has sprung a leak on us relative to addition three. So that, that's my overview of going through this. I think the main, the, the sections to focus on are the, the, the section, chapter two on finance committees. 'cause it affects motions of doubtful, legality under chapter four, chapter 3, 1, 3 and 5 1 1 on consent agendas.
And then I forget where the thing with the seconds was. But other than that I didn't find a lot of stuff that was a substantive shift that you might even that it, it all seemed that the fourth edition was just really good additional clarification and guidance. So Speaker 3: Was there anything that you thought we should look at? Jeff? Speaker 8: I think that Paul has summarized it, the, what was flagged for me that maybe, maybe Paul hasn't brought it up yet, that was not on that list, was handling community preservation act or community preservation committee projects.
Now what's interesting is we're gonna have our first dose of that here in the fall. And there, as I, as I understand it, there's, there's specific changes to state law with respect to what members on the floor of town meeting can do to amend motions related to funding CPC projects. I think you can't reduce the, if I'm interpreting the state law, clearly you can't reduce the amount, but you could increase it. I, it's a weird, it's a weird floor capping exercise. 'cause it wants to retain the right of the, the project decisions of the, of, of sitting,
the amounts in the CPC. But the town can still say, heck, we're just not funding it at all at that amount. But the town meeting is sort of lost its ability to haggle on the, the bottom line number. Yeah. If I'm interpreting it correctly, Speaker 1: I I think you've got it right Jeff. It says zero meaning vote it, vote no, right. Speaker 8: Or funded Speaker 1: Vote vote funded at the floor or higher or Speaker 8: Higher. And, and it's an interesting nuance and my understanding was that temp meeting time four actually has a section on that. Speaker 1: I think it does. Speaker 8: Yeah. I don't think you called it out specifically,
but I would love to dig into that a little bit because I think also in the, the ordering of the, I'm looking, I, I've, and I admit I've only just freshly looked at the warrant. What's interesting is the review of the time meeting time discussion to propose changes. And, and if you, hi, if you, in your discussion, if you were to say, hey, and, and one of the, one of the changes has to do with the CPC based on the current order of the, of the warrant, your discussion about that's gonna happen after the CPC stuff is already voted. So part of me is also thinking there might be a reason
to hear the discussion about town meeting time, at least from an, from an educational perspective for town meeting members in the discussion. Like, here's what you can and can't do state remind you that state law applies, right? So what the town meeting time reminds you of it or not, it's still state law. We still behold that that's how I'm gonna run the meeting according to state law. But from an ordering of events perspective, I would, I, it would be interesting if someone were to bring a motion to the floor or town meeting to have the discussion about town meeting time before the CPC things if only because of that discussion element.
But otherwise the things you listed were, were absolutely correct. There was the, if see if I recall them all hybrid meeting, yes. I'm very interested in what the implications are for that. I, I do think that that in parallel will be adopting the, if, if this goes forward, we'll be adopting town meeting time four at the same time that there's an exploratory committee about a hybrid town meeting. And their work would actually be to look at what the recommendations are and set additional town meeting handbook changes or other potential bylaw changes or things to even get, go further along than that. So that was a big section.
The accessibility, I'm actually personally very vested interest in and have a vested interest in because we're thinking about all the changes related to the hybrid town meeting that have a very interesting accessibility requirement for them. And, and, and that I'm sure that will be an element of the review of, of the hybrid town meeting committee if, if it if created. I, I think that the accessibility work, we have an opportunity to do that work as well at the same time, right? If we have to look at translation support or auto captioning or whatever it is, I wanna make sure that that, that that town meeting is aware that this is a priority for me
as the moderator in terms of executing a, a a, a very open and accessible town meeting that we have guidance on how to do that and that we have a project underway that might help us even even more with accessibility. But I also am not opposed to just doing a one-off accessibility project in the spring if we look at our bylaws or we look at time meeting time and say, Hey, we, we haven't been doing it as best we could. So I'm, I'm open to doing accessibility changes as we go forward too. So I'm, I'm really, I'm really interested in that section. I think those are the, those are the top of mind items for me. Oh, the consent agenda is interesting.
Number one bit of feedback I got at the end of springtown meeting was, Jeff, why don't you consent agendas? And I said, well, I'm just trying to, I'm just trying to warm into the role and the advance maneuver. Like I'm looking at the warrant now saying, yeah, we, we may want to do a consent agenda, this, this go around. And so having, making sure that we're reconciled about how we do it versus how it's being proposed here is, is is worth a read just to make sure that we're, could be as efficient as possible. And to give you some context, I've even heard from other, other towns with representative town meeting that have looked at town meeting time four
and their take on it is they make the whole warrant the consent agenda. And unless someone pulls one out, like a, an article out for, you know, like, like a hold they vote the whole thing. Speaker 1: Yep. Yeah. There are, there are, there are communities that actually vote the whole warrant that way and they, yeah. The, the town meeting practices and rules committee recommended to the town administrator back in 2019 stop with the 26 articles for separate budgets, put 'em all into one giant article so that you can just, if you Yeah.
If you want to, you know, and then you can put it under one giant motion. Right. Speaker 8: Well the omni so we did that with the omnibus, but I, but Right, but just to be clear that you can, based on my understanding of state law all the way down through what we're discussing here for town meeting time, is you could do the whole warrant as one consent agenda. Yep. And people could only pull out what they think is worth discussing. And you could probably go through town meeting in one night and if not one hour, you know, just depending on what, how, how complex it's, I'm not saying we go to that extreme because I, because I am interested in, in preserving the,
you know, the, the quality of the debate on the topics. And I think the, the, the, the bureaucracy as it is does lean towards more discussion than less. But I am, I'm also interested in a a just a, in the, in the, in the process of the reconciliation of how we do things versus what we're allowed to do, making sure that we're all reminded as part of this review process. Like, hey, you know, things we've been thinking about, you know, you know, from, from this committee's perspective, like efficiency bylaw review, how time meeting is run, just remind us about what, what, you know, what time meeting time is saying.
We could do, just to point out those efficiencies and I, I'll take note, but everything you said Paul was what I was expecting that were the big highlights. Speaker 1: Okay? The one thing you, I looked at the warrant today too, and the, our bylaw articles are at the end of the warrant, but there are several bylaw articles, 11 through 14 plus the hybrid committee at 15. It's likely somebody's gonna make a motion to take articles 30, 31 to 32 and put 'em right up there with those others. Right. So as we do, right. So yeah, your
and your discussion of hybrid town meeting will go faster, right? Because if, if the fourth edition's been introduced. But anyway, those were the major things that I saw. And you know, I, we can do anything that the committee wants to do, but it's a really hard process to open the fourth edition and open the third edition and go page by page, paragraph by paragraph and put a sticky on something that's changed. But I think that would take a lot more time and effort than anybody on this committee wants to
or even needs to put in, you know, there was that highlight of the, the moderators association published of the sections that had major changes and that's another good place to start. Look at those and then just compare the, you know, pair the two editions. And I did that and I've reported all of the stuff that I've found. So it's up to the committee as to whether, you know, how you want to proceed each to do your own review. Do you wanna have another meeting to like go
through individual sections, you know, kind of one at a time. The people wanna break off in groups. If you do that, it's a subcommittee, you have to post a meeting. But however people wanna get through this, Speaker 7: Chris has her hand up. Speaker 1: Oh, Chris, you've disappeared from my screen Speaker 5: Gallery, Paul. Speaker 1: Okay. What Speaker 5: Go to gallery view. Speaker 1: That's why I thought I was in, anyway. Okay. Chris Speaker 4: Ward came in at 7 44. I think he might have been waiting a few minutes, but like you just might wanna have him acknowledge. Speaker 1: Bob, you here? Speaker 7: I'm here. Speaker 1: All right, so we, we've got Bob and you said 7 47 44.
7 44. Alright, thank you Chris. Speaker 4: So then my second point was related to Speaker 7: Jeff. Can't hear you Chris, Speaker 5: I can't, I can't hear you. Speaker 1: Your, your, I don't know if your volume's down or if you're far away from the microphone Speaker 7: Almost. Speaker 9: I'm gonna leave my Speaker 10: Are you talking through a mic or just through the computer? Speaker 9: Can you hear me now? Speaker 1: Yes. Better. Speaker 10: A little better. Speaker 9: I was, I have a webcam. My camera, my computer's been working weird lately, so may right now I'm on my laptop. I went off, so I only have one screen.
So my second point was related to Jeff's comment about the Community Preservation Act, you know, and the issues with state law. But there, I looked in the table of contents and the index and there is nothing in town meeting time for about the CPAs that I could, you know, that's listed in the index. So if there's issue with the CPA and what town meeting can do, then we might, you know, other than town meeting time, we might need to provide
town meeting, you know, with that information. I, I don't, I just, I didn't see it in those two places. I'm happy to look again for it through in the fourth edition, but I didn't see it in those two places, which then would mean that other to me it would mean there's other ways we have to communicate to town Me. They can't do warrant articles. Speaker 8: I'm gonna look at the table of contents. But on the website for town meeting time four, the discussion of the fourth in edition includes a significant overhaul featuring new content on emerging topics since 2001, including consent agendas,
community preservation act, conflict of interest law and regulations, open meeting law, impact of electronic technology, remote and time meeting, remote and hybrid meetings, time meeting accessibility and emergency postponement of town meetings. I'm expecting there to be a section, if not at least a mention of the Community Preservation Act. It's not in the index either. Speaker 1: No, I think it, I I thought it was in the text and I can't find it at the moment, but it's, I don't think it's called out in, I don't think it's called out in a separate section. Speaker 9: Yeah. 'cause I've, I see conflict of interest,
open meeting law, a lot of those other things that you mentioned, Jeff, they do have chapters on. But anyway, I I'm happy to scan through it again, but I, I, I know you saw that in the notes, but I I don't see it. Consent agenda, I mean, a lot of those other things do have chapters or sections. Speaker 8: Did anybody by chance get a, do a digital copy of the book? Speaker 1: Yes, and I don't have it open. Speaker 8: Yeah, if you, if you do a control F on the text, you will find it. I'm just, I I have a hard copy in front of me right now, so I'm just sort of thumbing it.
But I think a little technology go a long way. Speaker 9: I think in the index it would be under state law instead of Community Preservation Act. I'm just state law bylaw modifying meaning. Speaker 8: So in the index where it's gonna be found based on my find here, it's actually on, in the index, it's under appropriation limits and it says by recommendation of Community Preservation committee pages 1 36 and 1 69. And so it's under appropriations because it's a limit set on appropriations. Speaker 9: Okay. All right. All right. I'll look at that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's footnote 14 on page 1 36. Speaker 9: Okay. All right. That's helpful. Yeah. Then my, my last comment before we get into procedures of what we might do, assuming that any bylaws that we pass at this fall annual town meeting, you know, specifically to, you know, follow town meeting time, fourth edition, the, that, that bylaw would then need to be approved by the Attorney General and then we would use it for spring 2026 while spring annual town meeting. Is that correct?
Speaker 1: Yep. Yes. Speaker 9: Okay. Yeah. And do we, I guess I have another question. Do we know if the Attorney General has reviewed our bylaw yet for move the question? Has that been approved? Speaker 1: It was supposed to come back on August 20th. There were a number of things that were passed at Springtown meeting and also some that were at fall town meeting and the minutes went in late and they, the a's office, there was a whole laundry list of articles and I think the A DU zoning was one of them, but they said we'll get back to you on like August,
was it August 20th or August 28th? I can't remember. Speaker 9: So we're, it could happen that we'll have that in effect for file annual time meeting. Speaker 1: Yes. Speaker 9: Okay. Speaker 7: Okay. Speaker 9: Well I definitely would like to take the next week to kind of go through and look at those things that you did, but I, I, you know, I think because of the initial time that we talked about the fact that, you know, we specifically have information in our bylaws about the language, you know,
and authors of the third annual town meeting, you know, we, we minimally are gonna have, you know, at least two to three motions because we wanna make sure Tom meeting has the opportunity to approve, you know, future tom meeting times if they, you know, update it. Again, I think we need to deal with seconding the motion and, and seeing if people wanna do that. And then those other areas that you identified, you know, there could be motion. So I, I see us, you know, whether we do this individually or that we're gonna need at least like one to two,
one more meeting maybe to discuss these, like what the motions might be. And then one to have motions so that we'd be prepared for anything we would do before finance committee. And ideally this would not be a long report, you know, even though this is a comple, you know, like the complexity of all these changes. Ideally we wouldn't have to write, you know, a long report on all these changes from Tom meeting time three and four. Speaker 1: It would be my hope that we don't write very much of a report on the changes between three and four. We let people see the, so what the moderators committee
that worked on this, Jeff was at this for three years, right? How long did they work on the fourth edition? Speaker 8: Quite a while. It's been in development for, for a while. My, my first awareness of it was at a, a professional development day, like their annual meeting in October of 2024. Yeah. But they had been working on it for years prior to that. Speaker 1: Yeah. So it's been, this has had a, a lot of good work and effort that goes into it, but I was trying to put myself in the back in July when this first came up to us at our July 3rd meeting,
a town meeting member might say, oh yeah, well let's just change to the new defin, you know, the new edition and say, you know, don't make it the third edition, change the bylaw to be the fourth. Or somebody might say, just make it the most recent edition. But then the moment that one member says what, if anything has changed between the third edition and the fourth edition that our rules might have changed, then it's gonna bog down into a lot of questions. So I think it's, it, it's helpful that we do kind of a, at least some level of review and bubble up that handful of things
that are different, right. Report them to town meeting. And if we think it's, you know, worthy of a motion in, in changing the bylaws such as no motions will require a second, right? We, we'll, we get out, we could sponsor a motion that says, you know, change article three and say that motions need to be made and seconded by a town meeting member or representative town meeting member. Well, that would deal with town meeting time says seconds are optional, you know, if you want to deal with something on consent agendas,
we could write that If you wanted to deal with something on, you know, the, on the, on this motions of doubtful legality issue could deal with that. Other things like the, the CPA thing is really more of just a piece of information because there's nothing we could put into our, into our bylaw or even into the charter that says, no, in Natick we're gonna ignore state law and do CPA Community Preservation Act appropriations differently. So I, I would hope that this is a kind of a, an expedited, you know, report that people can see kind of what's changed.
And we just have motions at the ready if you know, or even that we recommend if people think, you know, Hey, I don't particularly like that, that the consent agenda is completely open-ended. Right? You're gonna put the whole warrant under the, under a consent agenda. How many people have to call hold to remove it? Seven twenty two one. I mean, that's like, so what if there's a consent agenda? If what, you know, do you want a bylaw that says how many people get to take something out of the consent agenda? Saul, you had your hand up?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I got a question for clarification. I, I'm hearing that you went through the whole town meeting four. Chris is gonna go through the whole book. I thought what we were gonna do was divide, divide up to Tom, meeting four amongst the committee, and then we would, we would then take our part, analyze it and come back to a meeting. We're not gonna do that. Or Speaker 1: We can do that, Saul, which, which chapter would you like? Speaker 5: I don't know. I thought you, Speaker 1: I just looked at them all because I, you know, the, it I just started and I just went and I had a what?
A, I had a six week head start on everybody. 'cause my book arrived on July 10th. Speaker 5: No, I think it's very good that you did that. Are you saying that the rest of us should just hear what you got to say and vote on it? Or Speaker 1: No, it's what do you want? What process do you wanna follow? So if you want to do that where, you know, we could do it where Saul, you take chapter one, Harry, you take chapter two, Bob, you take chapter three, Don you take chapter four. Chris, you take chapter five. We could divide it up chapter by chapter or we could divide it up and say at our next meeting, everybody needs to have gone through chapters one, two, and three
and we'll have a follow on meeting where everybody does four, five, and six. It's whatever approach the committee wants to follow. Speaker 5: What do you think is the best way of doing it? You, you, you've been digging into it for a while, so what do you think is the best approach? Speaker 1: Yeah, whatever works. I mean, it's Harriet, Speaker 3: You've pointed out and Jeff has agreed on what areas need to be looked at. So what I've taken down is on chapter two, we have to look at finance committee. And on chapters three we have to look at consent agendas, hybrid town meeting, accessibility
and elect present and looking at the written materials. And I can't know what, I don't know what my PRES stands for. And on chapter four we're looking at doubtful legality. And we're gonna look at the CPA on page 1 36 and one and 1 69. Can't we divide it up based on that? Because we've, you've done the preliminary. Meanwhile we're also charged with looking at the rest of it. If someone comes back at the next meeting with something different, then we, we will pay attention to it.
But let's at least pay attention to the things that have been agreed upon by both the moderator and the chair. Speaker 1: I'm fine with that. I just would like someone else. I don't wanna be the only person who went through this nor to have Jeff and I be the only people that went through it. But everybody else, Speaker 3: I think that we're all forced to look through it, but let's concentrate on the areas that we need to. And if someone sees something that is, is especially upsetting to them, then they look into that area and bring it up. Speaker 9: Oh, the only other thing that was left off what your list, Harriet was also in chapter
four is the motions. You know, the seconding of the motions. Speaker 3: I'm sorry, please. Speaker 9: Motions of doubtful legality, but also the use of seconds. That's also part of chapter four motions. Speaker 1: So do you want, do people want to take each person, take their time to go through the whole document, but we divide up some of these things along the lines of Harriet's suggestion? Speaker 7: Yeah, Speaker 3: I like Harriet's suggestion. Speaker 10: And Harriet's suggestion was Speaker 1: We have a, we have a defined list of things that she read off and we assign those out to individuals
who will do a detailed look and come back with a potential proposed motion. Speaker 10: And I, and I came in late, so I'm sorry I'm behind on this so I'm still trying to catch up. It's okay. You, how did you, Paul determined whatever that list was that she read, which I don't even know what that was, but that whatever that list that she read, how did you determine those were the thought items you thought were most prob most important to consider? Speaker 1: So, great question, Bob. So I looked at the list
that the moderators association published where they had the third edition and the fourth edition. And they had, if, if something changed, it was on that list. If it was a major change, it was bold. So I looked at those and then I also just flipped through and I was comparing chapter by chapter and I was skimming, I wasn't doing a detailed read, but I said, this all looks very familiar and chapter one of town meeting time, it's not necessarily irrelevant, but it's innocuous. It doesn't tell you how the meeting runs.
It describes what the meeting is and who the people in it are. So Jeff, you had your hand up? Speaker 8: Yes. Just to be given more specific detailed point for Bob. Bob, if you, if you go to the town meeting time website, there's a description that says the fourth edition includes a significant overall featuring and then a bulleted list of all the items I paid particular attention to that list and, and trying to focus on what's of interest to us, what might be of conflict or, or, or needs to be, need to be reconciled. And in the, I'm, I'm happy just to, to paste it in the, in the chat if I could.
Yeah, I'm gonna put it in the chat, but you Speaker 3: Send it in an email rather than the chat because that way it, it stays with you. The chat disappears when we hang up. Speaker 8: It's the town meeting time, fourth edition website, mass moderators.org/tmt four Speaker 10: Mass moderators dot mass moderators. Speaker 8: And I'll put that link in the chat because you can click on that right now and then bookmark it. Speaker 5: Please go over that. So, oh, it's, oh, it's there. Okay. Just a minute. Speaker 8: And so that's also the page where in preparing this with Paul, I found that they have a link to the appendix,
to the maps, the sections between the third and fourth edition, and it includes the editorial notes. So those are the two attachments that are in the Google drive. We moved them from the town meeting time website to Google Drive for your purposes. But the summary of what's different on this website from a marketing perspective is really what it is. But the, but that fourth bullet, new content on emerging topics, that was what caught my attention. Speaker 3: That website is on the things for our agenda that Chris sent out, that particular website. Speaker 1: Yes, it is. Speaker 6: Well I think this is a good idea.
I mean, for myself, I plan to read all of the fourth edition, believe it or not. Because if I'm gonna, if it's gonna be said that we looked at this, I wanna really have looked at it, but I'm in favor of focusing on those bulleted points. I do wonder though, if instead of one person focusing on the section that we should have two in case somebody misses something. That's my only suggestion. Speaker 3: Let's do it. That they don't get together, but they each look at it so we don't have to post a meeting. Speaker 6: Yes. Right. That's what I, that's exactly what I meant. I think, I think we did that when we started doing the charter.
We had like a couple people look at each section, if I'm remembering correctly. Speaker 1: We did, Speaker 9: I made the list. I think if I, I may, I, I was going through again, but I I may not have written everything down that Harriet said. The first one was chapter two finance committee. Is that correct? Speaker 1: At the, the fi in, in conjunction with chapter four, motions of doubtful, legality, Speaker 9: Those go together is what you're saying? Yep. Can you give an example of motions of doubtful legality? Speaker 1: Sure. So a, the classic example,
and the only example that was used in the third edition was the la that was the example where the Massachusetts general laws say that a town meeting cannot vote on a zoning change until after there's been a public hearing held by the planning board on that zoning change. And the planning board is reported to town meeting, or they have a certain amount of time to do that. If they drag their feet, then the, it's like, I forget how many 120 days later the town meeting and just move forward. But the, the third edition under motions of doubtful,
legality specifies three things that, you know, that could come up. One is where the, the town meeting attempts to do something that is illegal. This is the law prevents it, right? And what the moderator is supposed to do under the third edition is to advise the meeting that is against the law. You can't do that. Your vote will have no legal effect. But then the moderator's supposed to let the meeting go forward if it wants to. The other is to where they want to do something
where they don't, I think they don't have the authority like power fire, the police chief and the moderator's supposed to advise them, you know, it's legal to fire the police chief if you're the select board, but it's not something the town meeting has the authority to do. But if you want to go ahead and vote that you can go ahead and vote it. They have the third category of motions of doubtful legality, which is where a mandatory condition precedent has not been fulfilled. That there was something that was mandatory that had to happen before town meeting voted. And the example that is used is of a public hearing
and for the planning board, right? When prior to 2019, our finance committee meetings and hearings were called public hearings by the finance committee, but they were not public hearings. The public hear, the public actually had no right to be heard at those things. And because there was a particular finance committee that in a certain time period that didn't allow the public to talk, that bylaw got changed. We got this, got converted. That bylaw said that those are now public hearings and people have to have the opportunity to speak
and that these, these, these are now required public hearings under the bylaw that that makes them a mandatory condition precedent under the third edition. So if the FinCon didn't hear something or if it heard something and then somebody hits town meeting floor with something that is materially different, and the public said there's no advanced vetting on this. The moderator since 2019 has been able to say that matter of business or that warrant article has not been heard by the finance committee or you know, Mr. Or Madam Chair, you know, did you hear this?
Did you, you know, and the answer is no. Their public hearing hasn't been held. Then only for the finance committee hearings, we actually built something into the bylaw where two s two thirds of town meeting could waive the requirement. Speaker 11: Right? Speaker 1: Right. So that's the way our, you know, things currently stand. You look into the fourth edition. The fourth edition talks about the planning board and that statutory hearing, the select board on a road dedication or something and that mandatory hearing. And then, and then it actually has a footnote
that says finance committee meetings, you know, are not public hearings. And you know, even though there it's a good practice, there's no legal requirement that they actually occur and they conclude the whole paragraph with, if there's a statutory requirement that you know is a condition precedent that matters, implying that bylaws are not statutory right. Or they could be viewed as not statutory. So that subtle change in the language between the third and fourth edition actually has potential implications for the structure of our bylaws.
Does that make sense? Speaker 9: It does, but I think you might be the only one that truly gets that. Speaker 11: Thank you, Christie. That is a mic drop. I'm Speaker 9: Gonna assign you to that legal, doubtful, legality in Speaker 1: Case. Alright. Chris, you get, you can assign me to that one. Alright. Since I'm you, if I found the prize, I guess I have to do the work, right? Speaker 9: Yeah, that one because you like, you can, but I mean, I, I, we have talked about motions of doubt, legality before, but like that nuance to me sounds so subtle that I think you, you, I mean I, Speaker 1: You, I would encourage everybody to read the language. I
Speaker 9: Think everybody, I mean everybody should also look at that too. But Speaker 1: When you see the language and you then, you know, our bylaw has a requirement for a finance committee, public hearing, where the public has a right to be heard. And then you compare the third and the fourth edition, you'll say, well, it looks very, very similar. Still looks like a football field. But they've moved the goalposts and they've like moved the end zone. Jeff, you have your hand up. Speaker 8: Yeah. In, in the spirit of doubtful, legality. I'm not saying that's what the issue is. I'm just wondering, do, do you, I dunno if we've talked about this, but because these are proposed bylaw changes and the CBRC does have access to legal counsel for
review of these things, is it something to consider in your review, to have a legal counsel either look at or provide a, an opinion on Yes. The outcomes of this group? Is that your intent? Yes. Yes. Speaker 1: We pretty much everything gets run by special counsel. Very good. We do a, we do a lot of work, you know, as opposed to paying special counsel to do all of the drafting and the considerations, et cetera. We try and come up with the idea, write a first draft, get it, you know, somewhat perfected or in good shape from the committee and give it to counsel to review.
Speaker 9: Does anybody have wanna volunteer to look at any of those lists like that they heard? Speaker 3: Since I'm the furthest away, I'll take whatever nobody else wants. Speaker 10: I, I don't know what the list is. So I'm not volunteering for, I'm on site unseen. Speaker 5: How many, how many items are there that you talking? Right? Speaker 3: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Seven. Speaker 9: I think I have eight. Did you write the motions down? Speaker 3: Did I, I wrote down what they were, but they, they came from the index of the Speaker 9: Yeah, no, I know. But also motions. I, I have eight.
Speaker 5: So Speaker 1: Chris, why don't you read your eight if that's the longest list. So Speaker 9: The, so the finance in chapter two, finance committee, Speaker 1: That one's a part of motions of doubtful. Legality. Speaker 9: Okay. So those are, those are two together. Finance committee motions of doubtful. Legality is one. Okay. Consent agenda is in chapter three, remote and hybrid meeting is in chapter three. Accessibility is in chapter three. Speaker 5: Excuse me, I, you, you lost me already. I go a little slower. The first one was chapter two. There was 2, 2, 3 challenges of the moderators.
No, wait, wait a minute. That's Speaker 9: Chapter two is what Paul's gonna take. Finance committee and motions of delta. Okay. Speaker 5: Chapter two. Speaker 10: I I don't even see that. I Speaker 9: Don't see that in chapter two. Speaker 10: That's not in chapter two. That's in chapter four. Speaker 1: Cha. The finance committees in chapter two, finance committee. And, and, and motions doubt. Fidelity is in four and they run together. They're interrelated. Speaker 3: The finance committee is in chapter 2.6. Speaker 10: Exactly. Speaker 9: That's why I had it in chapter two. Okay. But the chapter two finance committee is gonna go
with motions of helpful legality chapter four. And Paul's already gonna take that and one other person should look at it. And I can do that unless someone else wants to. We all should. But I mean, I will, I would, I'll, I'll look at that too. All right. I would Speaker 3: Like to look at the electronic, pre electronic, present electronic presentations and written materials. I'd like that one. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 10: So now we have in chapter three, three, we
Speaker 5: Have the Speaker 10: Risk of a set agenda. Speaker 1: Hold on, hold on. Let, let, let me like step back here for a second. Somebody should take a look at whether at seconds, whether or not seconds need to be required. And somebody should take a look at consent agendas. Speaker 3: Consent agendas were already listed, but I did not see seconds. Speaker 10: Where is seconds? I don't see that Speaker 1: To meeting time. The new version has a mention that second seconds are optional. They're not required. Speaker 9: Chapter four. Speaker 10: Chapter four. Oh, yep. Yep. Chapter four. Oh, you keep getting ahead of this here. Speaker 9: Yeah, so chapter three has consent agenda, remote
and hybrid meetings and accessibility. Those all need to be, someone needs to pick Speaker 1: Those. Well, I, well just hold on for, somebody should take a look at consent agendas. Yep. And then let's have a separate conversation about remote and hybrid meetings and accessibility. But somebody should take consent agendas. There's a lot of, Speaker 10: We just trying to figure out, we're just trying to figure out what the, in what, what the universe is that we're looking at. Yeah, Speaker 1: I'm gonna, I'm gonna redefine the universe when we're done with consent agendas. 'cause we're gonna, we're we, it is not gonna make, let's put accessibility in remote
and hybrid meetings to the side. 'cause Speaker 9: Because that's gonna be studied separately. Speaker 5: But you know, the two of you are having a discussion and I at least, I don't know the whole list. I didn't write, write it down when Harriet was reading. So I don't know what you're Speaker 1: Talking about. Okay, so let's go back with, let's recap the list. Right. So we had, there was mention of the CPA, the FinCon and motions of doubtful, legality, consent agendas, seconds being required for motions material in writing or on the screen,
or both remote and hybrid town meetings and accessibility were things that were major changes from the third to the fourth edition. We talked about the things that were big changes. Speaker 5: Right. Did you relate those to the chapter number? Do you have the chapter numbers? Speaker 1: Yeah, Speaker 5: Because you, you're speaking too fast. We'd record that and I'm trying to mark it off on my, my sheets here. Speaker 1: No problem. That's okay. So consent agendas is chapter three, section 1.3. Speaker 5: Yep. Got it. Speaker 1: Remote
and hybrid meetings is chapter three, section 1.7. Yeah. And accessibility is chapter three, section 1.8. Speaker 5: Right. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 5: Yep. Thank Speaker 1: You. You're, you're welcome. Motions of doubtful. Legality is chapter 4.3. That's coupled with, it's the FinCon in section two point, chapter 2.6 and seconding and stating the motion is chapter 4.2. Speaker 5: Yeah. Speaker 1: And the CPA that was
mentioned is actually in chapter 5.2. And it's footnote number 14. Speaker 6: I'm really interested in the CPA if somebody else wants to do that with me, but I'm also interested in the remote access and hybrid and the accessibility issue. Speaker 5: Okay. Speaker 1: So, okay. Speaker 5: The Speaker 1: Do is anyone, we've got the, the written in the screen materials. I think that was in, I think that was in chapter four, but Harriet, you already have that. It's Speaker 3: 3.1 0.9. Speaker 1: 3.1 0.3 point 10 I believe. No,
Speaker 10: Three point 10. Speaker 1: 3.1 point. Speaker 3: That's postponements. Speaker 10: No, not in, not in chapter. Not in the fourth edition Speaker 5: Emergency. Yeah, Speaker 3: I'm looking at the fourth edition. Speaker 5: Yeah. Emergency postponement of town meetings. It's three. Oh, Speaker 3: Okay. 3.1 point. Okay. 10. Speaker 5: All right. Speaker 1: Okay. So, Speaker 9: So Donna wants to do the CPA, Speaker 1: But hold on a second. The, we we're not, let, let's focus on who wants to take consent agendas because assigning the CPA is not worth doing.
It's a, you know, it's a, it's a significant highlight in the, in something that's in the fourth edition. That's not in the third edition. But it's a change that nobody can do anything about. Speaker 10: 'cause it's state law, Speaker 1: Because all it's doing is pointing out a new state law. You can't write a bylaw or charter change to deal with it differently. Do I have that right Jeff? Speaker 8: I believe so. 'cause when you look at the order of precedence and the way that this works, the, the, yeah. The bi yeah, the state, the state law starts and then the bio, the charter can't override the state law.
The bylaws can't override the charter. So, and on the way up and then, you know, yeah. So there's, there's an order of precedence and inheritance. Speaker 1: Right? So the state law and regulation comes first, state law, charter bylaws, and then, you know, town meeting, you know, town meeting time. And we have the, the thing with the CPA is simply a reference in town meeting time telling you about the existence of a state law, which means you can't write a bylaw to contradict state law. It's, it's actually, it's, it's any bylaw that contradicts state law is null and void.
We heard that from Paul Ensis like many times. It just that it'd never get past the ag. So the cpa, it's Speaker 10: A motion of, it's a motion of doubtful. Legality. Speaker 1: Yeah. Kind of. It, it is. Right. Speaker 10: Thanks for that clarification. I'll be happy to work on the consent agenda along. Okay. Accessibility. Is there anything else after the, Speaker 1: So accessibility and re so the remote and hybrid meeting, Jeff's gotta work Speaker 10: There. Chapter 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, or 12. Speaker 1: I didn't see it right? You're helping be, be free to look at those, but No,
Speaker 10: No, I'm just asking, I'm just trying to get the list. Speaker 1: Remote on remote and hybrid meetings. There is a, Jeff has an article on the warrant to create a special committee of town meeting to just to study that. Speaker 10: God bless him. Well, Speaker 8: Well, God bless the members of that committee if it gets established. I just have to point some smart people. Right. But the point, I think the point I would, I would bring up for this group though, is if there's something obvious in your read that should be, that could be handled now and it's not overwhelming to,
to propose the change. I don't know what it could be. I, you know, because, 'cause let, let me, let me explain where I'm going at. If, if the hybrid town meeting committee is established in the fall, it meets immediately and makes a report in the spring. That report may also include other proposed bylaw changes. If they see need for them in the spring. Those don't go in effect until, you know, after that meeting concludes. And there might be appropriations for vendors and things like that that we would do like a starter pilot. So in the ideal scenario, we're doing a pilot
and assuming all the legality stuff is done and the funding stuff is done, the vendor stuff is done. The pilot doesn't happen until fall of 2026. Any, anything that this group could do to shore up and set them on a good path. If you just call out even in a note or a report, not if not in a bylaw change, but it's sort of like a hey lateral handoff as part of your report. Part of your report, which is also on the warrant could be, Hey, we did this work, but we'd like to make sure that the, the hybrid town meeting committee, if established picks this up, that'd be fine. It doesn't have to be in the form of a bylaw change.
So if there's something really glaringly obvious that you're setting up future teams for success, I'm all for that. Speaker 1: So more like an issues list for that they might start with or consider who wants to take that and who wants to take accessibility in the same regard. Speaker 5: May I make a a suggestion that Yes, when you combine, when you combine two six with four three, you, you now have six, six sections that we're looking at. There's seven of us. So why don't we each select two and that way you said you wanted two people to work on 'em. Let's each pick two and see how it works, how it plays out.
If we're missing one, we can talk about it. Speaker 1: That works for, that works too. It's whatever the committee wants to do. So, Speaker 5: So we just down each person will give two and then we'll see where we are. Maybe, maybe it falls right out cleanly. So, Speaker 9: So what do you wanna do? Speaker 1: I'm, I'm happy with that. I just, somebody should probably take the lead in terms of thinking at least initially about remote and hybrid town meetings. Speaker 5: I'll look at, I'll Speaker 6: Do it. Speaker 1: Okay. All right. So Don, I think that's Bob and sa all. I'll give you two things on remote and hybrid town meetings right now to, I
Speaker 6: Don't mean to interrupt, but I, I said a while back I was interested in that. Speaker 1: Oh, okay. Yeah. Speaker 9: So it's Donna and solve. Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah. It's just Donna, your hand. Your hand doesn't raise. So I don't, it, it's hard to to know to recognize you, but, but thank you. The, I'm not gonna volunteer for that committee, Jeff, but I will tell you that two things that people on this committee and that that committee might want to think about is, one of the things that Harriet's looking at in terms of remote hybrid access kind of is gonna have a touchpoint
with written and screen materials. You have a, you know, when motions have to be in writing for appropriations or if, where everybody's voting for the handout, right? And it's now a different thing in the, on the screen than was mailed out in the fin com book. But there's been a handout on the table than not everybody's singing from the same sheet of music. Some people in the auditorium have a hard copy. Other people who are hybrid have an electronic copy. So that's gonna be something, you know, to, you know, to, you know, to think about whether, not hybrid people have
to get an email of an updated copy so that they can access that. The, the other is monitoring the quorum. So it's the right of any member to call the question the quorum at any point in time. You split them when the meeting gets split up. Right? It's impossible for anybody to monitor it. 'cause nobody, unless you have the Hollywood squares all up on the stage and the people who are at home watching get to see a video of the audience. And so somebody who wants to say, oh hey, there are a lot of, there are a lot of people that are like,
you know, look like they've left. I want to now question the quorum. So, you know, does the moderate do, do you ultimately consider, you know, a bylaw change where the quorum is monitored? That's for that committee to look at and see how, how do they work it in other communities like Plymouth, which has its own special act statute to hold a, you know, hybrid hold, hybrid town meeting. What do you do with people who turn their screen off? Are they there or not? What, what do you do with people who do this? Am I picking up my pencil or did I leave?
I you have a, there's a, there's a, and it really matters more when you're ready for votes, but those are some things that I would just park on your issues consideration list. So Speaker 9: I will do consent agendas. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 9: And I will do motions. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 10: Second in stating the mo Which one? Speaker 9: Yes. Se the seconding of the motions. Do you wanna do that too, Bob? Speaker 10: Yeah, I'll do both of those with you. Speaker 1: Okay. And then everybody should take a read through the book. When do you wanna meet next? Speaker 10: We, we have to turn in these bylaws.
Speaker 1: Fin comm's gonna want to hear from us as soon as possible. We can get the stuff that we approved earlier this evening on their agenda kind of much earlier. And you know, this stuff is probably gonna have to request further towards the end of their agenda just because it's, the books didn't, you know, the books didn't arrive and you know, the books didn't arrive. Speaker 10: Yeah, no, no, no. I know. And I, that's why I asked the question, like, how much time do we have in order to do this and come up with something, vote on it and then review with, because you know,
otherwise if we miss the window, then we're in the next spring. Speaker 1: Right. And no, and we go outta business at the end of, of the fall book. Speaker 10: Exactly. So Speaker 1: Yeah, let's put it Speaker 10: This way. You missed the window. Speaker 1: We're in the fifth inning of a ninth inning ball game and we just got, and we just got baseballs, right? The, the book just arrived. So I think everybody needs to, we, we need to, you know, pick up the pace a little bit. So Speaker 9: What about, I mean, it's already Wednesday. What about early in the week of September 8th?
What about the ninth? Tuesday the ninth to like come back with, with, you know, and have motions. If we have motions, we, you can send them to me and ahead of time and I can send them out to people. Speaker 1: Can people do a meeting on the ninth? Speaker 5: I can, Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 10: Yeah. Speaker 5: Of October. I'm assuming the 9th of October, right? Speaker 1: September is all September. Oh Speaker 5: No. Okay, that's still September. I'm in the wrong. That's a Tuesday. Speaker 1: Yeah. So that's gonna be, that's 13 days from today. There's a, you know, holiday weekend in the middle of that.
But you know, right. People should be able to get through, Speaker 9: They should be able to get Speaker 1: Through their, their assignments as well as kind of a general, you know, review of the book. Speaker 10: What's today? Today is Wednesday. Speaker 1: Wednesday and the 27th Speaker 5: Two weeks. You're talking about two Speaker 1: Weeks Speaker 10: Days. Do we need two, two weeks to do this Speaker 3: 'cause of labor day? Let's leave it at two weeks. That takes away everybody's argument. They don't have time. Speaker 5: Can I get back to the list? Does everybody have two items? Speaker 3: I've only got one, but you could assign me to whatever else. I Speaker 5: Only have one also, so we're not through with the list yet. Speaker 9: So you can look, Speaker 3: Why don't Speaker 5: We finish the list?
Speaker 1: Saul, why don't you take a look with Harriet at the written materials and the screen materials, which is 3.1 10 Speaker 3: And give me another one, whichever one you want. That's not, Speaker 5: That's not on the list. Speaker 3: Yes it is. It's 3.110 electronic presentation and written materials. So Speaker 10: You now have two, so, Speaker 3: And gimme another Speaker 10: One. Chris. I both have two. Donna needs another one. And Paul, Speaker 1: I think Donna has two. Speaker 10: Huh? Donna, Speaker 3: Do you want me to look into the accessibility?
Speaker 6: Is accessibility also part of remote hybrid? Is that to make? Speaker 10: Yes. Yes. I thought it was Speaker 3: Accessibility is different. So do you wanna do accessibility with me, Donna? Speaker 6: Yes. Speaker 10: Okay. Why has Paul been the, the whole time I've been listening to this, he keeps saying those two go together. Speaker 1: Well, they're highly related. So that one, you know, Speaker 6: I heard that too. So I wonder if Speaker 10: That's why I put a bracket around both of those to say that's, that's a, that's a cluster right there, which Donna and Saul was already gonna do.
Speaker 1: It doesn't hurt to have a third person look at it. Particularly if we're not gonna be coming up with things that the moderator and that special hybrid town meeting committee are gonna have to consider Speaker 3: At this point. I am so confused. Who's doing what to whom? So would somebody please, Speaker 1: I've got notes. I'm gonna type them up and we'll send them out after the meeting. And anybody who, beautiful. And here's the other thing. If anybody wants to look at additionally at any area, feel free. Speaker 10: Okay? Speaker 1: Feel free. There's no limit. Speaker 5: So when we come back to the next meeting now, do you expect that the two people who ha who are looking at a particular item have discussed it
with each other or we're gonna discuss it? Speaker 3: No, because then you have to post a meeting. Speaker 6: No, we're just doing this on our own and coming with our insights. Right. Okay. Speaker 5: Okay. Just clarifying. Speaker 9: And if you feel like, and if you feel like you're, from your insight, you have a motion that you think the committee could consider, you could send that to me and I could send all those out before the meeting. So, Speaker 1: Or if you feel, let's say you get to let you know, for example, you get to next Thursday, right? And you are, you know, or next, next Wednesday,
and you are thinking that we need a motion to deal with something here. We can call a subcommittee meeting and you know, I can get on or Chris can get on and we can discuss what it is and try and help write it. Right? The key is that when we're working in groups of more than we're, we're working in groups of two or more. It's, it potentially creates a subcommittee and all subcommittees have to post meetings. So Speaker 5: A can't why can't two people be considered a working group? Speaker 1: There's no distinction between a working group and a subcommittee.
Speaker 10: Yeah, Speaker 1: A working group is is Speaker 10: We've, we've dealt with this issue. We have many in the past. No, the whole point here is having a re intentional redundancy. That's what we're building in here. Right? We have two sets of two people looking at the same thing. Because you might see something that someone else might not see, which will come up when we talk about it. And that's okay. That's a good Speaker 1: One. We use this pro, we use this process. When we went through the charter, we assigned specific chat articles and sections to like two people. You review those two people and that's right. They came back and they reported what they found as a group.
We heard it and then we discussed it, then we moved to the next section. So we're kind of doing the same thing. Okay. Alright. Anything else from anyone? I don't see anybody from the committee. Donna, are you good? Oh, Speaker 10: Anything else for the, for our I'm good, thank you. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 5: Jeff had his hand up for something. Who didn't? Jeff. Jeff, I see his hand up there. Speaker 1: No, no, no. Alright. Speaker 10: Alright, Speaker 1: Saul, we're we're good? Okay. The, we don't have meeting minutes that are ready. So that takes us to item eight on the agenda.
Speaker 10: Is that Harriet? Speaker 1: Harriet? For what purpose do you seek the floor? Well, Speaker 10: Before that did Okay. Did we agree? Did we agree on September 9th as the meeting date? Speaker 1: I think so, Speaker 10: Because we kind of jumped, we were in it and we jumped back to the list again. So I'm make sure everybody was okay with that. 'cause I, we write in my calendar, I wanna make sure I'm supposed to be writing that down Speaker 6: Time. Did we set a time? Speaker 10: We, we did not, but I assume seven. That's what I just said. Seven is seven. Okay. Is seven okay? Yeah. Okay. Okay. I just wanna make sure about that. Okay. Cool. Speaker 1: Harriet, Speaker 10: I move to a politely adjourn
Speaker 5: Second. Speaker 1: Moved by Harriet. Seconded by Saul. Harriet, how do you vote? Speaker 10: Yes, Speaker 1: Saul, how do you vote? Yes, Bob, how do you vote? Speaker 10: Yes, Speaker 1: Donna, how is your vote? How do you vote? Sorry. Speaker 6: Yes, Speaker 1: Chris, how do you vote? Speaker 10: Yes Speaker 1: And I'm a yes. That is six. Zero. Zero. We are adjourned. Thank you all very much.