all right I'm going to call to order the uh March 21st 2024 um Norton select board meeting um all uh five members of the board are in attendance as well as James qu and Mike units from the town manager's office and um we'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance Peter I plg to the flag of the United States of America and for which one nation God indivisible withy and justice for all all right well since it's my fault we're all here at 6:30 thanks k um I will um try to explain um uh What uh what our only agenda item is tonight which is a discussion and or vote um on special town meeting article to amend the town Charter and if you remember this actually came up it was actually Steve and I's first um first town meeting um and the issue is around the uh the town Charter the wording in the town Charter and the um uh and the town manager's contract and essentially the issue comes down to there is a section and I passed the uh the language out to you guys so You' have it so first is the the language change that that I am proposing um and then also the um the current Charter language so the current Charter language has a section in it REM regarding removal of the Town manager okay and um when you read that wording it's pretty clear that that's intended to be for um removal for cause so um uh you know could be performance issues could be um something related to behavior could be any of those types of things okay um and that language specifies that in order to remove the town manager you need to have a super majority vote of the select board or four four votes okay um in addition it has other requirements attached to it again you can kind of see that those are things that would be required if the town manager was being removed for cause so for example um you have to have uh you have to have a reason for the removal okay um you have to um you have to pass a preliminary resolution you have to give the town manager um uh the opportunity to have a public hearing ostensively to defend himself from being removed um and um and then you have to have a final removal and then there's a final excuse me resolution of removal and then there's all these like you know within 10 days you have to do this within 14 days you have to do that etc etc etc I'm going to pause here and just make sure everybody's aware that this I'm not bringing this up um in any way as a reflection of the current Town manager okay so this is just something that is a inconsistency in our between our Charter and the town manager manager's contract um that I feel like we need to we need to address all right so so that's what the charter says okay the Town manager's contract um has a one-year notification requirement so we have to let the town manager know uh further than or more than one year before his uh contract expires that it's Our intention to non-renew him the in the in the contract language doesn't really say anything about super majority majority or any other requirements other than it's a contract that expires okay after after however long we've set it for so for example the current Town manager has a three-year contract contct with us that expires uh June 30th of 2025 so what's happened recently is there was a case um and I don't know where it was I I've I've contacted Town Council to give me a little bit more background on this but there was a case recently where there was a town manager who um was his contract ran out and the select board did not vote to remove him and the town manager pushed back and said well in the charter it says you have to do all the these things in order to remove me and the argument back was well that doesn't really count when it comes to non-renewal that's a removal and um the argument that that basically what how was resolved was the charter wins okay so even though it says it doesn't have say the super majority requirement or all these other things that are in the charter the T that's what governs whether or not the town manager's contract can be non-renewed all right so so I know you have questions but that's the start of it um there's another section in the charter that gives the select board the um uh when the select board enters into a contract with the town manager it uh has language in there regarding the term of the contract in the charter and it just says it's basically at the select board's discretion so what I'd also like to do is introduce language that would give the select board up to 5 years on a new on a contract for the town manager um I feel like it should be memorialized in the charter that the the selectboard has some bounds around it for how long they can give a contract to the town manager I feel like 5 years is fair I think many Town manager contracts are 3 to five years we don't want to say three years or one year because I feel like that would put us at a competitive disadvantage in hiring a new town manager because other towns are going to offer them three to 5year contracts and we would would be able to do that if we went less than that okay so um so those are the two issues that I I presented in the language that I presented tonight was to um basically in the section of the charter that that um uh mentions removal that nonrenewal of the contract of the Town manager's contract does not apply to removal so we're separating non-renewing a contract from from terminating a contract early because of cause Okay um and just a note when we hire a new tail manager it's only three votes on the seel select board and it's only three votes on the select board to uh renew the contract okay so it seems to me to be fairly consistent that three votes to non-renew should be would be reasonable um uh and then you wouldn't have all these other Hoops you need to jump through as well on a non-renewal so we'll start there and I'm ask for comments and thoughts on that I think this is perfectly aligned with common contract practice and it cleans up the loopholes and makes things um you more consistent so yeah makes sense to and just real quick I kind of started this thought and then didn't finish it the at the town meeting where you and I was our first town meeting we basically passed this question over um because I motion to pass it over there were a lot of questions Y and Steve U made a motion to to put it forth to another town meeting so yeah I believe the reason I had I moved to pass it over at the town meeting was that so we could come back and not get voted down because if it got voted down there was there was confusion on if it could be brought back at any time soon so yeah and it was and it was a lot of good questions and you know I think we'll be able to answer them this time if we put it in front Town any Kevin what is two questions I guess what is the infus behind bringing this um bringing this now as well as is is KP so I did ask KP for their they're working on a response to us right now so I only asked um Joe far at kp's office a couple days ago to to give us his opinion on on what it is um the um the reason to bring it forth now is it is kind of related to the current Town manager um which is the town our current Town manager's contract is up June of 2025 so if we were to give him a year notice of non-renewal we would have to do that before June 30th of 2024 um and then if we didn't do this at if this doesn't get through town meeting then we're going to be in that same spot we were years ago which is we have this inconsistency and then the chter the chart the chter the charter is going to um the charter is the law so the charter is going to guide how we would go about non-renewing and that case it would have to be considered a a removal under the town Charter did I answer your question mostly okay Meg do you have any questions no I think again it's straightforward I think it's good to clean it up now Steve um no I think it's straightforward as well I know um at the town meeting where we discussed this I think I think I was on board with the section two changes uh I wasn't I think initially it was a threeyear is what they first saiding yep y um and and I was kind of hesitant about that I don't like to you know because it we could want to hire a town manager for a 5-year contract um I think the concern initially was you know we going hire somebody for a 20-year contract and that's just ridiculous right and I don't think that would ever happen but I don't think I would never say that but you never know right so I think I think it's good for the town at town meeting to vote on whether or not the town has you know had put some limitations on the length for the contract I think five is reasonable you know yeah my my only hesitancy is is is rushing it before the town meeting but I understand the reasoning behind it so um that's my question is that we need kp's Graces on yeah so um so that's a question for you so if we vote tonight to put it on the town meeting um we can always amend it right correct at town meeting if there's anything that that that K he comes back and you can amend or remove prior to uh the warrant the warrant as I learned the hard way amending it at town meeting is is not the way to go if you if you if some of you recall um the other thing is I know um I do know that um KP reviewed this the language two years ago and I just used the same exact language yeah I think the only difference I saw was the the five years it's years yeah all right if there's no questions or concerns take a motion make a motion to approve the revised language as motion to put put on the special motion to I make a motion to put revise child language on the special town meeting uh warrant as written second okay is have a motion in a second any further discussion okay all in favor I any oppos okay all right new record motion to CL oh wait oh sorry yeah oh yeah yeah we do have okay we do have an an announcement uh the spring uh egg hunt at the Wheaten college chapel lawn for this Saturday has been postponed to the following Saturday March 30th because of the impending weather so the the the egg hunt at the weaton college chapel uh lawn that was originally scheduled for this Saturday the 23rd is postponed to uh the following Saturday March 30th uh because of the 11 all right thank you Al all right I will take entertain a motion to for the select board to go into recess until 700 p.m. uh so moved soov second I mean second have a motion at a second any discussion all in favor I opposed great