 Good evening and welcome to the select board meeting of May 2nd 2018. I'm going to call the meeting of order at 6 o'clock 1 p.m. We're meeting here in the middle school previous to the second session of town meeting. We have fairly light agenda. Does anyone have any announcements or agenda related things they want to bring up at this point? Well, just I had emailed you earlier today, Mr. Slatter, did you get it about the reconsideration? I did. Okay, and so I'm wondering when and how. I mean we have a broad category that I could fit under at least to decide. Yeah. I could fit up again and so I didn't know. I'm going to have to talk more at this minute. I just wanted to know what you were thinking was about. Yes, I did get that and I don't have a problem with it for revisiting it, I think. Because first of all, when we first discussed it, Mr. Steinberg wasn't there. It was article 33, correct? I wrote it down sometimes. I think so, but it will probably be next week, right? Either Monday or Wednesday next week, which I think would give us enough time. To talk about it next Monday or? Right. Okay. I think so. I'll let the manager know first. Or he could ask you if they want to put it back on. Right. I mean. If no one wants to talk about it again except me, then there's no point. Okay. I'll pull the group. Okay. All right. That seems fair enough. So we'll, I'll reach out to folks regarding article 33 and whether we want to bring it up again. Is everything all right? Nothing changed. Oh, you're not getting sound? No. Testing. All right. So on our agenda tonight, that we have a specific item to take up is article 37, which petition article relative to noise bylaw. And we, when we were reviewing after we'd gotten the memo from KP law relative to things that could or could not or be taken action on, that tell me it could and could not take action on relative to the warrant. We didn't have this particular article on our agenda. So we couldn't take a specific motion relative to it and that particular memo. So I don't know. Have you heard anything about what might be moved this evening relative to this one? What? I don't know if it will be this evening, but Or not this evening, but whenever. The last I heard from the screen was going to be dismissed. Right. But, and I've also heard rumors that it would not be dismissed. Right. So I think this one, you know, my reading of the KP law memo relative to this one was that it was clearly not something that tell me it should take action on at this time. And so I, I don't know if anybody had any other comment relative to it or any Concerns that they wanted to raise at this point relative to it. Almost at the end. Yeah. So the recommendation that we come in was recommend dismissal. We hadn't recommended to dismiss, but actually I think more explicitly with those articles we, we made note of the fact we shouldn't really take action. Therefore the dismissal is the action allowable, but we, we sort of expressed a confirmation that it wasn't consistent with the charter transition. So it's somewhat of my, my point about 33 supplemental drawings, which we're not going to talk about tonight, but is when we were crafting these motions, I think we had an understanding that we were needing to, to decide this and that it would have an impact on what town meeting could vote on or not. And I, my understanding of that has changed or the meetup on that has changed. So I'm wondering say we recommend dismissal and that's defeated. And we're back to voting on it. We don't have a position. I mean, does this, I guess this covers that we wouldn't support. Well, I think that this, what this also expresses, I think is that there may be other action after town meeting that we might endeavor to do relative to town meeting action. If we felt it was, you know, an inappropriate thing we might, one of the things that's been suggested is potentially including in, you know, a letter to the attorney general to suggest we were advised by town council not to act on this. And so I think there's a bit of a disagreement between what town council, attorney had recommended to you and what town moderator interpretates. So as a town moderator interprets his duty is that he has to dispose of every article. So that those options are to dismiss or to refer or to vote it up or down. And so the options I think what, and so I think that he will be entertaining motions on this. And he previously used, you were, I think the board's feeling in town, attorney's opinion was that it should not even be considered. But it will be in his interpretation. So that if you recommend dismissal, then you should be prepared. If that fails, do you want to recommend referral to the new council? If that fails, then yes or no on the, on the main motion. Right. And that's why I felt like on some of these, since they will be allowed to be voted on, even if an individual has said he might ask for dismissal, I have a sense any, if that's for dismissal, might in fact be defeated. And we, some people very much want to vote on this. Right. So do we need to at least have our presenter be prepared to talk about the measure, not just the part that says not inconsistent, but the merits are not of the article. Right. And this one, I think we may get to that. Right. Right. Mr. Walden, do you have something? I mean, I think the manager puts it well. This is the problem I have is that if we can't take it off the work, for the reasons we've mentioned, it seems to me we should get a very clear instruction to the moderator that we see only two possible options for this. You know, I think, I don't know if we can do that, but to say recommend dismissal is not consistent, I would almost probably have an emotion that says, you know, find this to be inconsistent and conclude that the only possible votes on this article are dismissal or referral. Then let the moderator go in front of everyone and tell them why we're wrong. But I agree also with the manager that it would be foolish not to have a fallback position because for the reasons Ms. Krueger said, there are a number of reasons that a dismissal could not be the ultimate outcome. I mean, assuming we feel that it's the negative vote of what these are. Let's look. Who's presenting on that? Ms. Brewer will be me. It could be Ms. Brewer. No. You were gone for this. I'm not 37. Oh, it's Ms. Brewer? Yeah. I guess one question I'd pose is that if we recommend dismissal, does that tacitly imply we do not recommend or are those distinct enough that we draw those? I mean, we had some where we liked the substance, but thought it was inconsistent. Right. And there's some where we didn't like the substance and also. So I think we have to be prepared to speak to both of those issues when we present. Right. That was it. Do we want to consider a motion relative to this one? Which might involve a series of positions depending on outcomes, which I'm perfectly fine with those. So I'm thinking even if my position would still be to recommend dismissal for the substance, but, you know, if dismissal has already failed, then that's why I think when we present it has to be both because it's inconsistent and also if it is to be voted up or down. These are, you know, three objections if that's what the conclusion is of this group. Mr. Wolk. I guess I'm thinking out loud here, but, you know, part of what makes me think we should make a stronger statement is I've heard some of my people in the public saying you should allow these articles to go through or you should not allow them to go through. And I've heard my colleagues sometimes say we have to be really strict about this and we don't care what K.P. Law says. They may think it's permissible, we don't. So it seems to me if we're going to make those kind of judgments that may be at odds with the Town Council, then if we think this is really inconsistent with the Charter, we really have to make that statement strongly. And I'm not going to get the point where they're just saying dismissals as non-consistent is good enough. Is it good enough to have the person on our behalf make that part of the statement for the rationale or do we have to be more directive toward the moderator? With all that that entails. So that's a question, not an answer. So the one where we were inconsistent with the guidance document, I had emailed Mr. Slaughter and asked if not tonight, then it may be Monday that we had a chance to reconsider because if the moderator is going in a different direction than what we thought when we were taking that strict path, you know, I don't mind if people are unhappy with me, but to have them unhappy for no reason because it's going to happen anyway, then maybe we'd do better saying we supported it or we don't rather than pick the one out that it seems at this point maybe the only one where we are being inconsistent with the guidance and being stricter to what avail if the moderator's already decided he's going to let those go ahead. I guess there's another thing for the post mortem or post dummy discussion that the coordination or lack thereof, not coordination, but the difference in points of view or clarity of explanation between town council and town meeting moderator and our body is frustrating. It should be simpler than this. It should be, but it's not. It never is. People have their... It's unfortunate that the sequence wasn't a little bit better if we had gotten earlier advice from town council that putting something on the warrant constituted a judgment that it was an important matter for the town, we would have reviewed the warrant differently, but we're beyond that now and we can't go backwards in time. Maybe the thing to do is to vote a position and I think we all know where we lean on the position, but in the statement originally suggest to Ms. Brewer in the statement in support of dismissal to at least put in a little bit about the problems with the proposal so that there are reasons stated beyond just that we think that it's contrary to advice of council is an appropriate action of this town meeting and then if it comes up on a main motion, it gives her the opportunity to say that we are recommending against it for reasons I've already stated to you and let me expand on it a little bit or sort of however she proposes to handle it. Yeah, I think KP Law has put out a lot of explanations. Can you be back a little bit? KP Law has put out a lot of explanations on why it shouldn't be active and very substantive on the content. So you would have the procedure and the content is two arguments, right? Yeah, but I think we may need to put that out at the beginning not just dismiss because it's inconsistent. We could go down on that one. Right. So would someone like to craft a motion? Oh. I think the motion could be fairly simple. There's one on the motion for you. Probably. It's big bullet down. The river is being very forceful. We've already moved recommended dismissal. So haven't you already done this motion in essence? We've not. You have not voted on it. Oh, you haven't voted on it at all. We voted dismissal, I think. Pre-standing dismissal, I think. I don't think you took them. No, I think we did it for whatever reason. It's not early when you're doing review, the very first time you're looking at warrants. Oh, right. We didn't vote it because we were waiting for this. We didn't have the guidance. And then our last meeting, there were specific articles listed and this one wasn't. Right. What's on the agenda? Yeah. That's right. So I think perhaps relative to this motion, we could say what's in the bowl there as far as not consistent but then add and whatever else relative to other reasons if we wanted to not pay us solely that. Except that we don't usually put our reason in the motion. No, right. Come on, Ms. Burris-Inscript. Yeah. Yeah. So if we use this as long as we add that element to the statement. Okay. So what I came up with when you read it all the way through to make sure it makes sense after having written something in the middle of it would be move to recommend dismissal of article 37, petition to amend general noise bylaw to the April 30, and 2018 annual town meeting is inconsistent with the charter transition process. And if that motion fails and there is a motion on the substance of the article, the select board does not recommend this article. Okay. Second. It was the second. Yeah. All right. Is there further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. So it's four to zero with one absent. Okay. I hear my son. So thank you for that, Mr. Steinberg. I appreciate that. This is, I think we may, you know, speaking of 33, we may want to revisit sort of, if nothing else, our talking points relative to whether it's the merits of the article and also consistent or inconsistent with transition or just one or the other. Right. Because we've been working with those standards more and getting more clarification. Right. Right. So I think the other, so that takes care for A, for B is the charter bylaw review committee charge. Right. I think there, did you want to introduce this a little bit? Sure. So. Can you give it back? You can just keep the motion sheet, but we have a charge. Thanks. So a member of the committee brought to our attention that the charge of the committee is not consistent with the statement in the charter where the charge, the name of the committee is listed as general bylaw review committee and the charge lists a review of the town general bylaws and a member of the committee said the charter does not hold, it's just general bylaws, it just says bylaws and question if their task was restricted to just general bylaws or all bylaws. So we have here to see, we had looked at this and then we revised it on April 23rd and this is the revisions. These are the revisions you made. Did we vote it? At that time. Okay. So we would be right, we're voting a revision. Could we discuss the 29,000? Yes, we discussed this at the retreat. It was the opening fight we had. So in the actual charge itself, we just say bylaws. In the name we say general. In the charge it actually says general. Because that's fine. Oh, okay. No, we didn't, I thought I wanted to have it. We didn't reserve it. Well I guess I'll repeat what I said the other day at our meeting of the 28th is I think that under the larger heading of bylaw, there's general bylaws and there's zoning bylaws. They're both bylaws and I think it's too soon to know that there's absolutely nothing to be looked at in the zoning bylaw. There may be very little there compared to in the general bylaws, but to me, bylaw is inclusive of both of those categories and this makes sense to strike the word general in the title and in the second line. Oh, and then we'd have to change the revised date. Change the what? The date of the bylaw. Oh, right. Is that a motion? That's what I move. Okay. I sort of said why because in time. All right. Yeah, go ahead. Second date we can talk afterwards. Right. So there's a second. So we're taking the word general out of the name and out of the second line of the charge and obviously changing revision date. Yeah. Is there further comment? Mr. Wall. I mean, because we had, you know, there was some difference of philosophical opinion last time about what it meant tonight. I was somewhere in between, but I agree that the charter language is simple and says bylaws and the common sense reading of that is all the bylaws. I also understand that we're more likely, I mean, we were thinking right now that we're more likely to find issues, even if only clerical mechanical to be found in general bylaws rather than zoning bylaws. So my question is this is perfectly fine. My question is should we give some kind of further clarification or instruction to the committee or just allow them to, because they're all experienced people to proceed in whatever manner they want. And did the question simply either explicitly raised or implicitly deal with the wording and scope of the whole thing? Or was there some sense of content or priority or desire behind that? So it was just the title and the scope of their task. And I think that as they begin their work, which we're thinking about in the week or so once we get through the first week or two of town meeting and they're prepared for that, that there might be, I think there's likely other areas of scope that come up that they may want to come and review with you, because I think that that's something that, you're a creation of the charter but also you're the appointing authority, so you would be the logical people to review. The other thing I would comment on is that at least at this point I'll serve a sort of liaison to that and I can convey any messages we want. So it's clear that the zoning has created some trepidation in some of the membership here, just because it unpacked a whole different aspect of the review a little bit. I don't think it's problematic, but at the same time I'll convey the conversation we had to them. So I guess that the only concern that I had is some people of the three, someone or more of the three may have signed up with an understanding that it was only general bylaws that they were being asked to review and so we do need to do something to inform the members of the committee other than the person who raised the question that this changes the potency if that affects their willingness to serve, because zoning is such a specialized area they may feel, one or more may feel concerned about that. Now we have another participant for this important question. It's great to add that I think that the statement of the chair's willingness to serve as Liaison and the phrasing here that we'll be able to assist to satisfy me that we can address that. But Mr. Steinberg has raised a good question. I'm assuming if there are different expectations they will come to us sooner or later. If you voted this then we would circulate back out and say is this, are you still on? Yep. So we do technically have a motion on the order. Any thoughts? Now that you've come in and had 12 seconds to process what we're talking about. Can I ask a quick question? Sure. So are we having to make a choice between including it for the sake of including it and then losing a committee member? Or not. Because if any of our committee members feel overwhelmed by the fact that it includes, and maybe you already addressed this so I'm sorry, that it includes zoning then I would hate to lose them because that to me was not the focus here. But if they want to do it because they think it connects then that's great. But I'm trying to avoid a strict interpretation that will best leave us wanting for members. Because I'm not convinced the strict interpretation is necessary. We don't know. I think we don't know at this point whether or not it would or if the expectations of this change would be different than what those that volunteered to do it had in their mind. So I don't know. Is this time sensitive or could we with people who had been speaking to the members initially to gauge their interest would we want to take some time between now and our next meeting to have that conversation? You know, in line with Mr. Steinberg's document. Right. And I don't think, even what you were saying about when we are likely to sort of convene a group, we do have probably another week or so. So we can wait on it. I'm confused. So we haven't sent the letters out? No, we did. So we did. So if the letters are already sent out, so they have their first meeting and they talk about it more. And then they decide to quit. I mean I, obviously I'm late and I'm not going to ask you to reiterate everything and I think we've discussed it previously in general sense. And so I have every faith that if they get together and they say, you know what, we don't want to do this part they still have that ability to say they don't want to do it. And they don't have to quit because they don't want to do it. They can decide amongst themselves that's not our focus but it may turn out that we want to talk about it. I just don't want to feel like we did a big switch for them. Maybe because you came in a little Mr. Steinberg just said theoretically well what if one of the three people didn't, you know, this becomes a potential issue for them is saying is then they'll voice that at the first meeting and work it out. So it would seem given that because we don't have anyone who said if it's that I'm leaving we could potentially go ahead, it's on our agenda we could potentially go ahead and make that change now and assume that the three people will work it out. Or maybe they say look I don't care about that part, you do that and I'll do this. Right and if Mr. Slaughter is comfortable in having that conversation with them because again this is the only thing and this is not just a very strict rule thing that we came up with five bullet points they're supposed to do, it's much broader than that so I think that seems fair because I think there is a chance actually that one of the people I spoke with would if they felt obligated to do the entire zone by law would leave. And so I would rather not put them in that position but rather let them have the conversation and then decide what they want to. So in that case we could probably go ahead with our motions on the floor which is to take up the generals yep in the name and in the second line and of course then update the revised date is there further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor please say aye. Opposed? I am not opposed I just want to make sure that the bottom of the charge just because of the weird setup that we currently have with our other charges should show the SME status was voted on this certain date so the SME status should be voted as of the previous date April 23rd and then the revised date I guess would be tonight. So voted April 23rd? The SME status date as of today. Rather than just yes. Good point. Because you wouldn't be able to find it in these minutes. That's for sure. Alright. So that was unanimous though? Okay. As amended again. Great. Alright so are there any other logistical issues related to town meeting that we need to deal with at this point? Not done yet. No. No special license or anything like that. So I believe we have exhausted our agenda for the evening so I will take a entertain a motion to just to adjourn? Are we are we adjourning this time? Or shall we just recess? We should probably just recess. I think you can just declare that as chair. Alright. We'll take a recess until we decide to adjourn. So could I ask this to clarify? So I understood why we were going to do that Monday from the standpoint of we might need to get back together then Monday night still. Are we talking at this time about meeting adjourned? We're only talking about meeting after. After if we needed to hopefully not because otherwise we're not meeting until Monday. Right. And at last on Monday the chair reported that you adjourned at the conclusion of town meeting. Right. Right. Friendly reminder. Let's remember to adjourn ourselves. Yes. We did. We did. So we are in recess. Thank you very much.