 Calling the meeting of the Governance Organization and Legislation Committee to order at 10.30 a.m. because the quorum is present and I am now going to turn as chair, I'm going to turn the running of the meeting over to our Vice Chair Evan Ross for today. Take it away. All right, thank you. So we have an agenda in the meeting packet. However, we're going to start with an item that is not on the agenda, under items not anticipated by the chair, 40 hours in advance, which is consideration of this resolution that we receive resolution affirming support for access to safe and legal abortion in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and across the United States. Our purview as Governance Organization and legislation, of course, is to review it for clarity, consistency, and actionability in its content and organization. And so of course we're not discussing any of the content of the resolution, but simply whether it is clear, consistent, and actionable. And so does anyone have, I'm assuming we've all read the resolution before coming here today, does anyone have any comments, questions, recommended changes? Pat. I'm recommending on page three, the bottom paragraph, I'm recommending on page three, the bottom paragraph be it further resolved that the, instead of administrative assistant to the Amherstown Council, it should read clerk of the council. Okay. I think that generally accepted, since we don't have an administrative assistant to the Amherstown Council. Other recommended edits? Mandy? I have two syntactical ones. They are on page three at the very top, the sort of continued on paragraph. Okay. I believe the verbs prohibits and requires need to be singular, prohibit and require. So I would just get rid of the S's based on how it's worded in that whole paragraph. Prohibit political. Because it's a two clause. Yeah. I think syntactically that makes sense. Probably a comma after abortion care? We're in the same paragraph. I don't think the comma is needed because it's only two. Well, it's insurer. No, the insurer. And then it says, and among other provisions is where another comma is right before the prohibit. Other comments, questions? We have Lynn Morgan here. As to field any questions or, Steve, George? No. No? Any issues in terms of actionability? No, I see. Does anyone see any issues with actionability? I mean, I think the only action is asking us is to, we support and then commit and then send something on. Yeah. I don't see how that's not actionable. Certainly. Okay. So clear, consistent, actionable. Any final comments before we have a vote? Yes. I hope you all vote in favor of it at the meeting. Okay. All right. So without, I will entertain a motion to declare the resolution as amended, clear, consistent, and actionable. Any further discussion? Yeah. Pat seconded. All right. So call the question. All those in favor of declaring the resolution as amended, clear, consistent, actionable. Aye. Raise your hands. Aye. All right. unanimous. Thank you. Thank you. No, so it's good to have a sponsor here just in case it comes up. This one was, this is also the first time that we have reviewed a resolution. The only issue I have with it is that it's quite long. Yeah. But everything in it is. Champact. Yeah. All right. So in that case, we will move on to consideration and discussion of revisions to newly adopted rules of procedure. So this is what we've been working on for the last two meetings that we're hoping to have a recommendation to the council for their July 22nd meeting. So one is a discontinuation of a discussion we had on June 5th. There was a motion to add to section 2.2 H that the president serves as the spokesperson of the full council. We did not at that time take a vote at our last meeting. We were prepared to discuss this, but realized that the maker of the motion, I believe was Steve and the seconder of the motion was Pat. And since neither Pat or Steve were present at our last meeting, we felt that it was perhaps inappropriate to vote on a motion when the people who made it were not present. And so we tabled it until today. So this is section 2.2 H6 of the word document. Thank you. That's exactly what I needed. So 2.2 powers and duties of the president and vice president. There has been a recommendation to add a H to that, that the president serves as the spokesperson of the full council. Our discussion over that I believe from June 5th was whether or not the president was the only point of contact. What does it mean to be the spokesperson of the full council? When is it appropriate for the president to speak and when is it appropriate for individual counselors to speak? I believe there's still a motion, an active motion to add that. So I'd like to continue the discussion on that. Does anyone have any comments on whether or not to add a rule that the president serves as the spokesperson of the full council? Noting this was an edit I believe from a previous drafted text that had, that was a little more detailed. I don't have it in front of me. Where do you have it? So it doesn't exist in the rules of procedure yet. It would be a recommended addition but it's on our agenda. Mandy. I still don't know what to do about this because I don't know if it's clear enough to indicate in order for counselors to be able to follow. I know our last discussion dealt with who can speak as counselors. Is this one with just the wording of full council clear enough to indicate that, hey, if a news place calls us up because, say, Pat's sponsoring this row resolution, can she talk about it in her own counselor capacity or would, if we adopt this 2.2H, would that violate this? I still don't know whether this language is clear enough to say yes, she can. Or whether it's going to create those provisions, those, not provisions, those sort of questions. Right. And I believe that was also at the time that George is concerned that the rule doesn't necessarily provide any clear guidance. Is that correct, George? So I guess what's our goal with having such a role? Steve? Well, I think the goal is to actually clarify this exact issue because we have gotten messages from the president stating that, you know, media inquiries shall be sent to, you know, I'm paraphrasing, but to me the impression is you shall not talk to the media. You shall refer any queries from the media to me. And I think we need to clarify if that's really what the council wants or not. So I think that offering something that should be obvious that she can speak for, you know, speaking for the town council. The president, Greece mayor, said blah, blah, blah. That's totally appropriate. But then other councils can, should and can also speak to the media. So that's how I, I think a rule is important. So as opposed to no rule, so that we have at least a response to this. So in one case, one particular case is that I did speak to the media, then we got this email, don't speak to the media. And so the reporter said is there an actual rule in this? It says this. I don't think so. Right. And so the original language that was sent to us from the rules committee in the document rules recommendations for GOL was the president shall serve as spokesperson for all press inquiries and correspondence addressed to the full council. The motion that was made was simpler again and it was just served as spokesperson of the full council. So it sort of removed correspondence and media directly called out from that. So is the simplification then we're looking for to write counselor some sense of clarity, right? And so how do we do that? And does that simplification take away clarity or for counselors? Because I don't personally feel as though spokesperson for all press inquiries and correspondence necessarily offers me as a counselor any more information. George. I mean, I certainly appreciate that. I'm sorry. Was George... No, no. Please go ahead, George. No, I understand. Thank you. Okay. Pat. I haven't took my face as thinking face. I did. I did. And interpreted as speaking. That's all right. It's a thinking face. What I'm... I feel grateful that Lynn responds to the emails that go to all of the council. Yeah. So that's positive. I also feel sometimes I still respond because either I know the person or the issue concerns me in a certain way. I don't say anything more than what Lynn has said, but I feel it's important that I respond. I'm concerned just like I cannot speak for the full council. I don't know if the president can truly speak for the full council because... Unless we've taken a vote, unless we've... Unless she's pulled all of us. I think at that point she needs to speak as her position as a counselor. I'm not sure about all this. So I'm playing with it. I'm also feel like it's okay if the media contacts her. But I think that if they contact us, we should be able to make up our mind. I don't have... I haven't had any need to respond independently to the media, but I would not like that right being taken away if there was something that I really strongly disagreed with. I'm bumbling around. George? I think, on the other hand, we don't want a situation which is just a free-for-all where anybody and everybody can talk to the media whenever and they feel like there is a certain sense, I think, to the vast majority of inquiries and these sorts of situations to have a single voice. So I guess we're trying to find a way to balance what seems to me a practical and reasonable desire which I think would cover most cases, I may be wrong, but against the desire of individual counselors to speak on matters of importance to them and to their district or just matters of importance to them without having to be sort of cleared or approved and I don't see it, I don't have an answer to this yet, but it seems these are the two things and they both seem, we could just say, look, anybody and everybody can speak to the press whenever they want and Lynn doesn't speak for the council any more than anybody else does. We could just say that. I would not make that motion. But someone could... There's still currently a motion, an open motion on the table we should just say. No, it's just doing a hypothetical one that I would not endorse, but that I see as an extreme view, but maybe the rest of you don't see it that way, but I see that as the extreme view and we're trying to find a place. And Evan has said that the original GOL language doesn't really help him. I wonder if we could go back to that just for a second and just listen, I just need to hear it one more time and maybe Evan can help me understand how it's not helping him. In other words, that was an attempt and it seemed to fail, at least for Evan and maybe for everybody else. And then we went to this very general language which seems to tell us nothing. So if we could just... Evan, if you wouldn't mind, I don't have it in front of me, I showed the language, the original GOL. Right, so I don't actually... This is an original GOL language. This is the document, rules recommendations for GOL that I believe was compiled by the Rules of Procedure Committee before they dissolved with a list of 11 things they wanted GOL to consider. Number five on that is, advise on whether to add a section to the rules that states that the president shall serve as spokesperson for all press inquiries and for correspondence addressed to the full council. And so the only thing that I see is different is between what we have in front of us in the motion and this is that this specifically assigns the president as spokesperson for press inquiries and correspondence addressed to the full council. Whereas ours is a bit more general saying that the president serves as the spokesperson. The reason I don't necessarily feel like this provides more clarity to me is my assumption is when you say the president is a spokesperson, anytime the council is asked something for the opinion of the council, it's the president, it sets the president as the default whereas this sort of only really does it for press inquiries and correspondence off the top of my head. I don't know what other things there might be. But generally I don't often like to call out specifics unless I feel like there's a real need to. And so I don't know if maybe if the president is at a meeting somewhere and is asked a question and she responds as president of the council, that would be not a press inquiry or how we picture correspondence but would be the president serving a spokesperson and so. But I think that maybe to help direct us, there's really two questions here that I'm hearing float around. One of which is does the president speak on behalf of the council? When the president speaks in response to correspondence or press inquiry, is that on behalf of the council, is that speaking for the council which is one thing that I heard a little bit certainly from Pat and Steve. And then the second thing is how do we provide guidance to counselors of essentially when is it okay to respond and when is it not okay to respond. And I think to some extent those are two separate but related questions. Steve? Yeah, so if we had a mayor it'd be somewhat simpler because the mayor speaks for the mayor. So the president of the council is not exactly a mayor. So one example and I don't is all the DPW press releases in which the president is quoted. So we as a council didn't approve those quotes. We didn't approve. There's an implication that this is a value of the town. I happen to agree with everything, pretty much everything that was said but it's not, you know, it's still not, she's not speaking for the council. So it's complicated because I don't know who she's speaking for. She's speaking as the president but she's not speaking. So speaking as the president has a lot of weight but she's not speaking for the council she's just speaking. Any thoughts? Some of this could be a test of the leadership and character of the person who has been chosen as president and the council can form judgments over the course of a year. So maybe there's only so much we can put into a rule and I think whatever, I think everyone's right, whatever we do put in a rule should be helpful to people looking out and should tell them something as opposed to some just banal generality but we perhaps shouldn't try to or maybe we just can't put a rule in that covers every possible case and there's going to be just an area where counselors will form their own judgment about how a president deals with these sorts of things and if they're not happy they can express that both to the president personally also to the council and eventually if they really are unhappy could, you know, decide that they would not like this person to continue as president assuming that they chose to try and do that. So maybe we try to get a rule that's clear enough that it actually does say something but not try to get a rule that covers every possible case because they will never get that and keep in mind that part of this is judgment and we may or may not agree with the president every time she or he makes a judgment but it's something that comes with time and we, you know, an experience. So. That was helpful for me, George in the sense that I don't think Lynn has said anything at any time that I that bothered me in some way that I wanted to make a public statement about it. I think she's done a good job of speaking about issues and I think that is part of the role of the president is to speak for the council. It just feels it just feels like a limit but I agree that it could be addressed. If I really had something that I needed to say to the paper I could certainly call Lynn and then I'm speaking as myself as a counselor if I then go ahead and do the paper thing. I don't know. So I think George is right. It can be fairly direct and simple. So are people okay with this again Evan, I'm asking you this it says specifically all press inquiries and correspondence addressed to the full council. So, you know, any kind of, you know, letter that comes or email that comes addressed to the full council Lynn always responds to and I appreciate that. And we at least so far agreed not to respond. But if something is sent to me individually I would assume that we all can respond to that individually. We don't clear that with the president. We don't hopefully we use our judgment too but that's a separate matter. So are people I think that does provide me with some sense of clarity that if it's a correspondence or press inquiry that's addressed to the council we want the president to respond if we're not happy with the response that's something we can deal with at some other time but we're okay with that. But individual inquiries if somebody, you know, like you mentioned Evan, someone sent a correspondent called Pat and wants to talk about this resolution and addresses her directly I assume that's Pat's call, right? Or no. Mandy? So I'm trying to figure out whether I like sort of the language that was proposed out of the rules committee or not discussed in rules but came out of rules by a member or the motion that's currently on the table which is just service spokesperson of the full council. And I keep going back and forth. But maybe the original sort of language that was presented to us is better because it's less broad and more specific and the current motion is service spokesperson for the full council. That's really broad and I think why it's not helping me because it's so broad but as George was talking about for all press inquiries and for correspondence addressed to the full council I can see situations where if a press reporter calls me up that's not addressed to the full council. But if the reporter calls up town hall and says we want to comment from the council town hall knows well that's addressed to the council that goes to the president. And so I think this wording might need to the full council might need to be clarified as to what that clause applies to that it applies to both segments in that wording but maybe that wording is more helpful to not just councilors but staff and town staff of if it's addressed if correspondence or press inquiries are addressed to the council we want we're sending it to the council who responds but if it comes to us with a phone call to our personal number that's not addressed to the full council and so I could choose to or not I could push it off and say no you really need to talk to the president on that one or I could respond myself. So maybe that more specific language is better with a little tweaking to make sure to the full council is clearly applying to both clauses. What about ceremonial situations where again we have been quite comfortable and maybe that's just not an issue here but I'm thinking of all the kinds of situations where many of us are present but Lynn speaks for the council saying thank you you know we're glad we're here whatever that would seem to be general statement covers that kind of situation so ceremonial public events we are comfortable with and would expect the president to speak and at least on one or two occasions she's then when she's not available to the vice president again seems appropriate. Does that need to be in the rules and this current statement is that would cover that it covers everything but being precise in talking about press inquiry and correspondence do we need to add something to the effect that and in general speaks for the council in public settings or is that just assumed is that so the rules cover that already on 2.2e just look up three lines perform ceremonial functions but the charter actually does say the president shall perform ceremonial functions and on the other duties so that part is covered. Thank you. So I think that my only real I'm actually wondering if maybe sort of a hybridized version of the two might be best and I think that the reason that I'm not so president serves a spokesperson of the full council says that anything that's intended to represent the opinion of the council comes from the president much like what Mandy Joe said. So if I go out and I say a whole bunch of things no one's going to think that's the council speaking right but when Lynn says things people say okay well this is coming as her as her role as the council and I do think that's appropriate I mean I think that the town manager speaks on behalf of town staff I think that department head speak on behalf of their department so I think it makes sense for her to be able to do that what I think sort of bothers me about this language is sort of the the way I read it is the president is the person who responds to all press inquiries and corresponds to address to the full council I think I read it that way because that's how it's intended right but I'm thinking about when we were getting a lot of emails for 132 Northampton road Lynn responded to every single one that was addressed to the full council and I'm very grateful she did because I couldn't keep up with them there were also some that were addressed to just me and those I responded to but there were also some that were addressed to the full council but came from constituents of mine right people in district four and I responded to those two and I said my email always said I know you've already received a response from the president but I wanted to also respond to you as your district counselor and there's a reading of this that could say well that was addressed to the full council Lynn had to respond to that that wasn't for you to respond to but I feel like I have the I'm not speaking on behalf of the council but if I want to reach out or you know after the the date was changed for the you know I emailed every person from district four who had emailed the full council and just so you know that date has been changed on this open meeting because not all of them I'm not sure had been emailed by the president and so I don't want to rush I don't want to so I guess maybe with something that says the president shall serve as spokesperson of the council for all press inquiries so in other words when it's addressed to the full council and she's speaking she's I don't want to rule that hints to counselors that they can't respond even though I do sort of feel like that's the intention of this rule right and that's why I think that the simpler language is just clarifying look only the president can speak on behalf of the full council but it didn't necessarily restrict any individual counselors ability from responding to anything because I I do feel like there have been some counselors who have felt as though they were not not officially reprimanded but sort of it was frowned upon that they had responded right and I don't necessarily feel like that's appropriate if we want to respond we should as long as it's clear that that response doesn't represent the whole council right Steve yeah so then I always have and what's the implication so let's pretend that I talked to the Gazette and I say no I can speak for the council that we're all totally against this so what are the implications he that gets published do I get censured do I what happens I mean in other words we don't have a fine it's totally inappropriate what happens if I do it I break the rule so yeah no we don't have well just never speak to him again I mean it's he'll be shunned I I would say if it's a rule broken the implication is a potential censure or some sort of I mean there's nothing in our rules that say how do we enforce these but I guess there could be a motion that says any other counselor could make a motion at some point that says I moved a censure counselor Schreiber for breaking rule blah blah blah blah on this day I I really think that you you know the answer to your own question because it really is that we speak for ourselves as counselors we don't speak for the council so we've been talking about this for kind of a while and many Joe I was gonna say could I suggest maybe an alternate wording serve as the spokesperson of the council to all or for all inquiries and correspondence addressed to the full council service spokesperson of the council for all inquiries and correspondence addressed to the full council so we have a motion on the table so we have a couple options we can the motion maker could withdraw that motion and you could make that motion or we could you could offer that as an amendment and we could write on that if people feel like they prefer there's my sense of the group seems to be that no one except maybe me likes the language of the actual motion so and I was the maker of the motion you were the maker I believe right we have to check the minutes but I think that was the discussion last time the motion on the table is to add section 2.2 h sir that the president serves as spokesperson of the full council so Steve are you withdrawing that motion I will withdraw okay so that motion has been withdrawn can I do that unilaterally or does the seconder have to I think the motion maker can just do it unilaterally but I'm looking to Mandy Joe because she's more experienced with this than I am probably just unilaterally but it would be beneficial I guess if the seconder agreed I'll look up who the seconder is I believe it's Pat no it was you Evan no must have he only seconded it to put it on the table well so I will don't speak for him I will agree to that so now we have I'm sorry well there's been no other Mandy Joe put out some language but it wasn't offered as a motion we've been talking about this for two meetings in kind of a while today so I'd love to move on so does anyone want to place that language in motion I'll do it but let me so I move to add section 2.2 H quote serve as spokesperson of the council for all inquiries and correspondence addressed to the full council all press inquiries just inquiries just inquiries I see what you did there alright so there is a motion on the table is there any further discussion about this hasn't been seconded Pat seconded it I'm sorry sorry George it's okay and we've removed press because then it doesn't have to be from the press it could be we were talking about potentially other situations where someone calls up doesn't necessarily have to be a press member that says I'm looking for a statement I don't know I think that also and I think it was in the June 5th the meeting that Steve brought this up that the nature of press is changing and can be hard to define sometimes right is someone who's tweeting about things press so I think I like the idea of removing press any other discussion just one quick thought does it make sense to add something to the effect that nothing in this rule should be that kind of language or should we just leave it let it be discussed and it will be discussed and people will say this does not prohibit you from responding individually as I haven't suggested is it worth putting it explicitly in this or is it just let it lie but you could put language to the fact that nothing in this rule should be construed as forbidding a counselor from blah blah blah is that overkill? I mean we could add counselors may respond to inquiries on an individual basis or something like that but I think I'm tempted to leave it out for now we know this will come up and should come up in discussion and that's fine it will be answered if it does become a major problem I guess we could revisit the rule but perhaps we leave it as it is and then deal with it in the full council I get the sense from this body there's nothing in this rule that prohibits a counselor from speaking on their own behalf any final discussion? okay so the motion on the table is to add section 2.2h the present serves as a spokesperson of the council for all inquiries and correspondence addressed to the full council all of those in favor raise your hands okay that's unanimous pick up the votes a little bit so it's a little harder for her to take them so I want to actually we have a few other things actually so we have one more thing to do with rules from the recommendation we have another thing that wasn't a recommendation non-rules of procedure revisions which is having to do with resolutions and proclamation citations that I think George can follow up with Alyssa on the other thing we have in front of us is that July 22nd for advising the council on publication of candidate statements we have two more things under this one the advise on work groups and then the vote on what we're bringing if we're ready to vote but as far as actual thing like rules to discuss I think it's the work groups and that so I was in charge of drafting some language for work groups I did not upload it to the package to the packet because I felt as though it was very much my opinion of how work groups should operate and that uploading it to the packet before the meeting could constitute an expression of opinion to a quorum so I will do that now the question that I want to ask the committee is given that you haven't really had time to look at this we can open this discussion but I'm not super convinced well let's look at that and see how you think so I just uploaded to the packet draft work group rules and so for some background our rules of procedure that we adopted I believe it's 10.5 oh wait I actually hold on guys I had a different packet open that I uploaded it to so let me upload it to the correct packet I was in our June 5th packet okay I should be up there now so the rules that we officially adopted I believe on May 22nd in the council had we adopted 10.5 work groups but there was no language under it and so it came to this committee to actually put together the rules that would go under that section we began discussing this a little bit last meeting and didn't get very far decided we needed some draft language to look at beyond what rules of procedure had put to us the rules of procedure sample language was very simple which was standing or ad hoc council committees may establish work groups to consider a measure if they determine that the issue is sufficiently complex to warrant analysis of alternative approaches and or consequences of actions work groups shall be given a timeline for reporting back to the originating council committee work groups may include members of the public work groups are usually subject to open meeting law the chair of the appointing authority preside until the work group chair is elected they also gave us some questions as to open meeting law who appoints I tried to work in as much of that language as possible but also expanded on it to provide hopefully some clarification most of this is my personal opinion of how work group rules should be some of it is I didn't really have an opinion and so I put something in there for the purpose of discussion specifically that would be numbered letter D which is who appoints the work groups I think that there's probably some discussion to be had about who should actually appoint members of the work group so I don't know if people want to take a moment to just read through these rules and I will not take offense to any critiques are you in our pocket so if people are done reading I can speak a little bit to some of the decisions I made and then you're free to ask questions Steve? So I'm trying to operationalize this so one example would be we need a work group to study the work group issue so that would be totally appropriate for the GOL to that could be just informal let's have two people work on this so we don't have a quorum do we even need to call that a work group but then I think of the more complex things like the public art proposal which is sort of multiple committees so when that one public art it wouldn't be appropriate for the CRC to make a work group because it seems to how do we know when the CRC is a work group for that but how do you know when we it's our call to create a work group so let me speak to this a little bit then so in putting this together I sort of tried to figure out the five questions so what is a work group right who would even be on it why would we create one how would we create one and so the first question is what differentiates an ad hoc committee from a work group right and so if GOL or CRC or any committee wanted a smaller group to study things that would just be an ad hoc committee so what differentiates a work group and my thought was what makes something a work group is that it includes member it includes people who are not members of the body so if CRC had an interesting art issue and you felt as though you needed further study but there wasn't really the expertise on CRC to fully consider that maybe you'd make a work group that's two members of CRC but then you would bring in two members of the public or even two members of the council but who don't serve on CRC so that wouldn't necessarily that could still be concerned ad hoc committee but to kind of distinguish them what differentiates it is that it brings in people from outside that committee and so the question is so actually here maybe here maybe this is a good question also for Mandy Joe right is what did rules of procedure envision when they created work groups that were separate from ad hoc committees it's hard to answer because I think I was one of the people on rules that had a problem envisioning the difference between the two but I think the thought was that work groups would be more nimble and would be able to be formed quicker without the necessary application procedures if you've got members of the public for an ad hoc committee obviously if it's just a council ad hoc committee there's no real application procedure but if you're going to include members of the public there's the CAF procedure and all of that and I think the thought was that sometimes it might be desirable to not have to go through all of that and to just be able to say hey you expert at UMass would you be willing to work on this group to draft this legislation or are you expert here or are you expert from this group and sort of go out and just recruit and form within a week very quickly a group of people that could start and get it done within a shorter amount of time than if we formed an ad hoc town committee or an ad hoc council committee that needed that would have non-counselors on it because then you have to go through a lot larger and longer of a process with an actual charge with an actual waiting time 14 days to apply and post that this is open and that this would allow more nimbleness in skipping that and so I think the question becomes is that wise to allow that nimbleness and being able to skip opening up an application to everyone in town is sort of where I sit on is it wise Pat? I'm thinking about this resolution that we looked at today and the one I'm working on about Medicare for all I got approached by residents that formed a work group to work on these two resolutions and that's sort of a nimbleness I could have invited another counselor or something like that so that's a flexibility I appreciate and seems important I'm left with a question of who gets to pick the difference in my work group is that there was a group of people already working on this and it's aligned with my values but who gets to decide and I think we do need flexibility I'm just not clear how we balance or if we even do now balance voices I'm not sure I'm beginning to wonder then you guys can help me why would one ever want to create an ad hoc committee of any kind seems like work groups would be the way to go so again I'm just trying to get clear on my own mind the difference between the two Mandy has made clear that the ad hoc committee is a bit more involved it would involve CAF public application process I take it so would it be that the issue is so complex and so fraught or just has so many different perspectives as opposed to a work group where we'd like to think it's more technical it's more focused on gathering data information in other words not so much policy but I'm just trying to get a sense of the difference when I'm listening to you I'm thinking well I would never reform an ad hoc committee I would just have work groups and that's clearly not desirable I take it so what's the difference and how people see it is it more larger issues where there are clear differences of opinion so you want to make sure lots of different voices are heard so would be an ad hoc committee or is it what's the difference just going to say quickly having an ad hoc committee doesn't mean that a lot of different voices will be heard so I think the biggest difference is time an ad hoc committee would be slower because of the multiple meetings it would take to actually form one and then get committee members appointed versus a work group where it could be done near immediately I don't know whether that's a good thing though there was work work group created over the recreation fields right and is there work group for the work group that working on the problem of the downtown recreation they're called work groups but they're really just committees time-limited committees ad hoc committees in a sense and so yeah this is where my struggle and rules was with this whole concept but you have a problem you see it's a risen and you want to just keep turning this off because I'm not used to this I know and I'm not used to it so I think that this is the first question I approached with this and I think that one of the things that has bothered me since we started this position is the way that we use a lot of terms interchangeably to mean different things and so Pat and I yesterday we're dealing with the question of what's the difference between an associate and an alternate on the committee right and is there a real difference and if there is do we define right and so that was sort of my thought is if we're going to have rule 10.4 be ad hoc committees and rule 10.5 be work groups there needs to be something that reasonably differentiates them my mind my preference but I also recognize that we already have broken this a committee that formed to serve the council shall be formed of counselors and the difference between a work group is it's created by the council to serve the council but can allow non counselors on it can allow people who aren't part of that original committee to actually be on it now of course we have resident members of the finance committee and so that doesn't necessarily hold but I think that there needs to be something that when we say committee it means something to people and that when we say work group it means something to people and so to me the difference was one it's membership and then two what Mandy Joe was saying you don't have to jump through all those hoops and that's why I put in there C that they don't require a formal charge that every so that we don't have to I don't want I don't ever ever ever want to have to evaluate a charge for a work group which is why I said look all this information should be in the motion the question of who appoints I threw in the chair of whatever body created it with the assumption that you wouldn't need a CAF process the chair could just say okay these people whether that's the best idea I don't know because that really depends on who the chair of a committee is maybe you wouldn't want me picking everyone who's going to be on a committee because my view of who's an expert in the committee might in the community might be very different and so actually I think that D is probably the most contentious part of this you know if now to the idea of trust we're if the as a GLL it would be easy for hey Mandy Joe and I are going to look into this issue because we're really interested in it and we're going to do that we're going to come back and report to you I don't think we have to do anything that's a normal part of the committee but now we're sort of saying if Mandy Joe and I want to get Lynn Morgan working with us we have to form a work group we'll do it I don't think you would have to right but you could I think a subcommittee of a committee I mean if two people are named we sent Evan to draft this because you don't have to follow open meeting law if only one person is if we sent two of us to draft it we'd have to post the meeting but I think that committee can ask at any time for anyone to help them talk with them, look over stuff help them without having them yeah like if we were assigned to look at some resolution and we were like we don't have a clue whether this is a subcommittee or not let's talk to someone we could do that without forming a specific thing because that's our prerogative as a committee I'm still not sure we need work groups I think I lean towards deleting the section completely but so I guess one example of where it could be useful is say we need a lot more research on this so we're going to create a work group and we're going to put in the motion the work group will have two members of CRC two members of finance committee and two members of the public or the public art commission right and then that's actually something that might happen regularly right and so that would make sense to have right but what would that be an ad hoc committee and if so do you need to go through those two public art commission members on there and I don't to me you don't I think it's an ad hoc committee if the council you don't have to go through the CAF process it seems like particularly if we're drawing people from committees that have already been appointed to committees it's when you bring in someone that's not on a committee and I don't know how that would work well if CRC wants two people from here two people from here and two people from public art they could create a charge or under this work group not but if they created that formal charge it would say two people from public art commission it wouldn't need to go through CAF and then public art could pick those but if they wanted to be two members of the public yeah then I still don't think that see this is something I was going to say George I think had something to say no no please go ahead George because I'm on CRC and Steve please help me here I feel or contradict me whatever you want to do I can't speak for the CRC I feel that we are going to need on a regular basis to be collaborating with other committees because they have information on you know we're going to need to collaborate with the finance committee to understand financial impacts not just wait for their recommendations if we're looking at the impact of a bylaw or something like that or proposal then we need flexibility to meet with other committees and and I think residents so that's me speaking about it so Steve if you want to add or delete trying to get people in the community who are not members of a formal committee or counselors on a work group what are people's thoughts on that initially my thought was gee it's great just grab somebody and you know because they've got this expertise or knowledge and put them to work but I'm also hearing or thinking to myself is but this of course is short circuiting certain processes that are in place for a reason nimbleness is good is it I mean I'm having conversations with constituents who have far more knowledge than I do about say an issue like healthcare and Mandy's so if you wanted if we wanted to bring somebody like that conversation but they're not on a committee they're just someone who's done a lot of work or has some passion or interest but there's a danger here isn't there that sort of that arbitrarily I or a chair or somebody just picks a citizen and puts them on a public body to do work without sort of going through the usual process and is that does that trouble people should it trouble us because I understand the desire I feel it you know grab this person put them to work you know they've got a lot to offer let's not waste our time with having to go through all the process blah blah blah blah does it make a difference if someone is invited to speak to the group to the work group they're not a member of well no you can invite somebody to come and talk sure I'm talking about putting somebody in the group to do some real work which is what I prefer but do we want to create a system or a process that basically allows us to circumvent certain procedures knowingly because we find it easier makes things quicker there's attraction to that but it's also putting us in a dicey position where it seems like we're trying to get around certain things or not so I agree 100% with what Pat said earlier that committees need flexibility that there might be time when to some extent maybe it doesn't always make sense that this issue needs to be referred to both CRC and honestly CRC and finance are probably the two that might create I mean I don't see too many instances where GOL or OKA will have to create work groups maybe they will OKA maybe around outreach but certainly there might be times where committees have to work across an issue cuts across committees they might want to work together they might want to bring in residents I agree with what Pat said about that flexibility I guess my question is I'm still having a little bit of trouble differentiating between ad hoc committee and a work group and the reason is what Mandy was saying about sort of process I'm not 100% convinced that that necessarily applies to work to ad hoc committees because they're committees of the council and so they don't have to follow the traditional rules of multiple member bodies because they're of the council and so we've had at least two ad hoc committees neither of which had a charge right so we haven't in the past forced charges for ad hoc council committees we don't have a CAF process to appoint counselors but if it's a council committee I don't see why we would need a CAF process to appoint residents there's a part of me that's wondering if we scrap 10.5 and just edit 10.4 ad hoc council committees to make it a little bit more clear or flexible or expansive because if we're having trouble if the main difference is you could have residents on an ad hoc council committee and if we're saying well you don't really need a CAF or you don't really need a charge for an ad hoc council committee then I don't see the difference between the two and if there really isn't a good functional difference maybe the answer is actually editing 10.4 to reflect better what we want than creating a whole new category George this is pretty pathetic but why not so I like it we're going to get something done and it's focused and it's on X and it's right there in the statement and that's all they're going to do and they can't go off and do anything else and they have a time certain etc this is pathetic I know but it's just ad hoc committee sounds so nothing's ever going to happen because it's an ad hoc committee keeping it just because I like the name is a sad commentary but I guess if I try to make a distinction it is again back to the idea that it's specific to a particular issue or problem it's clearly defined in the statement or resolution that created it whereas an ad hoc committee has more freedom the ones we've created have a certain amount of they can go off and do other things there's some limits right but a work group you're doing recreation fields that's what you're doing if you're doing health care costs that's what you're doing but maybe that's just the difference in the end doesn't make it I'd like to save them but it's your Evan's point so if we take Evan's suggestion which is very basic I think the only thing that we might need to change is the last sentence of the main paragraph which is council charges to establish ad hoc committees shall specify the purpose and membership we could change that to council motions because a motion is to adopt a charge or a motion could be to create if we change it to motions that might give the flexibility needed for it it would prohibit committees of the council from creating ad hoc council committees but that doesn't prohibit them from creating subcommittees as OCA has already done the subcommittee has to include members of the committee though that's generally the thought of what a subcommittee is but if we wanted to allow ad hoc committees created by council committees we could probably change this one to say that council or council committee may establish ad hoc committees but I'm not sure we want to give that authority to a committee thinking that then a committee could essentially do an end run around a whole council on something that might not I don't know all of it as Pat says goes back to trust too I think one example that Pat gave was that nothing prevents any councilor working by him or herself can work with other people on anything they feel like and then that councilor can be the sponsor of a measure that already happens so I think what happens is when you get more than one councilor that it becomes or where it becomes seems to be a subset of a committee or of the council itself but nothing in this act prevents any citizen workgroup that includes a councilor actually multiple councilors as long as there's not a forum it's just normalizing that is a common practice already for most councilors are probably when you're doing work on different issues you're meeting with people I mean it might become a common practice when we get time that's true I had to stop the whole set of my kitchen yet so I think that the difference between Pat's example and what this envisions is is this is to address a need that's identified by the council or a committee and so if the committee says we need people to examine this and it's more than one councilor then it is a subcommittee the question is you could have a subcommittee that heavily consults with residents but do you actually want them I guess the big difference is do they have a vote right and in theory any committee could create a subcommittee and the council could create an ad hoc committee and they could be encouraged in the motion to create to bring in residents you could even specify the number of residents those residents just don't have a vote to some extent I would perhaps argue a resident shouldn't have a vote on a council committee that's why finance committee members are non-voting I was going to say I'm going to say this I know Pat's going to disagree with it because they're there for consultation they're there for their opinion for their expertise but at the end of the day if it's a committee to serve the council the vote should be the councillors so I guess there's a lot of what is this trying to accomplish and I keep hearing a lot of things that I'm not convinced can't be accomplished within the current structure that we have in the rules other than the name maybe we can call them ad hoc work committees Mandy so can I make a motion please do read section 10.5 in its entirety and renumber the remaining sections appropriately there's been a motion made is there a second are we ready for discussion yet we have a second somewhat seconded we're open for discussion so we were sent off to develop a way to enable work groups yep our solution has been to eliminate maybe that is the way that does enable it go ahead Steve the way it does enable it because it takes away all the restrictions I don't feel personally speaking I don't feel ready to make such a drastic decision though in the end I might be one over maybe even today but I think given the complexities of this maybe I'm making it more complex than it is I don't feel personally ready to to just eliminate this I'm still struggling with what we believe already exists with a little modification that will do exactly what this was supposed to do the answer maybe it is we do have it it's there and I just would need that to be in my own mind a little bit clearer and once we're clear then I could say yes okay let's eliminate this but for the moment maybe it's just me but I can't I'm not clear enough yet to support this motion Mandy? I'll speak to it I've always had trouble differentiating between the two as many councillors here or at least one other councillor here has recognized that I'm still not sure between the difference between ad hoc committee the biggest concern with work groups as we look at them is the avoidance of the CAF process and the ability to just one person to just say you're on it if we've got a policy matter that is so complicated I think the current draft of work group before I moved to eliminate it was sufficiently complex to warrant in-depth research beyond the capabilities of the originating body I don't feel comfortable having one person not having one person that I'm comfortable with in a sense I don't feel comfortable with avoiding the traditional ways and means of garnering interest and gathering interest in serving on that work group committee whatever you want to call it that is sufficiently complex I think it should be something that is put out to every resident in town for an interest and advertised for a certain amount of time and I do think everything we've talked about about what a work group would be for creating flexibility creating ability to do it quicker circumvents all of that and I'm not comfortable with circumventing a process that would lean heavily potentially on those that we already know about instead of those that we might not know about that could be interested so I'm feeling very torn on the one hand as I said I don't necessarily agree with a lot of what Mary Jo said and I also think a lot of what the intentions were behind work groups could probably be accomplished especially if we revised the language a little bit of 10.4 I'm also feeling a little bit of what George said which is the council voted I think unanimously for these rules with the assumption that work groups would be in there and we would draft the rules for them and now to come back on the other hand we could say look we discussed this and you know this is our consideration one of my other areas of slight discomfort is that I unfortunately did not read all of the minutes from the rules of procedure and so don't necessarily know too much about the debate that went into this recommendation we have one of the five members of rules of procedure here which is a great insight but it was also one of the five members who was opposed to the inclusion of this and there is a part of me that would like to hear perhaps from the members of rules of procedure who championed to get this in the rules and so I there's a part of me that's also kind of wondering if perhaps I don't know if I agree with what I'm about to say but in the same way that we often invite sponsors in if it would make sense to invite a member of rules of procedure who thought this was really important to say here are concerns why did you want this in here and maybe they'll say you know what you're right and maybe they'll have a good reason that we haven't heard so there's a part of me that agrees with George and I'm not quite sure I'm ready to vote on this but I would vote is it possible Mandy so can I provide a solution where we might still be able to get these rules to the council by I would love that by the 22nd leave I can withdraw my motion leave work groups as it is which is just highlighted we'll be in later propose everything else the person who most advocated for this was Kathy Shane so I would recommend inviting her to one of the next meetings I'm sure she would be delighted to come and speak to it all and I think we could inform the council that we formed a work group to examine with we should keep work groups so I think that that's what I'll I think that we should the motion's been withdrawn so we don't need a table I will formally withdrawn and so I will talk to Kathy and see if she's available to come to our July 24th meeting to have a discussion with her about work groups but I would say now that I probably wouldn't intend to vote on anything on work groups for that 24th meeting especially since we have another meeting before the council meets again after the 22nd so the 24th I think would just be discussion so with that then we have gone through all of I believe and Mandy Joe please correct me if I'm wrong the recommendations from rules committee Mandy is the with the exception of the one that we adopted today on the president of the spokesperson does the rules of procedure that's in our packet represent everything that we've done to date? Yes the only addition would be the one that is titled with three changes so I think there were no I think only one is uploaded right there's only one that that is the one that represents work to date and updated table of contents except for one thing which I'd like to bring up and then it does not have 2.2 H that we just added in today and I have a new document that does have that in with a comment that says by unanimous vote on July 10th I just want to bring up Appendix C that we've never dealt with it is in there I don't think it's ever referenced in the rules itself and it is supposed to be the OCA appointment and appointment confirmation process. And that will have to remain as well. Wondering whether we just want to vote to delete the Appendix completely. Appendix C completely. Appendix C. Do we delete Appendix B? We did delete Appendix B so we would have to rename Appendix B was supposed to be the town council committee charges and we moved to just hyperlink directly to the right pages on the website. So Appendix C would need renamed to B it would need to be put back into the table of contents but I kind of want to just get rid of it. So I will speak for myself and not as chair of OCA obviously we have a current appointment process it will not be the appointment process in the future future generations of OCA may also revise that process Appendix C seems like something that could potentially be revised and having to be continuously revised especially because as we have learned on OCA this process is not always universally applicable so obviously the process had to be slightly different between planning board and zoning board and say rank choice voting because there was joint appointing authority and even slightly revised for finance committee since a lot of the structures it did so this would be a really hard one I think to put in so I would support removing Appendix C other thoughts? my other colleague on OCA remove it appendix me other that's true other thoughts so maybe I don't think you made that as an official motion would you like to? I'll make a motion to delete Appendix C from the rules of procedure second any further discussion? all of those in favor of removing Appendix C from the rules of procedure? yes? all right that's unanimous George you seconded that right? okay so with the removal of Appendix C and the president's spokesperson one that we did today we have a revised rules of procedure that responds to everything we were asked to do by rules of procedure with the exception of work groups which we'll have to say we're still working on I think there was a request that we have this to the council for a vote on the 22nd first reading first reading right? so we want a first reading to the council on the 22nd do we feel as though we are ready to make a recommendation that the council adopt the revised rules of procedure? Pat that's a motion? all right so Pat is making a motion what is that motion Pat? to recommend to the council the acceptance of the revised rules of procedure? is there a second? a second discussion? does the motion need to include the dates we did the revisions or just right now I have a motion to recommend to the town council the acceptance of the revised rules of procedure is that good enough? I don't think we need all of the dates right? there's no single day just keep it like that recommend the town council adopt the rules of procedure as revised by GOL here's our revised version it's in the packet does that work? so right now I have a motion to recommend to the town council recommend the town council adopt the rules of procedure as revised by GOL I guess that would be a friendly would that be friendly? any discussion on that? all those in favor? it's nice to see somebody else having trouble with their mic I'm not used to it always being on so we will present this to the council along with a report that details what we revised with specifics I will write that report I assume since I forwarded you part of it already I was going to say but hopefully you've got most of it done in terms of as it relates to the rules we have a couple other things on our agenda but we're starting to we only have a half an hour left and so I want to actually take what is listed on the agenda in your packet I know we have to talk about resolutions, proclamations, citations however I don't feel like that's time sensitive but number four discussion on referral from town council to advise on a policy to comply with charter section 7.6 I believe part of the motion from the town council was to report back by the 22nd and so we should do this one now because we need to have something to report back to the council for the 22nd time constraint on it let's do that so 7.6 of the charter right? 7.6 of the charter publication of candidate statements the town council shall establish a process compliant with state campaign and political finance laws for candidates whose names will appear on the election ballot to publish statements regarding their candidacy on the town bulletin board so since we develop policies for the council as we did with public ways this has been referred to us to develop so lucky us thoughts there was I'm never one without thoughts I certainly have based on my service on the charter commission thoughts on what the commission in a sense looked at or thought about how this might look I think we need as a committee to decide whether we want an opinion from the town attorney first on what might be possible and then we discuss once we get that or whether we want to discuss what we want first and then ask the town attorney would this be possible if we suggested this with certain like all the warnings on the website I think we need to decide which order we want to do those in do we want to discuss a potential idea first of what we want to recommend and then go to the town attorney or do we want to go to the town attorney first how can we go to the town attorney if we don't have a clear sense of what it is we want them to so I think we really do have to get some idea of what it is that we want to say okay this is what we want is it legit seems to me what could we bring to the town attorney right now before having any conversation at all that would be useful for the town attorney to do or that would come back to us that would be useful and maybe the answer is there is something but Mandy what would it be that we could ask them to do or seek out for us is it just the basic idea of a candidate statement on a town website and just ask them whether that's will that fly I mean we could do that I guess right so I'm also maybe so I think part of this comes from our council discussion where Councillor Brewer I think felt that this would be very difficult to do and that we shouldn't even bother utilizing our time I do sort of agree with you though it's would we just say is this possible and they might go well it's I hate leaving open-ended questions for the town attorney my question for Mandy Jo on top of sort of what George said was also I mean the town attorney looked at the charter exactly that was my question I know that you got feedback from the town attorney did they have comments on this maybe I don't have that on this computer else I'd be able to actually look it up I can look it up after this meeting I know personally both the attorney generals and our town attorney looked at this at the charter the preliminary charter the town attorney looked at both the preliminary that we sent off to the attorney general and then the final one that was voted on the attorney general and looked at the preliminary one this provision was in the draft charter that the attorney general looked at I know personally I was surprised that this was not dinged by the attorney general as non-allowable but it could be because of the wording I mean the wording from the council from the charter is the town council shall establish a process compliant with state campaign and political finance laws for candidates blah blah blah so as long as it has to comply so I don't think the town attorney at that point the town attorney or the attorney general doesn't really have anything to object to because we're saying it has to comply with the laws if it's done um I yeah so the question is is there something that can the attorney general might have read that and said they'll never find something but they can put it in the charter because this doesn't violate the law we don't know because they didn't comment on this um I so I don't know as as councilor brewer said I don't know whether there is something that would comply because you're using a state resource for election candidate statement purposes so I don't know whether we could find something that would comply it might be good as George said to send something off that says could we make sure the town website lists the names that will appear on the ballot before the draft ballot is up like could we require that and could we allow a hyperlink to something you know like here's some options like maybe we send some options off that says list of names names with hyperlinks to candidate web pages or facebook pages a statement no more than whatever that the candidate drafts with a website that says this is not town opinion you know like that off that says here's some potentials what if any could be done but I can certainly look to see if our town attorney made any comments to either of our drafts on this issue completely but I don't have that on this computer so I can't access it right now yeah so we know that statements are made on town websites that are opinions so they're not like they're not all fact based so there are websites that the town sponsors that are you know very opinionated I have no idea how elections fit into that but definitely there's a point of view on things that get posted so there's all kinds of information already available about candidates so campaign finance right so we already know through the finance statements how much is being donated so I'd be very curious as to whether or not you know what the legality of this is but I think simply asking the question is now that we have to focus on this is it legal to put a statement on is a totally fair question for the town attorney other thoughts George so it sounds like an initial inquiry might be in order is that what I'm hearing here that Steve is suggesting it just sort of test the waters before we spend any of our precious time on this issue if we can just agree on what that simple question would be maybe the way Steve did is pretty much captured it but do people feel like that's where we're headed before we spend our time on this let's get at least some general legal opinion I think I favor that unless we can very quickly determine what we'd want it to look like but I'm not sure we can so a question of is it legal to for the town website to host statements of candidates that will appear on a municipal ballot I don't know if that's the appropriate question that sort of the wording and if so what parameters must they follow you know like if she determines it's if the town attorney determines it is legal can she advise us on potential parameters or maybe that's putting the cart before the hearse maybe the first question we need is is it legal can it be done at all and then we need to propose what we want to do and then she can say that works or that's not going to I don't know the Evan you're on OKA so you guys talked a lot with the town attorney about legality on other things or is this something that it would be better to have put that question out there and then have a conversation with her during a meeting on how did that work with OKA back and forth versus conversations and all so OKA sent the town attorney three fairly well developed processes and asked for the opinion on those basically got back this one will not work this one will work and then from there later had a conversation with the town attorney on some of the logistical tweaks to make sure it works but we started with something that was fairly developed having gone through that process I like the idea of getting a little bit of information ahead of time because we probably could have saved ourselves some time had we thought of those questions ahead of time I agree with the idea of getting a little bit information ahead of time I don't want us to spend hours developing a process only to have it shut down trust me it's not fun I'm just trying to envision what the question is because you're right you wouldn't just say you wouldn't just say setting section 7.6 and say hey can we do this because it's like well if it complies with state campaign and political finance yeah and then you go back and you say okay well how do we do that but it's not on the attorney to come up with a process that works that's on us so I guess the question is what Mandy Joe said of can a town publish statements but then there needs to be something else because if she comes back and says yeah in theory cool so yeah I'm not quite clear on what the actual I don't know if you're writing this email to town attorney or if I'm writing this email to town attorney well I think it has to go through Lynn and Paul I'd have to look at the formal referral because I think the referral sort of included it certainly has to go through Lynn and Paul in a way they need to know right certainly but they're not going to write the questions no we the two of us could work together right few days to do it so I if I'm involved in this I'd love a little bit of guidance from the committee of what specifically we're asking the town attorney that would be useful for us is the key here the idea of a statement in other words it's an expression of opinion by someone who's running for office is that the kernel or because we also mentioned web links and just names is the the core issue here that you'd like some clarification on before we get started just the legality of statements of opinion is that really what you're after here would that help focus this with the lawyer or is it something else so I think the else is any added bonuses when you read the charter the charter says you know compliant for candidates whose names will appear on the election ballot to publish statements regarding their candidacy on the town bulletin so you know hyperlinks and all that would be a bonus really the issue is a statement but the charter compliance with the charter is to find a way compliant that allows candidates to publish statements regarding their candidacy so that's what we need some clarification we don't have primaries anymore so just generals but yeah municipal candidates so maybe the question is is a town bulletin board permitted to be used to allow candidates to publish statements regarding their candidacy I don't know if that's the greatest wording we could expound on that by what that might mean on a website or town bulletin board can mean many things you know could that mean the candidate comes up with a statement and it gets they post tack it to the bulletin board next to the town clerk's office we could potentially maybe give a few examples but yet we haven't discussed any of them so including whether this is a good idea at all the charter tells us so that's who rules it's fascinating really trying to actually operationalize the charter because you can I can't imagine all the discussions that okay we'll agree to this if you agree to that but the so we'll be the first of the 351 cities and towns to do this we think yeah okay I mean I don't see any negative drawback I forget the laws and all that so the laws I usually ignore them it's not true but I don't see any negative drawback for having candidates statements on the town website it doesn't bother me I mean it's and it sort of helps candidates who don't have a lot of money you know I so I'm not sure so I would like to just get an opinion so it sounds like we really do agree that we'd like an opinion from the lawyer on whether statements by a candidate on a town website has any legal possibility is that fair so it sounds like the question is can the town publish statements regarding candidacy written by the candidate on the town bulletin board with of course the understanding that when we say town bulletin board we mean the website I mean that's our town bulletin board because that might be different maybe it can just go on a physical bulletin board but these are going to go on the website so I think we need to be clear about that and then I guess do we leave it sometimes with the town attorney just leave it as a very simple one question and follow up later because then if the answer is yes then we need to go back to the town attorney right and say so what or do we say that in the first email if if yes if no it's if no the town absolutely cannot do this then we have a whole other discussion but if it's yes the question is so what is there content that cannot be in that statement because maybe they can say hi my name is Evan and I live at 40 Spalding street but I can't say hi my name is Evan I live at 40 Spalding street and I think that we should eliminate the Department of Public Works right I don't um but you know like maybe maybe that ladder thing shoes that you cannot put that on the town website right because I can't use resources to argue against the town like there's maybe we're seeing your soul we're seeing your soul we're seeing your soul right there is the larger issue that Pat has raised that I would love to have a discussion on but we could talk about it for a long time we don't want to do it now whether this actually is a good idea at all I have my personal views on it Pat has hers and I might change my view but um again it sounds like we would like at least an initial opinion um is that would you rather have this discussion um waste waste I'm not sure that's quite word that word I want to use but employ our attorney looking into this I mean I think an initial yes or no would be helpful because it might come back campaign finance laws do not allow the town website to be used for any election purposes and a statement created by the candidate is an election purpose so no you know like that might be the answer that it just can't be done it would be refreshing to get a simple yes or no from a lawyer maybe that would happen I think if the answer is yes maybe the question we want to follow up with is are there limitations to what can be done what limitations could we put on the statements could we put a content limitation probably not but can we put a length limitation potentially um you know are we allowed to say it can't be more than two sentences you know like are there any limits we could put on it um if we allow it but I don't know whether that's getting the cart before the horse versus let's get a yes and then maybe if the if the answer is yes we come back we discuss and then we send something specific like OKA did so that was my question is the first email like a one simple question yes or no or is it a if yes here's other questions which one I give you two A or B B the general question and if it is legal then okay well considering this if I've heard correctly this has never been done in the commonwealth I'm feeling the lawyer probably won't have any to go on beyond yes or no in other words well then what can you do the answer is nobody's done it so you know nobody knows um I think the basic question is can this even be done and that may turn out to be a complex and thorny issue but maybe it would be simple I'm hoping it's simple I hope the answer is well I won't say it so Mandy Jo and I are going to write an email that will go through Lynn and Paul to the town attorney to ask for an opinion on this uh we should put a request back by what's our next meeting this 23rd 24th we want to back by our meeting on the 24th of this our August 7th we could ask for it by the 24th I'm in no rush but so papers 2022 for the current election cycle are due in September I had that date somewhere I think it's due to September 17th so if there's something that is allowed we should probably get a recommendation to the council by the 17th so that the council could adopt prior to then so that when papers are due and certified the town's got an idea of what might be going on but that gives us what's our first August meeting the 7th maybe by the 7th that would give us two meetings to discuss before we send it to the council on the 9th of September yeah so we have we have four meetings before September 17th GOL so if we send a policy to the council on the 9th it might have to go through that immediate vote that day what's the council calendar what's the other meeting in September the 23rd's the other one which adoption then three days a week after papers are due might not be horrible no elections not till November right I mean so that's sort of my thing is it doesn't even if we adapt on the 23rd it's not going to go up on the 23rd because they still need time to they might have to create a web page right but also I don't think it needs to go up the moment that we have a full list of candidates right could go up could go up in mid October honestly like so we'll say this we're requesting back for the 7th August 5th then we might as well make it to the 4th we should be able to read it before it hasn't always been the case the cameras on it's like trying to find a doctor in their own vacation alright so we're starting to get a little short on time and so I want to just make sure we take care of minutes since we do have three sets of minutes May 22nd, June 5th and June 19th and so we have but we have two sets from June 5th there's draft 1 and draft 2 right draft 2 is the most current that makes sense and then on May 22nd there's a draft with my revisions that has been usurped by the May 22nd, 2019 that's the one that has the highlights the one that's titled Minutes, May 22nd, 2019 the correct one that we're looking at yeah do we have any edits to these three sets of minutes any edits I'll move to approve a lot I have a second-end motion any edits Mandy alright so motion to adopt the minutes of May 22nd, 2019 June 5th and June 19th has been made and seconded all those in favor raise your hands alright and that's unanimous we don't have any public present so we don't need to public comment we don't really have time to get so we have two things on the agenda that we haven't yet done one is create and recommend a policy for resolutions, proclamations and citations we don't I don't think that we can do that in seven minutes but I am curious George if you had an ability to I am ready and ready to roll here but that's okay we can put this off I did have a conversation with Alyssa and it was quite fruitful and I have spent just a few moments of my time precious time trying to come up with definition of these terms which I'll be happy to share with you at a future meeting but I think it probably should be put off also flags and I would like to also speak briefly about that and what I learned from Alyssa about that it's proclamations, resolutions commemorations and citations and flags for a future maybe next meeting okay is there anything I'm just trying to think if you have you have papers in front of you do you just have notes or did you actually have draft information I just have notes from my conversation and I have short definitions that we could use if people want to spend the time but I think it probably would be helpful one of the suggestions Alyssa made was try to just get clear what are the differences and I think they're pretty clear but we should talk about it I could certainly furnish that next time as simply a document for us to look at or I could send it to you it's very simple it's like four sentences is it already done I could easily do it and load it on put it on our site for people to look at before the next meeting what would you prefer these are sample definitions these things to look at for these four terms resolution, proclamation, citation and commemoration any thoughts? I was just going to say that if you distribute it today or say that it will be distributed that meet that complies with open meeting also that then you can then it can be uploaded so I can say that I will share it with you yeah and then we can talk about it when we meet next my notes are really just my notes okay I don't feel like I want it or should share them that's fine so before our next meeting I'll create a packet for next meeting I can do that today and when you can upload those definitions so that we can read them ahead of time have a starting off point and hopefully barring anything major happening open with that at our July 24th meeting now would you you have been very good about sort of thinking about these that you did today and sort of guiding the discussion do you want me to do something similar or do you want to just we could just throw it open but sort of have sort of a template in mind or process in mind as we work through it do you want me to take the lead on this or do you want to just we have the definitions let's just talk about it it's hard for me to give an answer on that without knowing more about your conversation with Alyssa so maybe since we don't have any real time pressure on this we have like really three meetings before the council takes up any substantive business perhaps we can just start with a discussion and then in the same way that I took some of the opinions I got on work groups from our initial discussion right I didn't create that from scratch that's from what I heard from you and Mandy Joe and then the other thing we had on our agenda was continue follow up on town committee charge request we have table spreadsheet from George that has been uploaded so our beginnings and people should just look it over and see what's missing or if they'd like something added it's really just a list and if they would like more detailed information particularly if we're missing something from that list it's just the guidance so George will be the star of next meeting we'll open up with proclamations and then we'll also have follow up on town committee charge any final comments before we adjourn Mandy Joe I won't be at the next meeting but if flags are taken up just put them as a separate agenda item because that's a revisiting of the public ways policy so it should be listed as a revisit public ways policy regarding flags and commemorative flags and I just want to mention two things just if it's okay of potential future agenda items or people things to think about one is the issue of town websites and general expressions of opinion this is something that Lynn mentioned to me as well the particular example has to do with 132 North Hampton Road but whether there is or needs to be a policy about what is permitted or what isn't permitted one of our members today mentioned that there is a fair amount of opinionating on town websites and I think that's something I don't know if this would be appropriate for this body but somewhere I think we should talk about it and whether we need to have a policy on this or whether it's just I would think generally speaking that should not be a place for opinion but anyway that's one thing I'd like us to consider thinking about and the other is just electoral reform is that something that this body should take up as just issue generally speaking of you know a whole host of things one of them has already been come up with finance reform student engagement non resident voting their whole host of issues related to this I wonder if that relates to governance or yeah it's yeah something to think about this is councilor comment right yeah yeah so it may be something that nobody wants to talk about but at some point some future date there's a host of issues related to what I consider electoral elections electoral reform that may or may not be appropriate for this body to look into all right so without we will adjourn the meeting at 12 29 p.m nice job