 All right, this is the meeting of governance organization and legislation. I am calling the meeting to order at 10.36 a.m. We have just barely a quorum, and we also have Councillor Shane with us today. The first thing I wanna do just really quick since it's been something we keep sort of kicking the can down the road is agenda item two, which is continue follow-up on town committee charge update request. So in our packet, we have this committee spreadsheet that George put together for us. We haven't, we've had it for a couple of meetings, I think, but we haven't really had a chance to talk at all about it. So I'd like to give George an opportunity to sort of speak to what he put together here. Do you want to speak to it? Don't wanna speak to it. It is simply right now just a list of committees that I assume at some point we will talk about going to and requesting updates on their charges. I think right now it's just a list for us to begin our discussion. I think the real discussion is what are we gonna do with this list? What's our plan of action? And I don't know with only three of us here, whether it's gonna be very productive. I think some of those who are not here today have some strong feelings about this, but I might be wrong. But essentially what you have is just a list of committees and with a little bit of information about when they were created, et cetera. But beyond that, the real question it seems to me is what do we really want to accomplish? How are we going to approach? These committees, are we gonna approach all of them? I think what we had agreed upon originally was this would be, we would be dealing with committees that are five years and older. Is that correct? And we could just send some kind of generic message to the chairs of every single one that fit that description and asking them, having agreed upon what we wanna say, asking them to consider. But we cannot compel them, all right? This is simply a request. I learned that, I guess, a number of months ago to my, that we don't have any authority here at all, it seems. It does seem like we do have a, I guess we have a responsibility, I think, personally, to sort of think about these things and to the degree that we can pay attention to the health and status of committees. And I know some have mentioned the idea of maybe some could be, some might have reached the end of their natural lives. Some, perhaps, could be consolidated. And it's not clear to whom that task falls. And it felt to me, personally, that it could reasonably fall to us with a clear understanding of the limits of our authority. We're not going in and telling people what to do. And so that may mean that we'll be utterly ineffective. People can just ignore us. But so that's my dim recollection of the background. And so what I was asked to do was simply create a document that, and I'm not sure it's complete. So one of the tasks people might want to do at some point is look this over and make sure that I've missed anything, I probably have. But to create a document that lists the committees that we would like to request a update or a review of their charge. And I think we, as a group, would have to decide how to word that. And do we want to do all at once? Do we want to do them in stages? And I think probably that discussion would be better served with all of us present. Okay, so my understanding is there's 27 committees here. And these are all committees that you feel fall within the timeline that we had set out more or less, right? Some of these were created in 2015, so aren't quite five years old. Exactly, right. Hey, maybe. I only have 12. There's two tabs. So these are town manager created and then there was select one created. All right, divided them into two. Yeah, yeah. All right, so the key questions that we have before us then are which committees we want to reach out to? Do we want to reach out to all of these committees or not? Who does that? Do we want to do it all at once or in stages? And what exactly are we asking of these committees? And George's suggestion is that's a better conversation for the full committee. But we should just clarify those are the questions we're looking at. Because I think one of my other questions was for those committees that have been revised more recently, such as the Kanagasaki sister city committee or the Amherst local historic district created more than five years ago, but revised fairly recently, how are we counting that? I have actually no thoughts on it at the moment. I think one issue is just the number of committees the size of the task that we as a group need to be clear on timeframe. We're looking at for over the next year, we're asking them to do this. And we also have to consider our own workload. We want to do it in groups or it might make sense to do it all at once and just send it out and see what response we get back. It may be none. It may be 27. I don't know. Yeah. I might want to create a priority list. The sister city committee is, I think that I would like to look at it some point, but it's not as high a priority for me right now as some of the other committees. So if we even just listed priorities, that would be. And if a committee is extremely active, like I know maybe they actually get a lower priority because they are busy because they're busy and they're functioning well. It seems like most instances, I'm not sure. I hate to add work to a committee that's function, is really going. Great. The logic behind this is, I understand it is just, it would be healthy for any body that's been in existence for five years or more to sit down and just spend a little bit of time thinking about what they're doing and compare that to their charge. I hear Evan's point about charges that have been revised recently and that might be a good way to maybe eliminate some. But the thought that I had was that this would be a healthy thing to do. It's optional, we can't compel it and it's not clear who would do this if we didn't. I mean the council could say they just don't want us to do it, just not our job, forget it, let it go. But until I hear that, it feels like this is something that would be appropriate for us to do. And then it's just a question of how to manage it and also what it's exactly we're asking of these, and I assume committee chairs, we're gonna reach out to them. I agree with those things and I think we should. Not opposed to doing it, I'm just trying to brainstorm different ways to organize the list. How to do it, we could send a letter out to everyone and encouraging them and then see what our response even is and I don't know. But I think this is the body that should be doing this. The easier we can make it, if that's possible, whether we can have a form that, I don't know, it just, the more open-ended it is, the less likely it will be answered. If it's a very specific question, maybe that's all we need to do, but if there's any way also we can think of making it as easy as possible, that might assist in getting some responses. And so my understanding is our primary ask of them is simply to reformat their charge into the charge template so that we have consistency of charges across committees. The bigger question is then we also left open the door of suggesting revisions to their charge, which is a bit more substantive. And that might also matter on which committee we're asking. Obviously some of these committees, Council on Aging, Board of Health, these are MGL-required committees who might not necessarily have the ability to revise their charge. I'm not quite sure. Whereas others like the Amherst Center Recreation Working Group certainly has some flexibility. All right, so what I think I want to do, because I want to move on to other matters and save this is, I know George is taking some notes, I'll take some notes about questions that we have for ourselves as a committee as we figure out how to proceed with this and we'll come back to this probably in the fall because I think we really have to get through rules first. We came up with this idea of doing this when we had very little on our plate as GOL and now we have much more on our plate as GOL. So this is probably a fall activity because I also, and I said this before, want to wait until we get through the glut of appointments so these committees are doing this as full committees and they're not sending this task to any committee that's already struggling to be at quorum. So any final comments on this? Okay, so then I want to move on to our next agenda item. Three, advise on how to incorporate work groups into the town council rules procedure and for that we have Kathy with us today. So Kathy, I think I gave you a little bit of an overview in my, I sent that email so long ago that I don't remember 100% what information I provided regarding our discussion but we came up, we used, rules sent us some draft language that we use as a jumping off point. I in our packet today have some draft work group rules that I wrote up for our last meeting that we used as sort of the boilerplate. All right, here's some draft work group rules. As we continue to discuss them, the committee felt as though we were slightly unclean about what differentiated a work group from say an ad hoc committee that includes residents and there was some concern in the committee that how the appointment of work group members would go in my sort of just draft rules, I had it be the chair. There was some concern about having the chair of a committee just pick all of the members. There were some concerns about membership sort of circumventing a normal process and so where we had started to lean towards the end of the discussion is are work groups necessary and is there a way to instead of creating a whole new category of committee is there a way to perhaps use the existing structure we have through ad hoc committees to ascent to date to achieve the same purpose. Could we have an ad hoc committee that's essentially what we're envisioning is a work group that includes members of different committees plus the public because we don't necessarily have any true constraints on what an ad hoc committee is and I think that this committee was on the verge of voting on a motion that had been put forth to recommend just deleting rule, I don't remember exactly what the number was, and then stepped back and said well hold on, the rules of procedure put this forward, the council voted on this, this would be a really big step for us to take to just recommend not doing this without consulting people who were on rules of procedure and at that time all we had was Mandy Jo and she said that you were one of the main sort of proponents of work groups and so we wanted to invite you here to sort of hear your perspective, one, what did you envision a work group is and how does that differentiate from a normal ad hoc committee that could be created and how might we go about putting this together? So thank you for coming because we were not in these rules of procedure meetings so we're flying a little behind here. Okay and I did just come out of the wilderness so I'm, and when I went to find my original, I was one of the people on rules that went through a whole bunch of town rules and procedures looking for things that seemed interesting one way or the other and I know I found this somewhere but I don't know exactly which town so I was hoping to come and say which towns have this but the main thought around this and then it got even felt even more so when Meg Gage and several people came and proposed that we have a structure that allowed when we had some entity or a way of assessing options when something complex came up that wasn't just council members that we could pull other people in and we would give you, it would be, I think of it a work group or a study group and the existing examples that Amherst has had would be marijuana and downtown parking working group both of which at my understanding were kind of set up by the town manager so it was, we wanna allow marijuana establishments in town, there's some state laws, how might we do this, what might be the pluses and minuses of it and on that group, in that group which had a timeline were a staff person from town who would be some official some people that weren't select board members who might have knowledge about the or would have the time to go do work on it and then had to report back where it was gonna become a town ordinance by law so the goal was to come up with a solution to something we wanted to do so it's, I would agree that in theory you could do ad hoc, you could use the ad hoc title something like this, as long as you made it clear it was a study group and it was really weighing alternatives and assessing them, pros and cons so the most recent one that's come up and I think we're gonna handle it with an ad hoc group is the percent for art by law where it got referred to the CRC and it got referred to finance and CRC listened a little bit and said, hmm, we need to think about this more we need some kind of working group right, we need some kind of working group and then it's critical to CRC you know, so it came up that way and then the people who wanna move this forward who have a lot of knowledge have come back to CRC a few times in emails cause they've shared them with me we'd love a working group we'd love to be doing this silence you know, I mean like, cause like how would we put one of these together and they said, oh, we'll have to figure out how to do that and then in finance yesterday this came up again that we've got the draft of a bylaw which is just like the bylaw that town meeting passed minus a section and there's some reluctance to just go forward with that as written but it's like, what about it you know, the people were just saying what is it you don't like, what is missing and it was like, oh, we need a working group so I think what we're gonna do Lynn asked me yesterday to do a draft charge to a committee to set something up that is very much like what I thought this would be you know, where it's a complex issue there are different kinds of ways we could do it and they will be consequential if we change the way the original writing was so you want people just sitting around talking about it and coming up with it and bringing it back so I think the key things here is it's not just council members it's got people on it who might be a town staff person who would have to implement it in some way have to be on the other, the end of it deciding so present for it's a good example if the money is set aside Sonya or someone in finance has to say here's the pot of money for this oversee the spending of town money so we could do it in another way when it was referred to you why we didn't just, I have the paragraph that we pulled out, you know the council may establish a worker study group to consider a new measure if it determines that the issue is sufficiently complex to warrant analysis of alternative approaches and or consequences of actions such work groups should be given a timeline for reporting back from the council so it was a very focused you're gonna come back and give us a recommendation or a way of approaching it so I think we could do it with ad hoc when we referred it the two questions that came up is who appoints the work group can a committee such as the CRC say we want a work group and just do it you know can we be a little less formal than we've been with a charge that the whole council has to consider with is it four people said three people what's the nature of each person on it can we just say we need it we need a couple people from this committee maybe one from someplace else and two people with expertise and just do it and ask them to come back in a month but get it moving so these could be moving quickly or do we need to always bring these back to the full council and have the president be the appointing authority and how do you get the name so the issue of at what level could form a group like this came up when we were discussing it in rules and who makes a decision on which humans go on it and those issues were then kicked do you all to say what are some possible ways of doing this because we were trying to differentiate it with ad hoc as it's now written are pretty much always council members and the we've got this split in the way the charter set us up as soon as it's not council members it's town manager appointments you know I mean it's this funny kind of world that we've got so when you all were considering use of the public ways and which things would have to come through the council on a vote every time we wanted to free up one parking space my understanding is Mandy went over and chatted with some people you came up with some ideas and came back so that was a mini short term work that came back with how to handle it but it wasn't a complex enough issue it was just a solution to this but we didn't have to go through a whole charge a work group around public ways so it could be potentially but the more informal but the key thing is it's not just council members so that if we needed an architect if we needed an engineer if we needed you know some broader scope someone from UMass to be able to say how do other places do it with time that that's my and I didn't have the time when we were doing rules because we were on the short timeline what I had wanted to do is call up some towns and say how does this actually work how Andy and I on finance went over on trying to understand how Northampton's finance committee when they have this you get the budget you have one month and the council has to vote on it the finance committee how did they do that we found they did joint sessions they just didn't try to do them separately so that's what we did it the way Northampton was doing it to try to learn from other people on how did they use this vehicle I didn't have time to try to figure this out so those were the issues can a committee set this up does it have to be at the council level and how are the members chosen so yesterday's quick and dirty was a good example for me of your question of can we handle it just another way but make it clear we mean two kinds of ad hocs not just council members has Lynn said okay Kathy draft a charge and say how many people and how many council from which committees say five people one from CRC one from finance one from the town if you need one and bring it to the full council and maybe if we're lucky on August 19th we'll have time for it since we're doing something else and meanwhile the two people who want to move this they're feeling like two committees back to the council back again but trying to figure out how do you do things in a fluid way that doesn't have us going here and here and here without enough knowledge to make informed decisions as council members we need to gather the knowledge before we're asked to vote No, no, I was gonna say Pat I know you were trying to speak before and then George has his hand up but you were trying to speak like 10 minutes ago Thanks The work groups the way you're presenting it and the way I've been thinking about it are critical to the work of CRC because that's exactly what our role is and it seems to me that clarifying how a committee how any committee works is also an important part of this and it seems to me that committees should be trusted to set up a work group and because there's always a difference of opinion on a committee so there I'm trusting that there would be a difference of opinion and who they chose to be on the committee there needs to be flexibility and there also needs particularly for CRC this sense of collaborating across committees because one impact will be financial and if we're trying to find the impacts of things we can't wait for the finance committee to meet and for us not to know anything about it so we had talked about liaisons informal liaisons sitting on different committees so that we could at least have information and communication so in many ways I support this but I really would like it to be to create a structure that still has a sense of informality because and flexibility so that we're not wasting time going back and forth no committee can do anything ultimately without bringing it to the council so it seems to me we should have some flexibility in making and creating our recommendations I just want to build on what you said, Pat because CRC was one of the main things I was thinking about or rules was when we were first doing this even though it hadn't been set up yet but as we were setting up it and we were in the ad hoc group to even set up CRC it's such a broad committee in terms of what's in its mix that you can imagine some one person or two people on there is really interested in the affordable housing and policies around that and something new is potentially out there and it's meanwhile we have committees of the town that are working on that and people with deep expertise so well in advance of something coming before it you could have a work group on that someone else might be really interested in roads and sidewalks and our whole transportation policy what are we doing about complete streets which is a whole different topic and it's not come up yet but it's going to and that's a different view and someone else is on zone and maybe they're crosses but to enable that committee to say this is going to come up six months from now we need to know more about it and put together a work group that's what the idea about this is is to think in advance and then be ready and I also think that sometimes a working group can be called and meet twice and have completed what they needed to do so then to set it through the council and do all those kinds of things is very inefficient I think and so percent for art is my example of that we're going to put them through an ad hoc charge for the full council we just voted to send it to it's going to be months to maybe put two more sentences into this bylaw or for whatever it is but we may want about what I'm saying it may end up that there are three paragraphs we're adding to it but they're important paragraphs we're eliminating I want to give George a chance I like the idea of flexibility I like the idea of committees being able to do these things without having to go back to the council the concern or question I have has to do with the open meeting law and to what degree work groups would be subject to it and I don't know if we know the answer to that maybe it's a simple answer do you have to have postings 48 hours in advance do you have to have minutes do you have to have public comment and maybe there's again a very simple answer to this but that's another concern I think that was one of the main concerns was that we want flexibility we want to be able to do things fairly quickly and informally and it seems essential to the functioning of what we're trying to do but are we going to be if we're subject to open meeting law if these working groups have all these restrictions placed upon them is that going to frustrate this so that's a question I have I'm not trying to circumvent open meeting law I'm not trying to keep anyone out but it seems there's a tension here between the idea of transparency and the idea of getting something done does anyone know the answer to that question really why because I don't have an answer to that question but it seems to me that if we have a work group that's coming together to study something they're not deciding policy and it's not a collection necessarily of counselors it's a group of people looking at an issue and pulling out the pros and cons and then presenting it back to their committee which is a public body and so they're coming forward so I don't know I think they're bringing up but I think that's exactly the reason I understand GOL I think this is the committee that should ask that question and get it answered by town legal in other words if we want a structure like this and it's informal does the meeting have to get posted do there have to be minutes where are things similar but different so I think it's just a question and if the answer is you have to post something it's hard to say where a group of five people are meeting you know and if all you're doing is working on a document you can say the minutes can be short and sweet but I think those are the reasons it went to how can we avoid any violations of things we're not trying to violate here we're trying to expedite so first of all I mean so my understanding is if the committee has if the work group would have more than one councillor on it it would absolutely be subject to open meeting law because it would be a subcommittee of the council if it was a work group that had one councillor and the public that I'm less clear on but these are answerable right so my thought on this is we if we talk with work group rules my intention was to run it by town attorney were the rules a procedure run by town attorney never asked that it was run by Margaret you know basically we said is there anything in here that needs a second opinion and she and Paul read it with that set eyes and came back with no with no you know that we were well within the power of the council to write things this way and this paragraph was in there you know we only pulled it out at the very last minute with leaving the sentence in because it was this issue of making it clear that a committee can appoint you know the authority to appoint and duration and then you know if we have to add the sentence and complies with open if there's a councillor on it we didn't want to get too specific other than to say this composition is beyond the council you know it's not a committee of the council per se with just councillors on it so for me personally I think regardless of what we do with 10.5 work groups we also need to potentially make some edits to 10.4 ad hoc council because one of my questions my first question was what differentiates a work group from an ad hoc council committee my answer to that was exactly what you said an ad hoc council committee would be composed of councillors which 10.4 doesn't actually say it's sort of an assumption that a council committee is composed of councillors although we do have and granted it was called out on the charter finance committee has resident members on it so there is some slight precedent for having resident members for now at least on finance committee I know for CRC in the creation of CRC there was some discussion about including residents I know that didn't end up in the final charge you know I was one of the opponents of that but this is one of the things that Pat and I always disagree on is whether residents should be on council committees but so I think that if what really differentiates a work group from an ad hoc council committee is ad hoc council committees are only councillors then that needs to be called out in the rules and if we see a situation where an ad hoc council committee might allow for non-councillors that's where I have trouble understanding the difference the second part of it that seemed to make sense for what differentiated them was the efficiency that's allowed for work groups and exactly what you were saying I mean what you were talking about the charge having because if you write a charge for an ad hoc council committee for a percent for art right it has to be referred to us because we review charges and then it has to go back to the council and given I mean especially right now the council is not meeting again until August 19th it potentially creates this really long process we've set up a bureaucrat in my personal opinion we have a bureaucratic nightmare right now going on with doing the simplest things allowing three of us to get together to talk about something you know we we're doing this circular and the GOL process instead of just being yes it is complex you know it's an edit and words even when it's sometimes minor you know if we have a format and people come pretty close to it because you look at the old committee structures they weren't perfect but these are not we're not anyway but so the other thing that differentiates is these were ad hoc or clearly president appointments and the reason we've run into some issues of non residents I mean non elected council members on these is the charter does this split as soon as it's not a council so when we set up the new climate committee it was you know a mixture the charter didn't envision mixed except for finance where there was the thing but I think work groups should almost always be mixed that's the idea of these that we're tapping into the big town out there and bringing other people in to help us solve a specific issue that we want to work on so I guess and the town manager can do this now I mean the work the parking group thing was set up but the council can't so this was to enable us to be able to think this way so one of the one of the ways I was leaning towards the end of the last g.o.l. meeting and I should also and I mentioned this in the council meeting we intend to have no vote on this today and I think it's because this is substantive enough that we need to think about it over a few different meetings but where I was sort of leaning at the end of the last meeting was is it possible to modify our rules around ad hoc council committees to I guess I would need to do it would need to have three changes right one would be that the council may establish an ad hoc committee but that a committee of the council could also establish an ad hoc committee and therefore that would change the appointing authority to the chair of either the council or the committee of the council to to specifically call out that residents can be on ad hoc council committees and then three getting rid of the idea that an ad hoc council committee has to have a charge and the charge aspect is sort of weird because the rules of procedure was an ad hoc council committee y'all had a charge but the CRC ad hoc committee to come up with the CRC charge didn't have a charge did you did you have a charge I don't think you did I think well we were I don't think so yeah in that sense we were working like a work group we were because we didn't have a charge and the ad hoc committee to finalize the eCAC charge wasn't ad hoc council committee but did not have a charge and so we've in the council in our short ten year we've created ad hoc committees that we created charges for and we've created ad hoc committees that we does goals have a charge I just have to say you're making this more complicated than it needs to be ad hoc committees are called out in the charter and their presidential appointments they're short term non standing committees we understand what those things are they're subgroups of the council dealing with something that are going to come and go they're not a forever committee this is just different and just make sure we write it a way that this is different I guess I'm trying to figure out how it's meaningfully different to your point that I'm over complicating it I'm trying to simplify by saying if we have two types of existing deliberative bodies council like standing committees and ad hoc committees of the council that to me is simpler than trying to explain to people well we have standing committees we have ad hoc committees but then we also have this weird different thing called work groups to me the fewer types of bodies we have the simpler it makes it except that the charter says the president appoints ad hoc and council committees it names them and I just you know if we want CRC to be able to act and create a work group I don't think we have to go back to Lynn to figure out who's on it you know I'm just trying to say this is a short term I don't think if you're worried about the public being confused I don't think we need to worry about that I think they will be so delighted that we can do things quickly and efficiently and pull them in that they'll understand they're on a working group you should have seen the percent for our people okay we have to do a charge and we have to go back to the council and we have to get appointed at CRC level Steve who is the chair would just say here's your person go work with these two people come back to us in a month that's what they were hoping would happen you know but we could also modify 10.4 to remove the part that says council's charges and then we don't require a charge for an ad hoc committee and then that eliminates that bureaucratic step we've had several ad hoc committees for the council that didn't have charges and so now we require them in our rules but we don't have to that's my point then George I it's almost a clarifying question because to me what Kathy said was you know when the percent for art people here why didn't somebody from CRC go sit with them and work on it and that to me why didn't we why no shame or blame on the committee what I'm saying is we didn't feel like we had the ability the flexibility to do that so there's a so that's another issue creeping in it's not even a work session maybe you know if you don't but that the committee work can go forward if one person or two people from the committee are meeting and then that comes back fairly quickly to the committee so there needs to be some kind of clarity about what a committee has the right to do and we really need to think about that I'm sorry George can he type and talk at the same time okay he's getting better at it he's trying to but if he also has to hold down his mic he talks at the same time that I don't think he can do Evan could hold it Evan's taking notes as well we'll sort it out I don't have a problem with three different entities as long as we are clear about what each can and cannot do I don't want a situation in which to create an ad hoc committee to always go to the council so it sounds like Evan's thinking well we just have two kinds of bodies and we write the rules for the ad hoc bodies in such a way that here I'm speaking for him and he'll correct me if I'm wrong but we'd write the rules in such a way that you could go ahead and create an ad hoc committee on a committee without having to go to the council to do it there is the issue that's been raised by Kathy that the charter seems to say well the charter designates that ad hoc committees must be appointed by the council president and we clearly don't want the council well I don't want the council president appointing every single ad hoc committee if we're trying to create work groups in essence so that's why I'm thinking maybe it makes sense to have three entities and ad hoc committees refer to council committees created by the council and we have rules for that and work groups would be a separate body that could be created by anybody actually could be created by a committee could be created by the council for all we care but we would have to distinguish and that's what we're trying to do I understand but maybe I'll ask Evan this question if you have just two bodies committees and ad hoc committees are you envisioning writing the rules for ad hoc committees in such a way that it would essentially it would make it possible for this idea of flexibility and they could be appointed by the various committee chairs and not by the council president necessarily is that what you have in mind because I'm thinking there's nothing wrong with having three different entities as long as we just have them clearly defined and you know Sure simple answer yes and again you know I don't have a rigid position I'm a lot of this is still sort of I'm processing the best way to go about doing this last time I brought to this group these draft work group rules that are in your folder that you both have open and I think I guess where I'm at is to me it's possible to essentially modify these draft work group rules and stick them into ad hoc council because that because to me I personally don't think an ad hoc council committee always needs a charge and I think we've seen that I don't ever remember did we vote on a charge for goals goals did ad hoc goals they don't have a charge so we have active ad hoc council committees that are kind of almost what we're talking about except they don't have residents they don't have charges so one of the things that I like to revise the ad hoc council rule to say that we don't need a charge right and in that case you get around that now Kathy brings up the point that the president appoints and that's true that's 2.2 b in the in the Charter however I mean there's nothing to say that we we can't write into the rules that that appointment is delegated to the chair I mean we did that for public ways right I mean technically we're in charge of every public ways request but hold on we don't want to do that and so we've delegated some of our authority it's possible to delegate that authority and so if the only and this is where I'm saying if the only hang up is well the president appoints ad hoc council committee so we have to create a whole new type of body to avoid that situation I feel like there's probably a way where we can say if they're created by the council it's the president but if they're created by a committee the chair of the committee but that feels to me like we're muddying the water and I'd rather see three distinct things which I didn't feel before but it feels like that Kathy so I just pulled up our rules the as last I saw them on May 20th if you under the 10.4 if it says the last sentence says if the charge is shall us to establish ad hoc committee shall specify the purpose of membership if you said council decisions to establish ad hoc committee shall special then you can get that just insert the word decision you know because we charges charges have now taken on a whole meaning that if you had asked me what a charge was in January I would have said it's three sentences when we were set up the rules ad hoc committee was just after we'd had a three hour vote on the vice president Lynn said okay we need a rules subcommittee when we didn't vote on them who wants to be on it and she said okay you're all on it done you know I mean it was like it was you know and then we were told we had a timeline so if we just say council decision then leave the rest of it as it is or if you need to say ad hoc committees have council members on it so that's distinguish what it doesn't say that it implies it then work groups become very distinct that work groups you can write can include residents include staff members and they do they are for specific issues I think you want to make and they can be created by committees and just write it very simply they can be created by a council committee and then find out and then they will need to comply with public meeting law period you know whatever that means you know but I think you could making it distinct will also feel like we're being very responsive to people saying there are a lot of people out there who are willing and able to help when you're wrestling with you know and this idea of cross working with other committees that are not committees of the council and the world at large make it clear that we're not just isolating ourselves as 13 people arguing hard to not try to make it a subset of I'm arguing very hard that I don't think it should be a subset of ad hoc ad hocs it should be its own thing study group for CRC I'm not clear about what's bugging here I'm writing somewhere between all these hundreds of people and I don't know if I want residents you know and I'm somewhere what am I thinking about here so I'm not being clear and I'm going to let it go for a second it gets clear I will try to say something so I want to you received the paragraph that we pulled out right so if you should have access to our packet as I said I got off the boat and I haven't I'm not saying you should have read it but what I am saying is if you should have access to our packet and there have sort of the draft work group rules that I wrote and the first part of it is a slightly modified version of the paragraph that you all came up with I elaborated on some aspects such as specifying things like they don't require a charge specifying things that they're there to serve the council they're not a town committee so the town manager isn't appointing them I feel like to some extent we've exhausted the conversation of whether they should be a separate thing so I want to move on to another aspect of this that we've all touched on but and it was a big conversation last time which is so assuming that's a separate thing who appoints and so the idea I put in here for because I had no better idea was whatever committee create whether it's the full council or the committee the chair of that committee appoints that sort of that puts a lot of power in the chair of a committee and right but how do we feel about and I want to hear also from Kathy because I know that was one of the questions wrestled with and one of the reasons it's got taken out was the question of appointing authority do we feel it should work groups cause their own separate thing do we feel it's appropriate for the chair of the originating body to be the appointing authority are there other ideas for how these things how people should be appointed to these the benefits or drawbacks to the chair being the appointing authority I absent another suggestion I think that's fine we have to trust our chairs to be completely even handed and sometimes the chair might be turning to the vice chair or another person saying who did you have in mind you know so that would be the way I would think about it because you know I'll take CRC Steve knows planning and zoning if it was transportation or it was housing might turn to somebody else saying you know are there particular people that come to mind or would you go out and find a few the way they used to find finance committee people you know when it was the old finance committee but Jim Fistrang would ask around who do you think might be good on finance committee and people would give him names and he would call them up you know I mean to almost invite them in you may ask the school of management or someone who used to be on a you know so I think as long as we trust our chairs to operate in that way I think chair is fine and you know there's some things that if we write it that the committee shall appoint the committee could make that decision you know I don't always feel like we have to write down everything but if you feel like you have to write it that the chair of the committee shall appoint you know when we were talking about who would do the interviews before OCA did it for finance members we were talking would it be the vice chair the chair depending on who had time you know but appointing authority is D I guess this is my question what Kathy said before absent another suggestion is where I landed on chair it was like oh maybe that 0% thing with the two people George I'm just thinking practically I think what everyone's saying makes sense we're collaborative we work together we should trust our chairs if we it did read the committee of the originating body shall appoint all work group members what does that actually mean in practice we talk imagine we wanted to create an ad hoc committee for a excuse me a work group for this body there is something to be said for having one individual whose job it is to sort of come up with a list of names reach out to people make some decisions but it would be subject I would think to the group I don't know I guess we leave it if we take our chair and just put committee it'll still work fine I just like the idea of having somebody who's actually supposed to you know appoint as opposed to just the committee shall appoint but it sounds like what you're saying is that it'll work out one way or the other and this I'm not finding by the last packet I find was 711 so I might be looking at the right place share point should I be on share point oh oh share if you're in share point yeah oh no I didn't go to share point I went to the meeting posting yeah that packet hasn't but today's packet isn't there it's in share point share share point is George I'm also wondering just as an aside while Kathy looks this up whether it makes sense for us given the time we still have some just go through whatever it's done pretty much line by line see if we can come to some consensus ourselves I mean we're doing that in a way but it nice to feel like it seems like we're making some progress here we're getting some clarity on it sounds like we're looking at three entities so we do want to clearly define work groups and distinguish them from committees and so maybe we've already done it maybe settling this issue it's fixed but might be worth it going through this line by line see if there are any other issues and then if we can come to an agreement we've got actually something we can work with so I think I'm in the right place which am I opening up this meeting and then going to draft work group rules is that what I'm going to yes yes so this seems to be change chair of the reasoning body to the committee of the reasoning body is that what I'm hearing here sounds like it yeah so let me why not just walk through this actually so the first paragraph is actually all is very similar to what rules and procedure gave I think I added a little bit of language in the beginning about in-depth research and then I think the last sentence I added which was simply to define what a work group actually means and again if we were to adopt this a work group is defined as a temporary group that includes individuals who are not members of the originating body I would want to also go back to 10.4 and specify that council committees are at council committees are composed of counselors because I do want it to be very clear and this is the thing I'm not I feel like I've seemed super rigid to the idea of only two and I'm really not it's just if we have three I want to make sure the distinction is very clear and I think that requires revising 10.4 slightly to specify I would just say individuals who are not members of the originating body you could say includes members beyond counselors you know so the point is it's not just counselors it's not just not you know so you're not going to pick it conclude you have include members not at the originating body but we if you to the extent we did drafting we tried to go right to counselors who are members so you don't need that members the originating body because it could have a town staff person on you know and the point is that it's it's tapping beyond hours okay and I think so and I think the other reason that was slightly I struggled with that wording because to me it was also not just so if CRC creates a work group for percent for art it would include not just it would include individuals who are not counselors but it would also potentially include people from finance so it would include counselors who are not members and that's I guess what I was trying to get that language is that it's going to be people who are not members of the originating body some of which might be counselors some of which might not be because we might have you know can fix the wording to make that clear okay I'm going to make comments on this and I can edit it word on line because the beginning is town council or town council committee so something beyond the originating body is beyond the town council is referencing one of the subjects the other is you've got a lot of complex things added to this and here you I'm just looking by a majority vote of the full body the town council council so you're having the full body vote to set up a work group the way I read this either the full body referring to either the town council if it's created by the town council or town council committee no but you don't have the qualifiers right the full body the town if you start with the subject the town council or a town council committee may by majority vote create a work committee then you make it clear that the council see the majority voted the full body the full body is the council otherwise so change the actor to be the beginning the town council or a town council committee may by majority vote create a work group so two possible actors here as the beginning of the sentence and one thing I want to make sure it's clear with that wording is the reason I think the majority vote of the full body and not just majority vote is there had been some discussion in this committee that the vote threshold should be slightly higher to do something like that so right now there's three of us here a majority vote would be me and Pat decided we're going to create a work group but a majority vote of the full GOL would require three votes instead of just two same thing with the council right that also can be a point of discussion we don't have to have that it could just be there you're just saying you can see majority vote of the full body if you want to I just want to make the actor be since we're talking about that sentence that majority vote of the full body was that that wording was chosen very specifically to specify that the vote threshold is higher than just a majority of whoever is there we don't have to have that just right by majority vote but it would require at least three votes in any council committee and at least seven for the full town council I think we should leave a full body just to prevent three people so A we're going to leave the concluding sentence for Evan to work with work group is defined as a temporary group that includes members other than or beyond councillors strike individuals who are not members of the originating body I'm right now I'm just making comments because I can't do track changes on here so I'm going to later put this into a word document do the track changes so you can see but for now I'm just doing comments good and are we thinking of making it explicit could be town staff could be members of the public or do we figure this language is sufficient do we want to make it am I overthinking this by the blank looks the answer seems to be yes I am so we just leave it well let Evan decide but I don't get if you know we don't need to have examples do they need to be residents to me we could have someone from the university who lives in Hadley if they have expertise which is why I think I most prefer to keep it sort of broad good but again you know under your little B the motion to create a work group must include at a minimum the composition regarding numbers of originating body number of councillors number of councillors and residents staff or other it just you know there was because it doesn't have to be just the originating body you know as Pat was saying you might want to pull one from finance one from someplace else so just change it so we got number of councillors and residents town staff or others you know whatever you want to do but you can do in the B sub one is what I'm looking at the originating body so the composition right you're just going to say who's on it but it's not again it's being clear it's not just councillors so are we good with A? Yeah we're trying to work A and B we're trying to go together so take our time we're okay with A is the question but A look fine so B I'm going to look at this B one other comments on B and so I'm just saying B one the notion of non-members is just change to the number of councillors comma residents town staff or others or other members you know another a non-member is an odd concept to me you know so just other comments on B? Difference between two and three they could be combined honestly to me the issue is so percent for art is the issue but then you can't just say what's the task are you coming back with revised by law are you coming back with a presentation of alternatives are you coming right what are you actually actually so two, three and four are all sort of similar and to some extent I wrote I want to be very clear that I did not put this forth as like here's what I think it exactly should be my task was to put forth ideas and so two, three four to some extent are variations on similar things that I'm putting forth I would just combine I would just go the measure issue and task that shall be the work groups focus get rid of three the measure comma issue and task that shall be the work groups focus and then you know it's like what are you supposed to do is all in two and what do we expecting from you at the end I mean since we're doing this together as a group I apologize bouncing back and forth but I can see Evans logic and why he broke this out and it might be wise to leave it this way because it's asking three very different questions it may be true I mean I originally thought what's the difference and I guess that was an open question actually and I think there is a difference obviously between the larger issue and it's kind of forces whoever is creating the work group to think okay what is the issue here what specifically are we asking these people to do and what do we want from them when they're done and maybe in the real world none of these will be answered very clearly but the hope is that they would be and so maybe there is some sense in his original then it's okay because none of these are more than two lines more than one line long and it is these are three very different questions and all three should be asked and certainly the answer would not be the same for all of them maybe two and three turn out to be the same but certainly four wouldn't be and so this is good I think and it dates certain to produce its deliverables so I guess I'm going back I asked the question in an open sense and I think the answer is that these are very specifically mentioned and so let's leave them in my thought alright I think they still find them as long as you change one yes yes agreed that makes sense I think C okay we'll see any comments on C? D, we're changing we already so we're thinking about putting this to the committee itself makes the appointments not the chair E, this came directly from the language that is provided to us from rules procedure that makes sense I think that needs to be somebody who's overseeing it until they figure out who wants to be in charge I mean at any point the chair could delegate no I don't thank you for asking but I don't should we write George Ryan will preside over every work group until chair is on who do we want Steve F, obviously we want town attorney opinion on but I put it in there because my personal feeling is that it probably will and then G is just dissolution any final comments so the thought is that Evan would go through this briefly one last time and then what happens so we are committing next meets on August 7th I believe the council next meets on the 19th we next meet on the 7th of course we're missing two of our members today both of which had fairly strong feelings on work groups in our last meeting so my intention is to bring back a revised version hopefully they will read the wonderful minutes that George is taking of this discussion maybe we'll suggest they watch the video and that will and then I think at that point we'll probably continue this discussion and hopefully vote on something to put forth to the council as our president mentioned last time it is work because of the two readings rule right I mean it would not be voted on until the earliest the 26th probably more likely September 9th so it gives us a little bit of time if we expect that first read might be the 26th but I would expect this on the agenda alright with that I just have one suggestion on E I went back to our original rules because I didn't remember that we ever put we brought the chair of the main council in to preside over the first election I don't remember writing that sentence so it clearly slipped by me because when we first met at rules we just looked around and said who wants to be chair so but could you make it E the chair or vice chair of the originating body so I don't want this to be that the thing can't even meet Steve can be you know we want to leave the work group flexible to start meeting right away and not be dependent on busy people's time schedule it could also be the chair or designee or designee you know so yeah the chair designee because you might I'll use the example here that CRC says this member is going to this committee for the very first meeting they could preside until they elected chair you know just make it fast yeah designee works alright so with that I think I want to move on to the next agenda item so again we're not voting on this today we'll continue discussion on this on our August 7th meeting so then I want to move on to our next agenda item Kathy you're welcome to stay but please do not feel obligated but we have an exciting conversation to hear from George about a policy on resolutions proclamations commemorations and citations if you leave I will be crushed together very slowly so I can give you full deference so again as a reminder for our committee there was a request that we develop some type of policy of the council and it doesn't necessarily have to be a rule although it could be for how we handle resolutions proclamations commemorations citations George took on this task I believe he met with Alyssa who had some opinions on this and turn it over to you what agenda item is this just for the minutes this is agenda item 4 you have in your packet put it in there the other day I think it says something in definitions definitions is it in front of them so that was my creation for us to at least begin a discussion there really there seem to be two topics here but one has to do with proclamations resolutions commemorations and I added citations I think and then there's flags and so we are going to deal here with proclamations resolutions I have these two separate agenda items so the first task is simply define and clarify each so we could begin with that this was also something that Alyssa suggested that just be clear on what each one is and having that written down and then she had a few thoughts about them in general which maybe we should come to after we look at these definitions and see if they are clear enough if we want to revise them or if there are other problems so I would suggest we start with that and then we can turn to the larger issue of policy so did you write these did you find these I did what every intelligent adult does these days I went to my computer and typed in and came up with these definitions and they came from standard dictionaries and so forth I've slightly modified them but I tried to because I had the same question I'm sure all of us do we tend to use these or some of them anyway as synonyms but in fact seems they are four distinct things and they have four distinct functions so essentially I did not create this out of my head I went to the dictionary and then slightly edited them and tried to compress them but we can do more of that or whatever Pat do you have comment well I'm thinking about what George said to me the other day and a resolution it looks here like a legislature does make resolutions as well as absolutely no no absolutely I thought you were saying the other day that it's not legislation so we shouldn't be doing that that's something we'll talk about in a few minutes though I actually don't think it's probably relevant but in the long term but we certainly can but you're absolutely right we do make resolutions they're formal expressions of opinion and intention that's right and usually involve a vote take a break children to make things simple there are reactions to these definitions yeah so um my only the only comment I had on them was a citation is a formal whole statement praising a person or persons um is that would you ever give an organization a citation I I think as opposed to yeah I mean you want to basically you want to not praise a group say um you know Craig's Doors I don't know whatever just picking one off that's in my top of my head and it's not an individual but you're here or the board let's say to um praise the board a citation for their excellent service right so that's the only reason or an unusual like suppose there were a huge tornado and the survival center took all kinds of people in and fed them for four days or whatever you know then as a town we wanted to praise that and that wouldn't necessarily fit into the other three it's not a proclamation for sure it could be a resolution and you could express you know we're really grateful blah blah blah so the difference between the two is perhaps um that's not a one but I think the key idea of a citation is actually that the whole point of it is to recognize and praise um commemoration is about something that's in the past and a proclamation is basically just making something known um announcing something so if we're satisfied those seem to me before um things that we can do the real question and the tough one is um what kind of policy do we want to put in writing or do we want to put in writing related to these things and in talking to Alyssa my notes I'm looking at um she you know there are issues of free speech some practical points she made in terms of um her experience um be cautious or careful around um political groups be conscious and aware of difference between local versus non-local um always consider when we form or shape policy when we create policy um it's impact on local business um mature all of this is going to be applicable to what we're looking at but these are the kinds of points that she was making um related to proclamations resolutions etc clarify them define them um be cautious in any decisions you make give yourself time to reflect get public opinion um and I think in most cases that's we've not done that and maybe it's not possible they tend to come so far um all of a sudden here they are you've got a day a week at the most it's not as if you go around right so um that maybe that's just not going to be relevant um so that those were heard from my notes that's what I recall in our discussion um I think the question for us is to what degree we really want to have um specific specific policy must resolutions proclamations and commemorations be presented to us X number of weeks in advance um these kinds of things that's where I don't have any real clear thoughts at the moment when I worked on the recent road thing uh as a group we met for weeks over over a month but I notified Lynn as soon as we started working um that there was going to be a resolution um and we talked about potential dates it got actually got moved and stuff which was fine um so I also think that there are times when if we set a time frame that it would get in the way of something that was happening immediately say Lucio Perez is threatened by ICE um immediate soon uh you know what do we want to make a I don't know I mean I that's necessarily a good example but putting that it has to be ready a month in advance I'm working on another one right now for Medicare for all and we've been working for three months so um what the why does the council need a month or it comes in the packet you can read it so I think I think has it tend to say this on camera I think that it is wise to have a policy that tells people we need to get it within a certain time span but also recognize that there will be times that we will break that pot I mean you shouldn't break policies right but sometimes but this is it's interesting because with both of those resolutions I told that they were coming and I thought this one would be ready in September so what more notice seriously I'm not well it's it's it's not so much the notice well so here's the thing so you told Lynn that but Lynn hasn't told me that right or anyone else that and it's not so much about the notice to Lynn that it's coming but the about the actual text so there's two parts to this right now the text has to come to GOL so right so I was going to say the first part is the text needs to be able to come to GOL in time in an ideal situation there should be two GOL meetings right because so for the the row act we got it we acted on it it was very easy right but in theory let's say it's easy let's say there was something really problematic about it and we said okay we said to the sponsor this needs to be fixed and bring it back to us well then it wouldn't have been able to be acted on in the July 22nd meeting right because it wouldn't have had another GOL meeting so the ideal situation is that you have two GOL meetings in between just in case which would mean that we would need to get them at least like three weeks to a month in advance the text would need to be available see here's a bypassing question because right now I could give GOL right now it's in our packet yes I did I sent it the other day but what I'm saying is nobody on the council said this has to go to GOL so I didn't bring it to the council and say I'm going to be making this resolution and they say well that's a good idea or not a good idea right I mean I did to us because I knew it had to get here but that's did I bypass somebody and I'm not seeing procedures so right now the only thing that is automatically referred to GOL are bylaws so in theory anything that GOL looks at that is not a bylaw needs to be referred to GOL by the council so it needs to go council GOL the ROAC did not go through that because Lynn emailed me and Mandy Joe as president and said I'm asking for you to do this because because you can do that right but I mean it's important for me that resolution must be so it would need to go to the council and the council would refer to GOL I think I think it should be submitted to the council president and she I'm thinking that resolutions are somewhat wouldn't it come they would be sent to the council president right and then she would or he would then send them to GOL then they would come back to the council for the council then to deliberate and act upon it sounds like right now what you're saying is that it comes to the full council and what do we do well it's just automatic it goes to GOL or else it just comes to full council and we just talk about it and make a decision we don't we could just drop GOL it's also a question in my mind what our function is are we like a gatekeeper is our job to say wait a minute because I can imagine a situation where a resolution I mean I can imagine it's unlikely to happen but which says something very different now say NRA comes to us and says we want you to sponsor a resolution that you know for gun ownership and Amherst because blah blah and that's not going to get anywhere and it probably would never be but the point is that where does something like that go and if it comes to us we look at it and go well it's it's clear and consistent or is the role is actionable also related to the idea of does this have anything to do with and that's where we get into that sticky issue that I said we didn't want to raise because I often feel that these resolutions have absolutely nothing to do with what we actually do they're just an expression of our opinion about something and so I take it that's not what we're supposed to decide at the GOL we're not supposed to have a debate about what's your view on X, Y, or Z and so I didn't say anything about the resolution I you know when the flag resolution came I kept my mouth shut about my feelings about it did I really I shouldn't have no I mean we were just in the council meeting I did well actually probably never it never came to you well did it did it come to you didn't come to you no no right well the council meeting no because that's where I have a chance to say what I think but help me here are you I would think it just goes to the council president and then she just sends it to us but maybe that's so right now per our charge because we haven't revised our charge yet we review bylaws and resolutions now of course there have been many resolutions that have not gone to us and that was I think just an oversight but now we've been better about making sure resolutions come to us now per the rules how it gets to us so bylaws are automatically referred nothing has happened it goes to the president that comes to us resolutions it's less clear so our rule 8.2 f the president may refer a measure to the appropriate council committee upon receipt if that measure is deemed to contain a minor request for action or is time limited so for the row act in theory that probably should have gone to the council and they say okay this gets referred to go well but I think because it was considered time limited or because she considered it a minor request the president sent it to us and she's able to do that 8.2 f says the president may refer a measure to the appropriate council committee upon receipt if that measure is deemed to contain a minor request for action or is time limited and then let me add this one piece because f1 is a minor request for action includes but is not limited to revisions that do not change policy well seriously how complicated we make the simplest thing you know if I do a resolution it goes to men she looks at it and she sends it to us so simple I think the rules well no but it's not again it's not the content that I'm we're wrestling with now we that comes later perhaps but it seems what Evan has just read would certainly allow what I envision which is any kind of resolution or citation or come up with a blah blah is a minor matter not the content in the sense but that act the asking the consulate to do this is a minor matter that she would naturally just shoot to us without having to do anything just like a bylaw then we get into the question that we can't discuss today because we don't have time I don't think is what are we supposed to do with these things and the answer may be very simple I'm not sure we need to talk about it but I think the way the rules are written right now allows the president just automatically to refer these to us and and one could argue that yeah so I think I agree 90% I do think that there are and I think that this would be at the discretion of the president I do think there are potentially resolutions that could be seen as less minor so the one that comes to mind to me is the one that was passed by town meeting the 100% renewable energy that was sort of committing our entire town to something right to me that's less minor than we support this piece of legislation send this to Joe Comerford I think that there can be expressions of opinions by the council that are less minor here's my concern according to the charter as it exists now the president would bring to the council yeah I mean we give her some discretion so I guess to me the proper process is they send to the president she sends it to us of course we could also amend the rules to say bylaws, resolutions, proclamations are automatically referred to GOL right now just bylaws are but technically anything within our purview could be automatically in the same way that anything that has to do with financial expenditures or bar and ghost finance committee automatically it doesn't call out exactly what they have to be that could be a rules change so there's two pieces of having them in advance one is making sure GOL has enough time to act the other is also making sure that people are aware of it like you were surprised that there was no opposition right so that might not always be and I also want to I want to come clean and say I am saying that we need these to come in advance as someone who sent in the LGBT pride proclamation the Thursday before the Monday meeting so I I want to all will recognize my hypocrisy here well I think the policy we'll read should be not must we're going to have to recognize that these things are going to happen like this and so we're asking people to please submit X number weeks knowing that full well that that may happen and if it doesn't happen we're not going to I don't even want to be in the position of saying well sorry you didn't make the deadline so come you know so I want to is 1220 I know George has I do need to go and I think that this is a bigger discussion we can finish I do want to just try to take care of our minutes from our July 10th meeting if George if you'll be in that so we have minutes that were written by Mandy Joe they've been in our packet for like two weeks so Pat has made a motion to accept the minutes of July 10th as written I will second that is there any discussion then all of those in favor all right unanimous all right so with that I will adjourn us at 1221 p.m