 Good evening and welcome back to Byline. This is a public affairs show sponsored by the Amherst League of Women Voters and Amherst Media. It's an opportunity for us to get to know our town councillors, our newly elected state legislators, and as our town government evolves from our charter to an actually operating government, there's a lot to learn and a lot of things that we're exploring. And today's guest is our district one town councillor, Sarah Schwartz, and she does have a compatriot with her because there are two town councillors but she's here this evening solo because she was selected by the other members of the committee on outreach communications and appointments as the chair. And so it's a very important committee but before we dig into that, just a little bit here your family has been farming the same farm in Amherst for 100 years, celebrated just this year. Yep, this year we turned 100 years old so it's my husband's family's farm and yep, we did it. I remember being really young and thinking how old will I be when this farm turns 100? 100. Well here you are. Here I am. And the kids are... So I, two children, I eldest is 19 and then my youngest max is 15, so... Very good. And who knew that was coming along? Who knew? Who knew? Exactly. Fantastic. And town government is not new to you either. Tell us what you did in town before town council. So in the beginning I started, somebody said I think it should be... There's a great book that started that way. In the beginning. Yes. I'm sorry. So somebody said I think you should be on town meeting and at that time I think I was maybe, I don't know, like maybe 26 or 27 and I was like town meeting, right? So I went on and it was fabulous and I loved it and I was definitely involved. And so I was on town meeting for definitely over a decade and then after that I'm a farmer. The agricultural commission was something I was interested in and I served on that and eventually was vice chair of the ag com and then later on I got a call and I was asked by the moderator if I would like to serve on the finance committee for a year to finish out someone else's term and that was fascinating. Great. And so did you seek that out or they just called you? It was very funny. They just called me and it was in the middle of a dinner. I had a ton of family over and so I was like, me? Are you sure? So you must have felt pretty good about that. I mean basically you obviously performed in a way that caught people's attention and you didn't even have to go after that because that's a prize seat being on finance committee. Finance committee is a prize seat and at that point I had been thinking wow I would love to do that and of course it's a stepping stone at that time to be a select board member and that was, I remember walking into town hall one time and seeing the picture of everyone and thinking I want to be there someday. Like I just, I love this. And you are now. And I am now. It happened. Which still, sometimes I just think wow that's amazing that that dream happened. That's great. Well congratulations and thank you for coming on to the show. It's my pleasure. Let's dig in on this committee because it's got three charges. Two of them are kind of related, the outreach and the communications. Let's come back to that because the big area that you guys have a lot of decisions to make is about appointments. Absolutely. Because the town manager makes some appointments, the president of the council makes appointments, some appointments are from the council, members themselves, others are people from the community. So let's see if we can help our viewers understand how this is going to unfold. So let's start with from the very beginning. You want to be a volunteer for the town serving on some kind of a board or a commission or whatever. How do you start? So I would say that the best thing to do is to go on to the town website if that's possible. And when you're on the town website you will be able to click on boards and committees and either or sometimes it's the first time that you click on you will see an advertisement for there are vacancies on this committee, that committee and then it will lead you to something to a place that's electronic and it's a community activity form. So it's a very simple form. I know I was afraid the first time someone said I had to fill it out. I was like oh no this is going to be complicated, this is going to be long, it's not. It's fairly simple and so you would fill out your community activity form. It has a place for you to check off not just one board or committee but if you're interested in several, several things you think I think I might fit here, you now can do that on your community activity form. So you don't have to submit a second form for the second committee or the third and the fourth. You used to have to and now you can't. Now you don't have to excuse me. You do not, you can just do it on that form and it's no longer paper, I remember when they were paper. Paper, okay. So now the town manager has before him a list of people who are interested in serving. He knows there's an opening or two or whatever on a particular board. So now he has a group of people that he can consider. Yes. What does he do next? This is actually, this may sound, so before they would be put out in a certain way. We had a different form of government. Now that we have the charter, right now all of them are staying with the town manager until we've actually figured out the process of how we're, which appointing members are going to do what and how we're going to give these CAFs. So I believe the most. Because not all appointments are made by the same authority. No, so some authority, some authority goes to the president and the president has the authority over certain appointments. And then the town manager, there are some appointments that are exclusively his. And then there are some that are the town council's appointments. So right now we are trying to, we're looking at what's in our purview, which is participatory budget, rank choice to voting, planning board, and zoning. Where does finance committee fit? So here's a very interesting thing. So to make this even more confusing for people, there are some committees that actually have part of their members appointed by the town manager. And some, they also have another half or a quarter of that done by the town council. So that's... So finance committee would be an example? Finance committee is something that is completely different because when the charter was written, it tried to capture, you know, a large scope of things, but not everything was captured. And if you look at charges for things, some things are not quite clear. So originally when we all were seated in the town council, it seemed apparent that the appointing person to appointed the town councilors to finance committee was the president. Now we also have residents, that's what we all decided, because of that charge there would also be residents on finance committee. It seemed at that time that it was fairly clear that it would be town council who would appoint those residents. Now it doesn't seem so clear. So now it has gone to another committee, which is rules and procedures. And the idea what's going on right now is deciding should the president actually be the one who appoints the residents as well. My committee, Outreach Communications and Appointments, is saying I think this is still ours. And I think there's also a discussion on whether or not it should be the chair of finance committee who appoints them, only because finance committee is a really steep learning curve. It's complex. And there's a lot to learn. And it's good to be able to have someone on finance committee who knows exactly everything that's going on there to be able to choose a person and to be able to bring them along. So this is still sort of up in the air, but I expect by maybe... So the charter was clear that there should be some residents of the community who are non-voting members on the finance committee, but it didn't say how they get appointed. It simply said they were town council appointments. But that's gotten a little fuzzy. Within the town council, it could be the president's appointments. It could be the appointments, your committee that could make those appointments. And it could also be informed by the work of the rules committee. So basically the council president, you as chair, and Alyssa as chair of the rules committee, have to work together and guide the council through that conversation to make that decision. Once that decision is made, that'll become a rule of procedure, and that's how it will unfold over time. Now the budget's being put together even as we speak. So you're under the gun to get that piece resolved. Yes. So usually what happens when you're appointed to finance is that you come in generally at the beginning of the budget process. Even though it's very difficult, when your first year you go through it, it's really difficult to grasp everything. You start at the beginning, you go through the middle, you get to the end, you have a sense of the entire, yes, to finish, which really does help. Right now we're smack dab in the middle of it and we're heading towards the end. So a discussion that we're having is, is it fair to someone to put them right in the middle of a budgeting process when they really haven't been through the beginning with the rest of the committee? Is that just too much? And then appointments right now, the way that the charter has done them is that all existing appointments are actually up at the end of June and new appointments start July 1st. So it's conceivable that someone who has jumped into the middle of this, struggled to get themselves to the end, may not be appointed again. And that would just, I think that would be really discouraging to people and nobody wants to do that. And the appointments that would start with the beginning of the second budget cycle, how long is that term? Well, so this is very interesting. This is also something you'll be hearing from us. I would say in the next two meetings is that originally it was set at one. The feeling that I think Andy Steinberg expressed, I also expressed is that that first year is really for learning. It's a lot of learning. And it's a lot of learning. And then you're much more confident in your second year. So, but then, so originally some people thought, well, three years, three years is good because then by your third year you're ready to mentor people and you really got it going on there. But then you get to Town Council where we were elected, the inaugural Town Council for three years, but that's not going to be the way it stays. After we're out, then elections go for two years. So now people are saying, maybe two years is better because then you will have a year to learn and a year that you're up to speed. And then it's up to the next Town Council to then appoint people that they want. So that's the process we're going through. Great. So the spirit of the charter is that there should be some residents on there. And the challenge for you at this point is to balance the question of putting them into the middle of the budget process. Is that fair to them and their contribution? But the letter of the charter suggests that you would put them in and so there may be some other ways of managing that around finding some people who had done budget in the past but are no longer... So that's a question that we have and that was posed at our last meeting was should we just maybe bring on people who already have experience who could help us get through this process. But I think another line of thinking is we are now setting up procedures that will work from now to 200 years from now. That's right. So there's some hesitancy to try to do something too quickly or to set up a procedure that says the president's going to do this but later on it will change that charge. To somebody else. So there's some thinking on that. So there's two questions who's going to make these appointments and is this the right time to appoint residents? Yes. Okay, got it. So let's leave finance for a minute and go back to let's say zoning or planning which is in the purview of the town council. Who in the town council do you expect are going to make those appointments going forward? So those appointments are absolutely the job of the town council. These are town council appointments. So my committee was set up to basically be a subcommittee that helps do a lot of the background work in looking at all the people who apply and then bringing names forward to the full town council to vote on. So the recommendations of your committee go to the full council. Yes. And at that point the full council by majority vote will decide who to appoint. And these, I would also, so yeah, that is very true and I would say that when we're trying to figure out the process for this because this process has to be very different than it was in the past. We're a legislative branch, we are open meeting laws, something that we definitely need to adhere to. So it's a different process. It's a very interesting distinction because the select board was executive and if they were making an appointment it was the executive making an appointment which is where traditionally in government these kinds of appointments get made. You are a legislative body and so now there's a question of how do you do that properly and appropriately. So we want to make sure that we make people that we have people that our residents feel very comfortable in applying for these positions that they want to be engaged in this process. We also need to really keep an eye on transparency because that's something that's really important and so where we I think are very close to finalizing our process to how to appoint people but when you look at it and when you see it you will see where a lot of it is as much of it as possible a lot of it's in public which was important to a lot of people and Is your application a public application or is that a private document that the only the town manager and eventually the town council will see? So I think the way that it's looking right now and this again this has not been nailed down at all and our viewers should know that we're having a conversation here the first of March and they may be seeing this show three or four weeks from now and some decisions may have been made so you're giving us some context. This kind of gives you the context of how we went through our thinking process so that it makes sense to people so in the past in a different form of government when we had a select board all the CAFs were treated as personnel files now that so in that had to do with a select board being an executive body right that's the application so things are sort of different now in which you know they may not be completely seen as personnel files because of the fact that we it's not completely this but because we are legislative we are very subject to open meeting law there are certain steps along the way we do need to bring names forward so I believe there will be something on your CAF saying at a certain time in a process if you have been chosen if you're a nominee that's being brought forward with other nominees then the things in your CAF and your CAF maybe will most likely be made public knowledge. So once you are basically a semi-finalist or maybe a finalist it may become public which is what happens in a lot of important jobs in the public sector as well because at some point people need to know who you are and what your views are etc so once the application is processed and there's a list I'll give you the process I think we have but it needs to be finalized to make sure that it's completely legal so you would send we'll talk about planning and zoning you're like I have to do this this is amazing you fill out your CAF online you send it in right now it goes to the town manager now what we think could happen but we're not 100% sure is that the five members of OCA would be able to which is your committee sounds kind of organic we loved it kind of like a vegetable so we're proposing is that entire committee be able to see all the CAFs for this for each particular committee that come in we see the entire pool with open meeting law it is absolutely important that nobody talk about those names we can see them we can take a look we can kind of see what they do we cannot discuss with each other or anyone else any of those names we're also hoping will be possible but we're not completely sure is that one member of our committee and it's to be determined if it's a chair or not would then be able to with the help of perhaps we would want to have the chair of that committee beyond with us maybe we would want to have a staff liaison they could come into the interview process with this one OCA member my committee we would have interview questions that would be set up and would be public and would never change forever and ever so everybody is being asked the same questions same questions and also so say we really want to have the chair of the committee there because the chair of the committee could be able to tell the person who is applying this is what our committee really does and this is how much time it takes and these are the things that you should really expect because that's really important for someone applying to know and sometimes it can be a little daunting or it can be really exciting so the other people who would be there with the OCA member do not ask questions they're not asking questions, they're not the interviewer they're not part of the process for choosing so then after we will be interviewing everyone we are asking everyone including existing members of committees to also fill out a new CAF because they've changed a little bit and we're starting new so then when you say you'll be interviewing everybody every candidate for that position who's filed an application if there are 30 people who have said they want to be so everybody is going to get to that stage yes we want to make sure that it feels fair and people feel heard and that when they send in a CAF they're taken seriously and then from that point after the interviews then a finalist list would be created what happens then so that's the point where things definitely become public so I'm not 100% sure yet but I believe that say there's one position open we would need to bring whoever is interviewing would need to bring two people to the Outreach Communications and Appointments Committee we do that and in that point it does trigger a public process because that's the job of the committee to come up with the recommendations for the full council at which point after that point after that interview and discussion the committee makes a decision and moves it to the full council for consideration or they can kick it back they can kick it back to whoever the interviewer was say it's the chair we're not satisfied we need to Sarah I don't know what you were thinking about that morning but no none of us can ever mention names because that would be inappropriate we all agreed on what we think that we want from someone else's committee we need experience we also decided we really needed someone who knew the effect of swallows on buildings you didn't bring this to us so those are the kind of things we can talk about this committee has agreed ahead of time they made public what we're looking for you didn't bring this to us and then they would reject but you would hope that in most cases the council would say these are good candidates the only reason I bring this up is because a lot of his appointments are powerful and they're important and one of the things that I as a chair especially want to make sure is that we have checks and balances in place so some parts of this long process you might be like my goodness it's so long like how are we going to get people I also think it's important to take the time to make sure that everyone's feeling comfortable with things as it goes on so if then my committee says these are great names then the people would be who were hoping to be nominees or nominees would be told you will now have a public interview your CAF will be public and then it goes to the complete full town council so that's where nominees would then be brought keeping in mind that if then the full town council thinks that they don't know where our head was they could bounce it back too and they can go back so there is safety I feel in place the whole point of having the full council vote is not to just rubber stamp the work of a committee respect the work of a committee but if you see a problem you raise it and move on now what about the process do you folks have any hand or role in the process on the town manager appointments or does he continue to make those appointments in the way he has traditionally made them because they are in his control which if I recall includes the resident advisory committee that helps the town manager sort out the candidates for various appointments that he has is that process likely to stay in place and do you have any role in that as you folks we do have a role in that there are some things like again it's just crazy but you kind of have to take each piece so the resident advisory committee the way it is written into the charter is that they are the town managers committee and his appointment so there's that's what it says so they sort of operate like your committee does in relation to the town council the resident advisory committee operates that way do for Mr. Backelman for his appointments and I believe that the thinking right now is the way the charter has set that up that that's fine that Mr. Backelman will take a look see who we want to appoint them and then they will be there they will help him with his appointments Excellent so what is the role of your work with the staff we only have a few minutes left so I just want to touch on the outreach and communication side of this what is your work and role with a couple of staff people who have been named to work with your committee around outreach and communications before I do that I just realized that I didn't say there are some other appointments that the town manager makes it does make clear that the town council has to evaluate and confirm so we have no idea how that's going to happen yet but some of his appointments do need to be is there discussion about sending those nominations to your committee before it goes to the town council it is on our agenda to figure out how to do that but honestly right now we have to figure out one process we're going as fast as we can so we should stay tuned on that one because that's interesting because you might end up repeating the whole process a second time or maybe coming up with a hybrid put somebody from your committee on the resident advisory we have one minute left so outreach very important something that we are going to be forming a subcommittee on our OCO meeting on Monday it is very important it is to help town councilors with their setting up their district meetings their office hours getting information out to the public it is also to reach out to the public to let them know what positions we have available and to help bring them in so very important which takes you back to the appointments process so the only way for appointments to know that they're really doing outreach right is to see how their outreach is coming in we have 45 applicants so very important and we're trying to get up to speed on that well that's terrific you have a very important committee and by the time people see this a lot of decisions will have been made but I hope that you will now understand some of the thinking that went behind those decisions and in the bottom line is if you want to get involved go online fill out the application know that the town manager responsibility for making sure that the town council gets to see all of those through your committee and that be prepared to be called in for an opportunity to have a face to face discussion with your committee if it's an appointment that's going to be made by the town council in the end correct and that they will be an open transparent consistent process that's what I want there's several steps so it isn't one person or one stage making a decision it goes through a process so there's an appropriate amount of vetting and appropriate transparency in that process so that once people are pointed to these very important positions people will have confidence that they were well vetted and are well suited to do that job and it could be you so fill out that application and get involved so thank you for joining us thank you Sarah for being here that went by fast very good thank you see you next time