Littleton Charter Committee - Regular Meeting

All right, good evening. This is the June 1st, hurrah, meeting of the Charter Committee. Tonight we're going to continue to go through the final changes to our document and then review our charter report. We're going to send it to the select board along with the charter document. And then we'll get public input and finalize our minutes. And that may be it. This is our last regularly scheduled meeting. Hurrah, hurrah. Okay, so let's start with the document, the charter document. If changes that were made, you can bring that up, Kyle, and scroll through to things that are yellow. I think that's how we usually do it. There's not much left at this point. Most of it's at the end. A couple of spots of things I don't want to talk about yet.

Okay.

So not the ones that are marked out, obviously, but we know what those are.

Does it go all the way to 12? 12.9, I think.

Although it could be. Okay.

You can also, yeah, you can also, yeah, if you look at the notes, that's the other place you would see things. All right, so the procedures governing multiple member bodies. We just... What number are we on? I can't see it up here.

I can't read the comments. Can you read them? Yeah, sure. So updated wording per May 18th meeting. So on section B, the last sentence, the comment is removed, be approved per 518. I think it seems like section 12.9 may be complete.

Yeah, I think, okay, yeah.

It must be what we added, right?

I think that was, according to your Comment on the minutes. I think it was actually maybe the minutes. It said if the provision is the one stating about audit results. Okay, so that was something different. Oh, that was something different.

Rob, let's just confirm with Rob.

We had parked that comment in there about the audit results must be posted on the website. It's not on here, Rob. It's not going to see it on the document. We had it in there, but the last time we talked about it, we said just let it go? Correct. Okay. I just wanted to confirm that. Okay.

Are we good on all of that?

So that's that. And then, yeah, I guess the yellow here is just we kind of updated this a little bit or added this in from last time.

We talked about it last time.

So just so everybody's in agreement with that, the failure to post. And then this last one, oh, the last one is because it did say the general laws must be approved and posted. But in fact, it just has to be posted within the next three days. So that was the update there. All right. And then we changed in 13-1. We changed that. The original said until the new person is appointed, and we changed that until they're duly sworn to make it consistent with everything else that we're doing. And in the last one, whatever that number is, maybe it's part of the same one, 12-9. 13-2, we changed that. that a person in the permanent service, it did say full-time permanent service, and the cabinet advised we change that to just permanent service. Oh, and we also added a clause at the beginning of that paragraph that says upon adoption of this charter, so there wasn't any confusion about somebody thinking they had a guaranteed job. Right.

Well, the first sentence still does refer to full-time employment.

Oh, it did? We didn't catch that one. We picked the other one, but not that one. All right. Well, let's see.

Holding employment. Didn't we say just strike full-time?

Yeah, but that was down here where it says however. So I just want to make sure that that's where we want to do it. Holding a town office under the town shall retain. Yeah, I would think we don't need to have that to be, say, full-time, do we?

I don't think so.

I don't think so either. Okay, I'll fix that one then. Okay. Yeah. Good.

Now did you send out some other transition language from Anthony?

I don't think I ever sent it because I think the stuff that we had was better. It was very spoiler plate and somewhat similar but I think we had gone through what we had from Groton and that seemed to fit so we just left it. The stuff from Anthony went into more detail about the specific roles and I think we decided not to do that yet until the select board decides exactly what they're going to do then we can That section should be fleshed out more. Okay. And so did we cover the things that were in the minutes there?

I think we did, didn't we, Charlotte? I think so. I guess when we get to minutes, I'll just confirm. Okay.

All right. All right. Good.

Stop sharing the screen.

Well, if you can now bring up Charlotte's document.

Sure.

Please.

Give me a moment.

Yep. So we got written comments from Karen and Rob. And I know, Kevin, you have some. So we can go through those. In general, I'm very pleased with the document. Very impressed you can put that together using the technology and your skills and knowledge. It takes a heck of a lot of time. And it is interesting. I mean, even honestly, I mean, I think I said this to you, but when I read through it, I was like, wow, we did a lot.

I mean, you kind of forget, you know? So it's good to do this. Yeah. Did you want me to reflect on the comments I received over email?

Did you get other ones? Oh, you mean Karen and Rob, or did you get other ones than that?

So far, just Karen and Rob.

I just want to wait for Kyle to get it up. Ah, okay. There we go. Okay. All right, now we can, yes. You want to talk to them? Go ahead, Charlotte. That'd be great.

Yeah, so I think the ones that I have already fall into kind of two categories. One is sort of more formatting or... you know, addition of page numbers and, you know, uh, a few of the, the annex related comments, for instance, um, which I will just absorb as feedback and, and put that into a V2. Um, and then I think, uh, some of the others, well, there's three categories, there's that, and then there's, um, genuine sort of mistakes almost in the document where I feel like that was probably just a little bit of an artifact of the AI summation where things, I think Karen had made a point There was still a non-charter recommendation that referenced the MOUs, and that just fell out of place, and I think that was a bit of an artifact. So those ones I can also just edit.

Frances' last name, right? Yeah, exactly.

A few things like that I can edit. And then the third category are ones we might want to discuss this evening, so I'll leave that to you. No, why don't you go with that? For example, we can sort of take these in no particular order. Well, maybe this is an easy one. For consistency, Karen noted that if we have included votes for some decisions that we took, should we include votes for others? And I noted that I can go back and just make sure that I have captured that where we did take a vote, we can include them. Or we could decide just to exclude them from the report and keep them instead in the deliberations annex that we had. I would just take them out, personally. OK. Because we already have that deliberations annex. OK. We'll take those out. Yeah, so I think that covers Karen's. I was gonna ask Karen actually for a little bit of clarification on the implementation noteboards as policy bodies. I think her comment was really around making sure that we include more clear language in that part of the report where we're saying The expectation is that the select board would not be involved in day-to-day operational processes, and she requested maybe that that be a more clear part of the note, but it felt like that was one for discussion.

Yeah, because to me what she pointed out was the thing about sign and payroll registers. But that's an operational thing and a control issue. That's OK. But still, their policy now is like Mark cannot go and talk to somebody in town hall without going through the TA. So I think we're good with that. OK. I don't think that's an issue. OK. Just make sure that language is. So basically, the issue is talking about we refer to the select board the other board should do like the select board is doing in terms of not being involved in the day-to-day and she says yeah but they're still signing payroll registers and we said well that's that's kind of a different thing that's not being involved in the day-to-day running of the op of the thing so that i got her point but to me i'm i'm still comfortable saying the select board is yeah i think our point was that there was a potentially a um

a misalignment in the document where we say one thing and mean another but you're saying that actually what we say is what we mean which is that select board is policy but there are a few operational things that they do which is normal. Okay. So that was it for Karen's comments. Rob, you'd suggested page numbers and document dates, and I definitely can add that. Yeah, I think I'll do a few other tweaks maybe to formalize the document, maybe even add a contents page as well. While we're on that one, how do you want to handle the sort of packet, Betsy? Do I want to have this report have everything single set of minutes annexed to the report or do we don't want to say I could also just list the dates that we met as an annex or we just leave it completely and say all our minutes are on

The website, OK. Yeah, I think that's sufficient. I think that's added to the table.

Your second comment about just how the Collins Center was engaged, I'll take that one on board.

I think you could just say instead of engaged with, just say worked with. Worked with? We worked with the Collins Center. Is you OK with that, Rob? Yes.

OK. makes sense so the third one I felt like did require a little bit more maybe discussion I think your comment Rob was that we the report may suggest greater public engagement than we may have gotten so I thought maybe if you wanted to

elaborate on that and suggest how you'd want it so my concern is those of us who've been through this we know how many people we have the first one maybe 15 to 20 that weren't elected people that you kind of would expect to be in the room but the second one by my count had just one person from the public attend that wasn't already an existing member of a organization that had already spoken to us many times in most instances. It was just one person. And so the way I come away from reading the entire document is that public input and public, We haven't, the public really hasn't engaged that much in my opinion, and so I'm concerned about that. And so if there's a way to, Mark knows it, Kyle knows it, it's adequate. In that regard, I don't have to insist on any changes, but I want to make the point that I don't think a reader would necessarily be aware of that point, that there wasn't an awful lot of public engagement. We made efforts, but...

I think that's the important part, too, is that we let people know that people had the opportunity to be at these meetings and things like that. Because I know when you've gone through it at all meetings where someone will come at the very end and say, I didn't know about this type of thing. Well, you were given the opportunity. I just want to make sure people know the opportunity was there to come out and say what you had to say.

And I'm good with that, too.

So I think I can absolutely add a sentence that says, although, you know, lightly attended or something like that because I think you're right in terms of the in-person and we don't really know how many people the newsletters reached for instance I think probably gave out what at least over a hundred flyers at town meeting but yeah we have no way of knowing exactly how people engage but yeah I'll add that as a sentence thanks then you also added a comment And I guess this is a question to everybody to discuss this. To what extent do we want to note in the report, our observation of, or our understanding of the opposition to some of the decisions. So we, we note in the report that these were our recommendations, but we don't say explicitly that, um, I think you noted town clerk board of health cemetery commission. have argued against those recommendations, and we should probably make that more explicit in the report. Yeah.

Because we do say at some point, we talk about the police chief and fire chief being... Yeah, that was covered. So kind of like we talked about that, so I think that's fair to put that in there. Okay.

Um... Okay, I guess your comment about the timeline, Rob, I wasn't sure if that was something that then leads to the report itself versus the next steps.

Let me find the reference. It was in the closing section that that the last sentence says, committee remains available to support the select board as the draft charter is reviewed, amended, and prepared for the fall 2026 special town meeting warrant. My thought upon reading that was, it's felt to me like some of the comments from members over the last meeting or two is that we're done. Pushing there, and so the aspect of as are available, I'm not personally opposed to it as I wrote in my comments to you, but is that how everybody's feeling? Like if select board says, hey, you're not done, come back here, et cetera, I just think it's worthy of understanding as this is our last meeting, what is the thought of everybody else? And then that's one part. And the second part is, and prepared for the fall 2026. I've said before, but others have pushed back. I question whether this is going to see the fall 2026 meeting, and it's not our decision. But I just want to make the point, if you folks feel like the sentence as it stands is correct, then keep it.

Okay, let's talk about the first one first. So are we on call, basically, is the question, right?

Doesn't the committee exist until we get disbanded? Probably.

Yes?

OK.

I'm OK with that. I mean, I didn't expect that we were going to say, sorry, not my job. I don't think it works that way. But I want to make sure everybody else is on board with that, too.

I didn't follow exactly where I was looking for something while you guys were talking. So I actually wrote, were your comments around section 1.4 first? Because I wrote in 1.4, I said, the report fulfills the committee's obligation to deliver its draft recommendation to the select board. The committee has prepared the report with the understanding that the select board will review the recommendations, propose any amendments it deems appropriate, determine the form in which the chair I wrote might the select board come back to us for clarification if needed should we should we I was wondering if we would drop something in there that would say the committee continues to be available for clarification about any recommendations or

Yeah. It's a similar notion, though.

Yeah, similar notion, but the last sentence in section four.

Closing. Oh.

Oh, that satisfies my point, that sentence. Thank you.

Okay. So, and maybe then just making sure that those two align, perhaps, that the part that you just quoted, Kevin, and the end closing, just maybe it says something like, this report is one of the... Well, the interesting thing is we're going to present this as a draft report.

Is that right? Or somewhere I read, I thought I read, maybe I'm making that up. I thought somewhere that this was presented as a...

It says right here, as a draft charter is reviewed, amended, and prepared for the fall meeting. So it's still a draft.

The charter's a draft, but I think the report is a final document. That's what I was thinking. Yeah, but the charter is a draft.

Okay, cool.

If that's not clear, I'll just check that that comes across throughout.

To answer that, yeah, I committee is dissolved. You just have to put on which hat you're talking about. And then to your point, maybe we just end the sentence after the word prepared. So it reads, the committee remains available to support the select board as the draft charter is reviewed, amended, and prepared.

Or prepare for town meeting. Or town meeting. Just leave it. Don't put a date in it. Does that make you feel better? We do that? Okay.

Prepare for town meeting. For town meeting. Okay.

I mean, I'm okay leaving it. I mean, honestly, if it says fall, I can change it. I can do what they want with it. But I'm okay with that. Okay. Thanks.

OK. Don't we flip to the Annex B before we go to Annex A?

Ah, OK. Sorry, I'm just reminding myself. So Annex B appears to be an appendix that elaborates on the document versus being a standalone document referencing charter committee members. Yeah, I just like, it wasn't quite, actually, yeah, can you elaborate on that?

Because I wasn't sure what you wanted from that. It seems to be a very good list of who spoke to us and what they represented. I felt that at times early on, Tim and his role as town moderator that we directed some questions quite directly to him as moderator not as a member of a charter committee and I similarly feel the same way Joe about you and then Betsy briefly you as a trust commissioner and so each one of those three along with Kevin I also thought I thought we did the same thing with personnel on occasion and so I thought why not Given how it's such a listing, why not add U4 to the list as well?

Yeah, okay. Sorry, I completely now see what you mean. So put the other hats in there, in the list.

That was my thought.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, thank you for that. I'll also reformat that annex because it was a bit long and didn't seem to be as helpful to skim through.

And then your comment on Annex a So annex a is is a messy comment and admittedly Potentially explosive and you know my opinion unlike the charter that we've gone through in pick a number, how many times we've gone through it, this is really the first time that we may be going through what was the tracker and the document. And now to see some of these, I just found myself thinking, well, I'm not so sure that we agreed to that. I'm not saying it's wrong.

Well, let's just go through the list. Why don't we just go through it? We have committee here.

Yeah, just concerned. I didn't know from a time standpoint.

I think it makes sense because I agree. I have questions on some of those too. So everybody else okay with that?

Yeah, and some of these just pull from our historical... set of minutes so some of them may well be more essentially redundant at this point or and I already for instance crossed out the MOU one because that one seemed like a strange artifact from a previous version of the tracker um yeah I don't know you wanted Betsy just want to go through them sure the first one update housing authority bylaw any questions on that one

So I think that one, for me, connects to another one that's later on, which is the CFO one, which I numbered them for myself, just FYI. I numbered them one through 17 just so I could keep track of them. And so there's a, on the, I don't know how to describe it, designated CFO. And yes, it exists in the government structure review. It's factually correct. But if we're going to mention that one that's from the government structure review That starts to me to bring in the rest of the government structure review as well, which we're not noting So why is the CFO? Getting special attention. I'm not saying it's not worthy far from it I'm just saying there's other aspects in the government structure review as well that that Potentially merit consideration if we're going to highlight one, why not the others? An example within the government structure reviews of reviewing the elected boards and committees is the concept of reducing the board of assessors from five to three. It's a specific recommendation and here we are where We just had an election, and again, it was a write-in that did it that personally didn't sit well with me. And so I don't know that we've talked about that, quite frankly. And then there's...

No, it's a good point, because the other thing that was in that review was the light and water, right? Or the water department ought to be part of the town and not part of the light and water.

We're not taking that one on. Not only that, but it identifies not only merging the two, but also another proposal is... flip the water and sewer and cemetery all within DPW. So, again, there are very specific examples in the government structure review that we're not choosing to have previously discussed.

So, however, as a committee, we did talk about the CFO a little bit, not a lot. I don't know. What do you think? I mean, I'm okay with not putting it there.

That's why I would assume it's here. if we wanted to say take the government structure review seriously I don't know I would assume that at face value you would take it seriously otherwise why would you commission the review yeah it was part of our charge so I was just trying to point out consistency I think probably because we didn't I know we started to talk about the light and water, and then quickly realized that.

We went down the path quite a ways, actually.

But yeah, then we said no.

I mean, essentially, that is what these are. They are an artifact of what we actually did discuss in more depth. And the things that we didn't are excluded by their absence. It's not sort of equitable.

So if you want to keep the CFO in, fine. I think you made the point. Another one that I thought, and we've already covered it earlier in the meeting tonight, I think in Anthony's transitional provisions was a language with regard to a specific statement with regard to not later than 30 days following the election at which this charter is ratified by voters. select board shall appoint a group to basically review all the bylaws because the charter is going to negate a whole bunch of bylaws and so as we look at the first two items in the annex a those are specific very detailed references to bylaw changes but the reality is there are many bylaw changes that are going to need to be done And so I just wondered if rather than note one or two, just identify something that I saw in Anthony's transitional thing with regard to, I think the entire bylaws need to have a group assembled to clean them up.

Go back to the document, put something in the transition about that?

We could. That would be one way or put it in annex A. I'm fine with either one, but I do think the concept of cleansing the bylaws is something that should be noted either in our transitional provisions or in this annex A.

So one way could be to update this and say that the item is to review all the bylaws against the charter or just review them in general. If we want, I could add just these two as examples. That'd be fine. And then we didn't, I mentioned it, but I haven't cleaned it up and share it, but I did ask Claude to do that completely sort of automated bylaw review and it's a pretty long list as you say. So again, I don't think we want to go through that because it's probably all above our pay grade in terms of what it contains. But I wonder if we can just at least share that output as an initial clue almost to say like when we run all of Littleton's bylaws against the charter and our minutes, these are the places where things pop up as maybe being inconsistent.

I don't know if it's been discussed. I know from speaking with Diane in the select board meetings, Diane's got a group external to us in the select board that is already reviewing the bylaws with an attempt to do some sort of cleaning up. Mark, is that between the select board policies and the bylaws?

the document recommended light and water

and so I can essentially just take the two and just say these are the things that we did address these are the things that we didn't and maybe even just include a small table very kind of neutral okay so you'll have one table about things we did discuss but didn't address and one a table about things we didn't discuss or touch yeah

of the which call it report the government structure review yeah yeah yeah nice okay very nice and as far as future

right if there's language that you would recommend that's not already in the charter for for examples so that might be something that you need to meet again on for something like that or you might already have that information and you can just put it in on your your suggestion stuff okay okay i did notice there was another one in here which was a bit of a um

Version there was a one about the veteran agent reporting line, which I've since deleted because I think that that one Was just a matter of version mismatch Were there any other items for that table that we either want to revisit, remove, or add to?

Yeah, so for me, the third one, the approval financial presentations, the fact that the recommended action is to select board of the TA. I just see town meeting, as we've discussed, is pretty presided over by the moderator. And so it's the moderator that decides such things, not the select board or the TA. The select board and TA are more or less just guests. They don't have a role unless they're called on through the moderator. So it seems like an awkward action to recommend the select board and the TA.

And honestly, my reaction was the last town meeting, we had phenomenal financial presentations on the stuff that was going on. So it's kind of like, okay, you're going to approve on what? Correct. But I know in the past that wasn't always the case.

But it's at the moderator's, I think, decision and certainly the town meeting report has on the annual budget a pretty robust presentation that often, I think, finance chair or somebody does give those presentations. So I'd prefer number three to be struck, to be honest.

Would you? Okay.

That's just me.

I mean, I think instead of improve, I would just say ensure that it happens. But if you want to struck it, I'm good with that because I'm not comfortable with it given the way it's worded now, given the last town meeting.

Do we want to decide to strike it or to change it to ensure high quality financial presentations?

I mean, it's kind of a

I don't know.

To say that is kind of like, yeah, well. Of course.

I'm sure everything works well as it should. Yeah. I mean, anything that I think makes this document also a little bit briefer and more digestible is maybe a good thing. All right. So then gone.

Is everybody okay? Yeah. Any objections? Yeah.

Okay. The next one, the Warren preparation timeline, I haven't really heard that there's a problem, and it seems like it's very fluid and it's working well. fine as is, so again, I'm more for removing it than tweaking it. The next one, the org chart, I would agree wholeheartedly. I think it's a very worthwhile thing, but where I found myself going there is on the action to develop and maintain, I see it more like a How are you going to use this to inform the public? Like it's a communication vehicle. This is how our, for me, this is how our government operates. And so I don't know how to, if Jim or the select board directed to be placed in some spot, but it's buried where nobody knows about it. you know, it's worthwhile to do it.

A lot of towns have it right on the town website. You go and there's an org chart.

But it almost goes to some of the aspects that I didn't listen in yet at the last select board meeting. But the whole position change that involves Nancy Glencross and communication and stuff. It seems like having this could be part of a newsletter or something of this is how your government operates. These are how you can learn about things etc the org chart i feel serves that function but yet without a a bit of a preamble with regard to welcome to littleton's governance and how it operates it seems like it needs even more than just a here's the org chart you know sort of thing but that's just me yeah i mean if we want to keep it kind of have

I guess, keep it to what we discussed as a committee previously, then maybe we could keep it as to develop, maintain, and share, and publicly share a current org chart. And then, like you said, maybe the more nuances of that is.

They can take it from there.

OK. Yeah, I can add the sharing part to that. And then also, again, some of these are little weird artifacts, like with the before and after about the charter transition, I think that was actually a note to us.

So I can strike that. Okay. Yeah, I define that. The next one, the town-wide policy, it feels to me, again, didn't get the last one, so I don't know if there's an update, but... Certainly there's been recent discussions, select board meetings, with regard to use of buildings subject to bonds and how it can be done. It seems like that's an evolving situation that you folks are already, select board is already working on. I guess I was uncomfortable. We went with great lengths in our proposed charter with regard to exclude the school, exclude the library, exclude park and recs. And so developing a policy for use, it felt to me like a little bit too much of a push to be in that next place, given how we identified what's to be excluded and the fact that the select board's already dealing with Aspects of how to use 36 King Street is one example.

That's come up recently the last two months It's just when we get rid of this that'd be my opinion But do we want to replace it with what I think might be a more updated version Which is we as a committee recommended that there be some sort of list of the properties not saying what one will do with them, but that there is a some kind of centralized list of town owned

I think it's in the charter that TA's responsibility is to have an inventory of all the assets, right? It is the responsibility, yeah.

So maybe it's redundant then, yeah. We baked it into the chart. Yeah, I think so. Okay. I like it. It's getting shorter and shorter.

And the MOUs, to me, because of the- I struck those, yeah. Okay, yep, good.

Yeah, that was an old defect.

And the civic participation, I certainly agree wholeheartedly with what's said there, but I don't know. It sounds to me like it's just something that everybody's aware of it, and they're trying to address it, and I don't think it necessarily adds value coming from this document.

I agree, honestly. Just because there's nothing concrete there. It's just-

So everybody else, I mean, sure.

Okay. Yeah. It's not very practical.

And similarly barriers to town meeting presentation is kind of a similar one. And I think they've already shown through their action, you know, the most recent town meeting, again, continuing babysitting services in a separate room, deputy moderator, et cetera. I feel like they're trying to do that.

Kind of like our public forums and attendance, right? Participation.

Going through these, actually, Robert, makes me realize that actually a lot of the things we had on the tracker for addressing either have been or are being addressed.

So it's a good thing, right? The citizen petition, I know Select Board Mark like you've been given that some attention and I think you left I feel like you folks have addressed it most recently with regard to citizens are not entitled to and I don't know if you've finalized the policy is but you're actively looking at it correct sure yeah I mean presented something

So then it's redundant for us to say that we should look at it.

It felt that way to me. If it's already in there.

And I think the charter has some worrying about that, too, that citizens don't get legal in town council.

I'd have to really go through the cemetery because it's such a sensitive one, and I really feel the cemetery commissioners to a person are going to show up at the select board to protest our recommendation. So I certainly understand the aspect of ring fencing now. Didn't know that term.

Didn't either.

Before, but... So I don't know. To me, this is like just an expansion of what we've tried to convey in our discussions with regard to the cemetery and the aspect earlier of the protesting that select boards should be aware of that's coming from the different elected groups that are opposed to our proposal to flip them from elected to appointed.

Isn't this line item, though, just like the CFO line item, just an observance from the larger government structure review? So it's not just coming from the charter committee saying wrap cemetery into DPW. Wasn't that part of the government structure review that was done?

Yeah, it proposes it to go to DPW. Yeah, it's there.

We spent a lot of time talking about this, though, and there was concern about, I mean, I like the idea of highlighting and talking about cemetery one needs special attention. I feel like unless we put it here,

doesn't, because basically what it was saying, if one goes with the recommended charter recommendations, but we want you to make sure that this little piece doesn't get lost in the shuffle, I'm not sure where else that would find its way. I'm fine with keeping it.

You make good points, and you just refresh that, yeah, there was active participation. So highlighting it, nothing's hurt by it.

Great.

I think we mentioned the board's policy bodies, et cetera. If you want to emphasize that one too, fine. You said the veterans agent line was already addressed. The senior work off program, to me it's a nit, but if you want to note the nit, so be it. Not really concerned.

Do you want to keep that one or just nix it?

No, I think it's worth leaving in there. Nobody seemed to have the answer for it. That's true.

Okay.

Capital planning, to me, that could go because I don't think it's really an issue.

I think we actually resolved that with the finance.

That one feels a little bit messy to me, the way it's listed there.

Okay. And then town emails. We'll keep that one in there.

The town emails for me is really dicey because I'm just appalled that all the money's been spent on my town email address for the limited use that I did. And I certainly would not want the burden as exists right now of having everybody have to have town email addresses with the additional cost and then all the additional training sessions they have to do in order to keep your town email address. I just found it like I can't wait to get rid of my town email address.

But there are boards that are doing a lot of business outside and they don't have town email. There's a planning board or something. There's some significant board that are using personal email addresses. It's town business. I mean, us, it's just communication, but doing town business.

Yeah, I'm not sure to implement town provide review the matter and figure out something a lot better than what exists Something more like review town email policy or something review provision of town email

Or figure it out.

I mean, I think it's a very worthy issue. It's a problem. As it pertains to board and committee members? Yeah. Not just in general, but as a...

Yes, for officials, for appointed and elected officials, right, is what we were talking about. Yeah. And I think, yeah, comments for town-provided email addresses for elected and appointed officials, including boards and committees, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah. And then I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about adding things, but I did think of a couple more. I think we took a vote, because I think I was the only person that posed it. But on the finance committee, I think we had a discussion as to whether we liked the way the finance committee appointments were currently made. And I don't like it, didn't like it. So I didn't know why that one's not noted somewhere with regard to being a difference of opinion. And I'll just bring up that here we are again. It's a seven person group and there's two openings. There have been two openings for better part of a year and show no signs of being closed up to the best of my knowledge and getting very close to not having a quorum in that group. So that concerns me as to why maybe that one needs to, in my opinion, get some review. We didn't choose to make a proposal, but it concerns me. And then if you remember the planning board, when they were here, there was discussion of term limits. And that was just one person, but then they went on to discuss it a little bit. And as I looked into it a little bit, I was like, holy smokes, one person's actually been there for 31 years? Like, really? And then I found a charter that had you can serve two consecutive terms, but then you have to be out for one year and you can run again the next time. It just felt to me like aspects of if we're really looking through things that were reflected in our discussions that were noted. Maybe that doesn't merit it because I'm not certain that the planning board themselves agreed with what Anna Houston presented to us.

For both of these, the FinCom one and this one, I think they're good topics. It's just like, is that stuff we really should have just addressed in the charter, not just these are both fincom these are both charter things i mean the term limits is something we could definitely put in the charter and the fincom how it's set up you're right i mean we talked about it so i i'm not sure that you're saying well select board you should look at this it's like well so i i i'm not just i agree they're good points i'm just trying to figure out and maybe they're good points but yep over the course of whatever it is 16

15, 16 months that we've met, so be it. They're not noted. One item that I guess I feel a little bit more strongly, though, is the extensive discussions that we've had about the minutes and the fact that we all know, and there's been open discussion with regard to, we know that minutes aren't being posted by various boards and committees, so I feel like that might merit inclusion in the list of, hey, select board, you figure it out. Like we know that we couldn't come to a consensus to add language in the charter, propose something that would address it. But to me, our overall charge was improving government structure, et cetera. And I find the lack of minutes to be a significant weakness in our overall operation.

We do say in here now that they have to be. It says must be posted within the next three meetings or within 30 days, whichever occurs later, per Mass General Law. But it's not a bad point that we brought this up several times. It does say that in the charter, but we still feel like Is that the enforcement?

Right. Diane said she's not going to self-report to the AGs, and we said, okay, and we're not going to put teeth into things. So to me, and Kyle, you're a member, Mark's here, you guys can carry it so I don't have to insist on it, but I didn't want this listing to pass through without me bringing up one more point of I think it's a problem, it's a known problem, and it's not getting addressed.

I actually had an idea about that, and I think it could go in the charter, but I don't know if it's a good idea. So, my idea was, if you required every meeting to at least have audio recording, then you could use AI to transcribe it and automatically generate the meetings, or the minutes. So, the requirement to at least record every meeting with audio, if we put that in the charter, I think that would provide a path for easier minute

don't know if that like I said I don't know if it's a good idea but it was just an idea tell me why it's a bad idea well for one I know the water and light commissioners don't don't record their meetings that way and they're good with their minutes so I don't want to throw a dagger at them but there's inconsistency with regard to boards and committees and whether they are on tape sessions, et cetera. And so, because we haven't discussed it, I'm not comfortable

So I wonder if we might get into a little bit of that sticky territory where if something didn't go right, like if the technology failed us, then you're prohibited from having the meeting. I think what I like the idea though of, and I expect it will become more standard practice, is that at least for the meetings that are recorded, of which it is the majority... and this is what I'd punt to sort of the select board is say if you're going to figure this out to me then it becomes a policy thing or even a TA or TM thing, which is there should be a way of just automatically generating these. That every single meeting that is posted on LCTV has a transcript, it can be automatically downloaded, it can automatically be crafted into minutes, and it can automatically be posted. So for any committee that is behind on sending up their minutes, Just do it for them. And by do it for them, I mean you will get these automatically generated, fairly accurate minutes. And that will at least fill the gap. I don't know if it really gets at why they're not submitting their minutes in the first place.

Exactly.

They're still not approving them. They're still not revisiting them. But that's where I feel like the nitty gritty of how one goes about that.

Yeah, but the automatic generation requires some content to exist. And if that content doesn't exist... Well, then you've got to... Yeah.

So I would recommend that you...

meetings have to be recorded so then it would go in annex a potentially as again you guys figure it out like and then it's sort of okay we know this is a problem we'll punt it to you to say how you want to orchestrate that it solves two problems like that all meetings have Yeah. So it's both a documentation and a posting thing.

OK.

I can add that as another row in that column.

OK. But back to Rob's points about fin common term limits, do we want to do anything with that or just leave it?

I like the idea of term limits. I don't know if it's worth going back to the charter to add it or just put it in the recommendation of you guys go figure it out.

Yeah, I definitely do not. I don't. Fred was on FinCom for 30 years, and that institutional knowledge is huge, and I think planning board has long-term things too.

Fair enough.

Tim was town moderator for 20 years. Yeah.

I'd just leave it at that.

I'm fine with that. I was just noting it as an example, not that I want.

And then on the FinCon composition, I realize that the report doesn't necessarily reflect all of the deliberations and the dissent and such that reflected a little better I think in the deliberation document where we say like with reservations we put that in some of those in those deliberation documents and then of course in the minutes it's also reflected so I think if you know I wouldn't necessarily think it makes sense to put it in annex a table and I was just looking back at the report when we talk about the financial finance committee composition it's a sort of essentially just a summation of where we landed um and then yeah the deliberation documents go into a bit more of like here were the pros here were the cons here's the different pieces I agree with you that one is still a we kept it where it was but

So here's one that I don't know the answer to, so I feel badly throwing out the question. Where do we stand right now with regard to the appointment of a member by the board of assessors to FinCom or to the library trustees? Where is that currently in our charter as to, is that something that?

I think the current charter says library trustees.

Okay.

It does, but in this document we say, someplace it says in here.

So it says the Board of Assessors' current appointing authority for FinCom is reassigned in connection with the recommended transition of the Board to appointed status. So it specifically says that if they are transitioned to appointed status, then it gets reassigned.

Okay. So then it's addressed. Okay.

Good. But if it isn't, then it isn't. Yeah.

That's it.

Thank you. Anybody else? Kevin, you had some things, right? Yeah, and then Kevin, you've got comments, yeah.

Is the premise of deputy town manager in here that we're recommending? No. I'm sorry. Town moderator. It is. The committee...

The committee also... It's in the charter.

And it is in the report. It's under town meeting structure and warrant procedures on... If I had page numbers, I could tell you.

It's in the charter, in section 5-2.

Oh, yeah, it's in the charter, but is it in the report? Good. Cool. Okay. so i i just want to say i i started i printed this out because i when i get my print really need to review something i printed out and get my red pen out i had my pen ready i was ready to mark this baby up excellent the first paragraph the report presents the two sentences man that's what you know next uh so next paragraph second paragraph under executive summary I think there's three points in that paragraph, and point two and three get sort of mushed together by a comma. okay i uh i was wondering if there so the first one is that we adopt a town charter the second is the committee further recommends transitioning blah blah blah blah blah and the i i i didn't know if the and pertain somehow to the uh manner of appointment or was it a standard so you're it's really the third that after the comma is a third point i think yeah And you have it that way elsewhere. You reference those things, and I think they, anyways. I printed this out weirdly, two pages on one page. So under background and context, one, one, one, two. I'm in one, two, what a town charter is and why it matters. I'm in the second paragraph. This I did this days ago. So I Littleton currently operates without a charter. The, uh, it's governance structure is established through a combination of state statute, town by the law, number of the memoranda between the town administrator and elected boards.

So I, that was one of my comments to you, Charlotte, I think too.

What was mine was, is it elected board slash positions? Why did I write that?

It reads weird, I realize, because it's essentially trying to say that the MOUs, which I should probably delete the word informal, but MOUs that are between the town administrator and the board is one of the mechanisms that helps the governance today. So you've got bylaws, you've got historical practice, and you've got these MOUs.

All right, I think my comment is...

I feel like that didn't read well, yeah. I can maybe just wordsmith that a little.

Are there any MOUs between the town clerk and the town... No, okay. So I think my comment, strike my comment. Betsy, though, did you have something else? Okay. I don't... Uh, under one point three second paragraph, there's a colon after the word throughout. Is that intended committees approached throughout?

No, I'm going to change to a period. Some of this stuff's just read weird writing. Yeah.

Uh, under, uh, uh, section two of the report, 2.1 second paragraph. It says in the last sentence of that second paragraph meetings were broadcast. Were our meetings broadcast?

Oh, you mean, did that imply live? Yes. Huh.

I didn't, no.

No, because they're not live. Recorded? Recorded probably is a better way of, recorded and... Archived is fine. Archived is fine? Yeah. Okay.

I am in... 3.2, establish town manager, former government. One, two, three. I'm at the bottom of the third paragraph where it says, a town manager, by contrast, which serves the chief administrative officer with broad authority to appoint and manage department heads, oversee procurement, and prepare a balanced budget for review by the finance committee and select board, all subject to select board oversight. Is it all subject to select board policy directives and oversight? Doesn't the town manager act in the first instance per policy?

I guess the intention there was that the select board is essentially the town manager's boss. But that may not come across completely.

The reason I said it was because we're constraining the select board to policy matters. But that policy is the roadmap for the operations. So I didn't, I didn't know. So it just seems like it's more than just oversight policy and oversight.

Great.

Okay.

Um, nevermind. I made a comment here about the line before that, about the many department heads of a direct reporting line, elected boards, but report the town manager under, I don't know why I did that. Cause now I read it now and it's fine.

In the next paragraph, Charlotte, the committee's deliberations were informed by blah, blah, blah. Last sentence of that paragraph. Both the police chief and the fire chief expressed support for the town manager model. I put a question mark there. And then in the first bullet point, police and fire chiefs, pointed by the select board, not the town manager, while reporting. reporting to the town manager for day-to-day operations. Both chiefs supported this arrangement.

So we had this on the other deliberation document almost verbatim, and I think we actually even pulled it out of the town meeting handout, because whilst they basically said we're okay with it, but we would prefer this. So it's what they said, but it does kind of add this lack of clarity I think what we said maybe is that we'd want to include this language in our report to the select board because it does say yep they're okay with it but they preferred this other one and then we removed it when it was a more public-facing document because it's essentially a confusing contradiction in a way um but yeah it it is what it is I guess um I don't know if we want to continue to have it in here or not, but I think that was also reflected in our minutes. I recall them saying something like, you know, yeah.

You have in the bullet both statements, which I'm fine with.

But just, you want me to not have it up above?

So what I'm wondering is if in the bullet statement, which says they supported, though they expressed preference to report directly, so that says what I recall is, I think what we're saying is that really does, They support it, but they'd prefer. So if we just struck that earlier statement.

Okay.

Well, but I read that differently. But they expressed support for the town manager model. That's not talking about them specifically. They're talking about, in general, having a town manager where everybody reports to that person. And they supported that.

Right. Yeah, but...

Yes, but not excluding them, but they think the rest of the town, it ought to be that way.

See, but they don't merit, for me personally, they don't merit, I don't care what they think about everybody else except themselves. In fact, the fact that they don't agree with it for themselves disqualifies what they think about it.

But they're still involved in towns and they are a little different animal in terms of where they are, where they fit in the org structure. And so they've seen them, they've seen it other places where they worked.

But we can consider lots of people as to what their preference was for this or that.

That's fair.

what I said I don't want any chance for anybody to say no so yeah I don't know what to do yes I can you know what Kevin I can also go back to those the specific minutes from that discussion and just really make sure that I'm not massaging those words too much

But one of the chiefs in that discussion is no longer chief. Oh, true. And then I remember something about the fire chief about, like, nozzles for the fire hose and how it was easier to go directly to the town manager to just get approval versus going to the select board. So... Yeah, the police chief was the one who said that he'd run.

That's what I'm getting at. Yeah, because Steele definitely said that when he was in Groton, they reported it, and they said it worked fine. He was fine with that. Right. All right.

Yeah. Okay. So the first sentence I could wordsmith a little bit to say both the police chief and the fire chief expressed general support for a town manager model which is a bit more like this is something that's good for towns in general and with the idea that these are two senior members of the town that are voicing their support for this generally and then We have the bullet, which has this kind of, it says, both chief supporters' arrangement, they're both also expressed to preference reports directly to the select board. And I can go back and just make sure the transcript matches up with what we're saying. Does that work?

It does for me.

OK. All right. What else you got?

I think one last thing. I am under 3.3.

The chair formalizes to Amy.

What are you laughing about, Rob?

Sal just texted saying, yes, your meetings are broadcast live.

Apparently, he's not saying that. When you said that, I was like, I think they're live.

I guess the question.

I did not know that.

Hi, Sal.

I thought they were being broadcast.

I told my wife you could watch us. And then somebody said, no, they're just being recorded.

And I'm like, what?

Anyways.

Sal, since I interrupted, I apologize. He also says the MOU is going back to an earlier statement. I think there's a section that says it's between the TA and the elected board. And Sal's saying how I thought it was. They're between the boards that give direction to the TA. So it's between the Park and Recreation Commission and the select board who gives direction for the TA to perform the... Oh, the signing parties.

Okay, yes. I think, yeah, I'll make that.

That's how I think it is. That's apparently how Sal thinks it is as well.

Yeah. Okay. Thanks for the public input. Keeping us honest.

under 3.3 second paragraph it says the Charter formalizes two annual town meetings spring and fall reflecting Littleton's existing practice not there's not two formal town meetings that almost implies that today Existing practice is too formal But that's prep that's that's not prescribed that's practice Yeah, so I wrote historical All right. The first half of the sentence, so there's a change there. We're recommending, and there was quite a bit of discussion about it, whether we should formalize codified we're moving from one codified i believe annual meeting to two codified so anyways i just thought for an unknown reader that would say oh okay that's what it is and that's what you're going to keep doing nope we're going to two annual meetings we're we're codifying two well maybe it should be

Because the fact that there is a spring town meeting is already done. And I think that's maybe where the misunderstanding could come from here. It's like what we're actually doing is we're codifying the requirement that the fall town meeting is a permanent structure.

Yeah, it's not an option anymore.

Because saying that we're requiring a spring one is irrelevant because there's always a spring one. So I can wordsmith that to note that, yes, it is the fact that we are saying that the fall one is now mandatory. Okay. Gotcha. Thank you. This is all very helpful.

And my last comment is under Tier 3 operation and governance provisions, the second bolded paragraph, select board powers and constraints. I didn't know if for a fact, it says the charter establishes a select board as the chief policymaking body of the town with the executive, and then you cite 3.4 where there's some powerful words to the effect that in no event should, I didn't know if we would want to quote 3.4, where it says, however, that nothing in this section shall be construed to authorize any member of the select board or majority of such members to become involved in the day-to-day operation. So, I mean, you cite it. It's right there. So, if that's enough, I'm fine. I didn't know if we wanted to put a parenthetical excerpt just to drive Home House seriously. We are.

Okay, so just borrow some of that language, perhaps. Doesn't the next sentence say that?

It doesn't. No, it veers. Oh, no, it's holding another. I thought it was going to, too, Betsy. I thought the next sentence was going to elaborate and expound upon. It veered off.

taken how long, right?

Well, at the last meeting, you were like, you know, this shouldn't take too long. And I think, yeah, if you sit down and, you know, write it out, sort of printing out all the minute, it would have taken forever. It's a thesis. I mean, thank goodness we're doing this in the age of AI support.

Thank goodness for that, for the technology and for Charlotte.

Well, I love that it establishes the basis for our work. It makes clear where did this stem from? Where did it spring from? What was our charge?

It's all there. All right, so how should we do the next steps on this, do you think?

At least from where I'm standing, I will just create a V2 of the document based on all the feedback and discussion today. I guess then the question is back to you, Betsy. Once I've done that, do we want to send it out and then any final comments come up? back just directly to me, like tiny typos, or we just say that once those...

If you agree with it as it is, let Charlotte and me know that too. And if there's any changes that you think something was misrepresented based on today's meeting, let us know that.

Because then it would be more just a matter of just clarifications, like, oh, no, I meant to put the comma there. Right. But that's what I was going to do a V2, and then, yeah, up to you guys what you want to, how you want to take that forward and...

It's up to you folks. I mean, I'm fine with you've taken notes. You've done a terrific job with this. I'd be fine with tasking you to take the notes as you noted during this meeting, run them by Betsy. Betsy, you're good with it and feel it reflects what was said tonight. You take it and don't see it.

Second the motion. All right.

Is there okay with it? We'll do it. Thank you.

And then what? And then do we just email it off? Do we, for the sake of continued public awareness, et cetera, do we go to a select board and do a ceremonial presentation of our recommendations at a select board meeting? Hey, do you have robes?

Yeah, hats and robes. I don't know.

I think their meetings go long enough.

I think the judge, you know, judge rules. It's very self-explanatory. I think it's better to let people read it and then have them, if there's questions or when they're ready, to contact us and then we'll address it. That would be my recommendation. I do think that once this is done that we do need to get the latest version of the charter and this report on the website. It's very important to do that.

So whatever the version is that we send to the select board. Okay.

Can I ask, when you're planning on having, like, we meet on the 8th and on the 22nd, so should we, if we want it on the agenda for the 8th, I just need to know, or colleagues, tell them. Well, that's up to you.

When would you want it, when do you need it in your inboxes by, if you're meeting on the 8th, that's next Monday?

Yeah, like Wednesday, so that's not going to work, right? In the packet it has to be.

If you tell me when it can be done, I can tell.

It's not a lot. I mean, quite honestly, I mean, most of the edits as we were going through them here and track changes. So you're good with doing it this week? Yeah. I can definitely get it over to you, Betsy, and do what you want.

Yeah. Okay.

I'll put it on the agenda for Monday.

Awesome. Okay, then we have to do minutes on May 18th.

Yes, I think I got a reference wrong, so I updated that. It was just a charter reference that was off. Oh, and then the other section on the article 12, which was essentially redundant. Yeah, I scratched that then, too. It was something like, for the thing that had been relocated that was then addressed and is now redundant.

Okay, fine. So So you make a motion to approve as amended I just had a reference wrong is basically one of them in the reference we took out so moved second all in favor Okay minutes approved And public input Very none. Okay, so Alan's not here to do our last I

Make a motion to adjourn.

All in favor? Oh, second. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All right. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Be quiet, too. Do you want the switch for us? Yep.

Thank you.