When, if ever, is it appropriate for the Board of Selectmen (BOS) to act on old or new business that’s not posted on its agenda? And what do the selectmen want from the Municipal Buildings Task Force (MBTF) in the coming year? These questions were among dozens that Harvard’s town administrator, executive assistant, and five selectmen discussed at their annual strategy meeting this week, where they also evaluated their accomplishments over the past 12 months and made plans for the 2011 fiscal year.
The meeting—also known as “the retreat”—is normally held each June following town elections. The agenda is not posted and therefore the board takes no action and holds no votes, unless there is business that requires immediate action. By law, the meeting is open to the public, but by practice has not been open to public comment. This year, the selectmen remained at the large oval table in the old town library meeting room from 4 p.m. until nearly 10 p.m., with a pause only once for sandwiches and cookies.
“I can’t believe I survived without caffeine,” commented Selectwoman Marie Sobalvarro on her way out the door.
One bit of business required immediate action: the need to allocate money to pay the outstanding $86,000 in expenses run up by the engineering firms planning the town center sewer system and the upgrade of the Mass. Ave. wastewater treatment plant. The money needs to come either from the town’s reserve fund or from short-term borrowing, and the BOS quickly authorized Town Administrator Tim Bragan to request it.
Perhaps the greatest surprise of the evening was the board’s affirmation, with little debate, of the rules of conduct spelled out in its 10-year-old policies and procedures, first adopted by the BOS in June 2000 and added to by successive boards. BOS Chairman Peter Warren led a page-by-page review of its contents, which Bragan and Executive Assistant Julie Doucet had updated to incorporate the policies of more recent boards and to conform to the new Massachusetts open meeting law scheduled to take effect in July.
During the review, Bragan raised a concern. “The problem I have,” he said, “is that sometimes we’re following the policies and sometimes we’re not.” He said that compared with the written policies of other municipalities, he thought that Harvard’s were “obviously well thought out,” but that he had found himself uncomfortably at odds with the board over the past year. There have been times, he said, when he and Doucet were following policy “and the board’s doing something different than what the policy says.” He said the board needed to decide for itself whether to honor its own rules.
Selectman Ron Ricci said he thought the rules for closing the public comment portion of a hearing needed to be clarified. “We need a simple set of rules to follow,” he said.
Selectman Tim Clark suggested that the BOS sponsor training for all town boards on how to conduct hearings.
As for the rule that says selectmen will not act on issues not on an agenda, which appears on page two of the policy document, it was left untouched, even though Bragan and at least three selectmen had highlighted the passage for discussion. The rule is one that the BOS ignored by majority vote at least twice this month, as it is permitted to do.
“Really? No one has any objections?” asked Clark in surprise, as Warren turned to the next page.
“Apparently so,” said Warren. And no one did.
When it came to discussions of the missions and membership of three important BOS committees, differences of opinion were more apparent. There was disagreement over the mission of the Municipal Buildings Task Force and use of the $70,000 approved to develop options and rough cost estimates for Town Hall, Hildreth House, and the old library. Ricci and newly elected selectman Bill Johnson wanted more attention paid to Town Hall, while other BOS members, including Warren, supported five goals prepared by MBTF Chairman Ron Ostberg and members of the team. Ricci said he was surprised at the way the task force planned to use the funds, but Bragan noted that Ricci had been present when the BOS approved the warrant that authorized the spending.
“Where was that input when we wanted input for the warrant?” asked Bragan. “If that had been there, we would have asked for more money.”
Ricci also objected to what he saw as a lack of diversity of the proposed membership of the new Devens Economic Analysis Team (DEAT) that will be headed by Steve Finnegan. Ricci said he believed that most members recruited by Finnegan had been opposed to a disposition plan for Devens that the town defeated four years ago.
“Why are you discussing this here and not in a regular meeting [of the BOS]?” asked Bragan, who seemed increasingly frustrated by the drift of Ricci’s comments.
Johnson said it was important that the DEAT be made up of experts who provide the BOS with objective data it could use to make decisions. But Warren said that in retrospect he thought the BOS had “made a mistake” in the way it had commissioned the DEAT and should step back, advertise for volunteers, and allow 30 days for interested residents to come forward, as BOS policies require.
The mission and makeup of a third committee, the Economic Development Committee, which will report to both the BOS and Planning Board, was also on the agenda, but Sobalvarro reminded the group that the warrant article that created the committee makes it the child of both the BOS and the Planning Board. Until the two groups met, she said, it was unproductive to discuss a charter.
It wasn’t until well into the evening that the BOS finally began its discussion of goals for 2011. The state of town-owned buildings, the town’s “structural deficit,” Harvard’s limited sources of well water, and the need for a shared vision that other town boards and committee could get behind were all discussed and will be consolidated into a master list by Warren and Sobalvarro by June 18.
Johnson said he hoped the final list of goals adopted by the board would include “new things, not business as usual.” One new idea was Ricci’s suggestion that the BOS create a Technology Advisory Committee that draws on the talented pool of town “propeller heads” that “came out of the woodwork” to create a proposal for the Google Fiber initiative earlier this year. Much like the town’s Energy Advisory Committee, a technology committee could be invited to review town operations and propose ways to use technology to lower costs and deliver services more effectively.
As the selectmen headed home, however, one topic remained strangely absent from their discussions: the town master plan, last revised in 2002 and in need of an update by 2012.