It's hard to believe we're sitting here three weeks into January already. Where does the time go? Before you know it, it will be time for Annual Town Meeting—which is a short 10 weeks away.

It seems there's a lot for the town to do in the 10-week run-up to ATM. The Master Plan is due for an update, and any request for consulting funds for the project would have to be presented at ATM. We haven't heard anything about that yet.

Then, there's the budget. Department heads were asked to have preliminary budgets ready by the end of October. So, where does it stand this third week in January? Hard to say. Not much seems to be happening so far, although we hear that meetings of board chairmen are taking place—somewhere—and we've heard it said, "That's how things get done."

We trust our elected leaders will conduct all the work that needs to be done in the next 10 weeks with the transparency called for in the state's Open Meeting Law, which was updated last summer, especially as it relates to any special meetings conducted to "get things done" in Harvard. Section 18 of the revised law, set forth in Chapter 30A of Mass. General Laws, defines a "public body" as:

"a multiple-member board, commission, committee or subcommittee within…any county, district, city, region or town, however created, elected, appointed or otherwise constituted, established to serve a public purpose…provided further, that a subcommittee shall include any multiple-member body created to advise or make recommendations to a public body." (emphasis ours)

We look forward to covering these meetings, to find out just how things do get done in Harvard.