06/06/2013 CHARTER REVIEW COMMITTEE Minutes

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amendment of the Charter to eliminate it or provide a more reasonable description of what is expected. I would recommend that the Charter be amended to revert to the description of powers and duties contained in the current Town by-laws. 5. The above-referenced committee created under Section 5-7 appears to directly conflict with the responsibility and authority of the Board of Sewer Commissioners over planning, design, engineering and construction of wastewater treatment plants and other related buildings and structures. This needs to be clarified or the Charter needs to be changed to reflect the Commission's statutory responsibility and authority for planning, design and construction of wastewater treatment plants, pumping stations, sewers and other related structures. Otherwise, the great majority of the functions of the Board of Sewer Commissioners appear to have been eliminated. 6. The Charter has created an elected associate member position on the Planning Board. It also specifies that the associate member can be seated by the Planning Board chair, in the case of the absence or disability of a regular member, to participate on a particular matter, with no limitation or specification of the matters regarding which this can be done. Under the General Laws (Chapter 40A § 9) the associate position is created only to act on special permit matters and is not authorized to act on any other matters before the Board. Does the Charter intend to, and can it, supercede the General Laws and authorize the associate to act on other matters, such as subdivision approval, that come before the Planning Board? 7. In changing the Associate Planning Board member form an appointed to an elected position, the Charter has created a number of issues. The first is that it is probably unlikely that many people would be interested in going through the trouble of an election campaign just for a position that might only occasionally be able to sit on a matter. This is one case where election vs. appointment may not make sense. The more critical issue is that the term of the current associate position, under the General By-laws, is for one year, ending on December 31 of each year. Since there is no longer any authority in the Charter for appointment of such a member at the end of the current term, and there is no Town election until next May, the Board will be left without any associate member for almost 5 months, which could create serious problems for special permit reviews before the Board. What, if anything, can be done about this situation? It may be that the Charter should be amended prior to December to either authorize an extended appointed term, allow an appointment in January, or better yet, eliminate the provision that this position is elected rather than appointed and revert to the previous appointment process as specified in the Town by-laws. As it is likely I will not be able to attend the Charter Forum in person on Friday, and because the questions above are of interest to the Sewer Commission, Planning Board and, I imagine, other parties, I would appreciate it if counsel's responses could be put in writing for distribution and for the record. Thank you for the opportunity to clarify these issues.