October 6, 2016 special mtg
Waban Area Council
Special Meeting Minutes
October 6, 2016, 8:00pm
Members in Attendance: Joe Corkery, Sallee Lipshutz, Maureen Reilly Meagher, Isabelle Albeck, Chris Pitts, Rena Getz
City Officials: John Rice (City Council), NHAC (Srdj, Groot, Nathaniel, ...), NVAC ()
Other attendees: ...
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JOINT MEETING CALLED TO ORDER AT 8:05 pm
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CITY CHARTER POSITION ON AREA COUNCILS
On Sept 14th, multiple presidents of the area councils presented to the charter commission. On Sept 28th, the commission met internally to discuss options and came up with three options: eliminate area councils (delete article 9), modify article 9, or leave article 9 the same. Srdj’s opinion was that there was a strong feeling in the room that the commission felt that there were other means for community engagement within city government. SL notes that this opinion seems to have been heavily influenced by a single individual within city government regarding how onerous this is on the city, in particular with regard to elections. There was significant discussion by the attendees around the comments made at the meeting and how best to respond.
Proposed actions: everybody should write a letter on their own, encourage community to write letters via email blast to the community, each council should send their own letter, and a joint letter should be sent.
NHAC called a straw vote to ask whether anybody in attendance at the joint meeting would vote for the charter if area councils were removed from city charter. Unanimously agreed that people would NOT vote for the charter with one abstention (Groot Gregory).
NHAC voted to remove recommendation that the elections have to be held on election day. Unanimously approved.
SL moved for WAC to take up the same vote as NHAC. CP seconded. Unanimously approved.
SL moves that WAC approve sending the letter presented at the meeting subject to final minor edits. CP seconds. Unanimously approved.
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NEW BUSINESS: None.
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ADJOURN:
Next meeting will take place on October 13, 2016 at 7:30 PM.
Adjourn. 10:16 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Joe Corkery