Select Board Recap 07/22/2024

In attendance: Chair Tina Hein, Vice Chair Ben Sparrell, Clerk Damon Dimmick, Town Administrator Travis Ahern

Discussion of Draft Town Manager Act

As Presented to May 2024 Annual Town Meeting: https://www.townofholliston.us/select-board/news/townmeeting-was-may-13th

MMMA Form of Governance (FoG) Committee Representative, Retired Town Manager, Charlie Cristello presented the following information:

I reviewed your draft act, but I also went back and reviewed your current act. And actually, for a document produced in 1994. It was very, I think, advanced for its time. It did a lot of good things in the personnel area, and you know collective bargaining and finance. And when many of us, because in 1994, I was still the executive Secretary in Hingham, and there were many executive secretaries back. Then you went ahead, created a town administrator position with a special act behind it and with authority behind it.

When I look at that and I look at your current draft, I see just a progression in kind. You’re not doing anything radical. You’re not doing anything out of the ordinary. In fact, I gave the board tonight a survey that we have been doing at the Management Association for a number of years trends in management in Massachusetts communities, and you’ll see there that you know. Certainly in the last 40 years the trend has been overwhelmingly the creation and the enhancement of management positions in municipal government, you know, year after year after year, and just in the in the period, the last period, the decade 2,005 to 2015. There was about a 20 increase in town managers the decade before that there was an even greater than 20% increase in. I would bet when we do the survey again in another year we’ll see that trend continue.

So you’re very much in the mainstream of where communities are going with their positions. You’re doing it in a way that I think over. The last 15 years has been very smart and well considered, you’re looking to cause as little disruption within your organization as possible, while at the same time giving your senior management position greater authority, greater control greater ability to coordinate affairs, greater ability to bring consistency to particularly the personnel function, and by having all the personnel, you know, essentially, with limited exceptions, be under the in this draft town manager. You also do some smart things with your, you know, making that person your chief operating officer taking away some of the mundane things that select usually do. If they haven’t done this kind of act things that you might have to have extra meetings for, just because it calls for you to do something.

It makes just so much more sense that the town manager, who’s in the office every day and is capable of signing warrants and taking care of grants, and that kind of routine business is more than capable of doing so. You know. I think I said earlier to you, Tina. It’s very much this trend toward that kind of consolidation of authority within. Either, whether you call it an administrator or manager, has been really the theme of what we’ve been seeing, probably over the last 15 years.

I believe Hanover was the first one to go in that direction and to not go down the road of well, in order to consolidate, you need to eliminate these positions or these elected officials, but you get a lot of bang for your buck a lot, you know. You get a lot of benefits from, you know, concentrating personnel, authority budget authority, collective bargaining, purchasing in your chief administrative officer, chief operating officer.

I mean, you know it has the draft you have, you know, as with many towns, you took the good things from what another town did and is operating with successfully, and you adopted it to your own use. That’s what we see over and over again. You see, over the decades you see different forms take root and expand as people see something that they think is good, and then they copy it. This really is the current, I would say, state of the art for towns that are, you know, considering upgrading their main management, position. I think it’s you know it’s simple. It’s well written, and I think it will serve you well if you’re able to tax them. Okay. Well, I would be remiss, if not to add that the prior chair of the Select Board, who left his second term in May was a major architect of the Talmadge Act the draft that you’re reviewing. So I just want to acknowledge, John Cronin, and say that many of the compliments that you’ve highlighted and positives that you’re stating here about the act really direct towards the efforts of John Cronin and those that he advised and worked with, took advice from and worked with. So if John Cronin’s listening, I’ll just say, Hey, nice job, John!

I also think that the documents that you prepared for your May town meeting, which included spelling out in fine detail how the act does not impact other boards and committees was very well done, because a lot of times what you don’t address people read into language and you know, may form the opinion that something is going to affect them in a way that they wouldn’t be happy with your document that tried to draw that out was very good, as was the, you know, comparison you did between your current act and the future act. And what changed and what didn’t change. And you know again, it’s very much a, you know. I think, evolution to what you already have and incremental, you know, addition to your governance.

Clerk Dimmick observed this would result in fewer SB meetings (and potentially other committee meetings) which can benefit our all volunteer boards.

Vice Chair Sparrell pointed out some of the roles the SB was expected to maintain early in his tenure which he found uncomfortable in many ways (e.g. one example, hiring of police department members). He also pointed out with ever-changing employment laws, the importance of having a consistent policy and hiring is managed by someone familiar with those laws to avoid future legal issues.

Kate Fitzpatrick (Holliston resident & Town Manager in Needham)

So I was an assistant town administrator, town administrator, then town manager and 2,004. We started writing our charter, and it passed in 2,005. Okay, so it implemented in 2,005. So it’s interesting. You talked about the language. It’s all the same language. I mean, I recognize actual same. So we bring things into what is needed in our communities.

I think the really important thing is what makes Hollister great are volunteers who care about what’s happening, and they don’t necessarily want to come in and sign on block party applications. I mean, we can report that right? So we really felt that we needed our volunteers to be focusing on policy. The personnel piece, as everybody said, was the game changer for us, I can tell you. It’s been a huge success. It’s almost 20 years now being able to priority set.

and having one group hire all of the people so that they fit together on the team. In Needham we had boards and committees hiring their own department heads directly without input. And it was really complicated when the community holds the select board and the town administrator responsible for implementing things that they don’t have any say over — one of the things we did was really meet with all the boards, as you’ve done, and you know, compromise on the. They really believed in the end that we would collaborate with them on the hiring and nobody. We are not gonna hire a department manager for a board that they don’t want. I mean, it’s never, gonna it’s just never gonna work. So we were able to convince them. And like you have language in their vote communicating or collaborating that was necessary. I think the Select Board really. I think they were able to say, this is, you know, we’re not trying to take any policy away from anybody. And of all the things that are changing they affect the select board most. That’s how I read. That’s how it would happen to us. but it really allowed the select board to do things like strategic planning, which was very hard to do when you had say a four-hour meeting, and you were awarding contracts and things like that, much of which I know you’ve delegated. So we’ve had evolution. It’s 20 years. The funny thing is, we made it through town meeting, and then we had to go to the ballot, as you will, and people would come up and say we didn’t have that already for the general public.

It passed like 80. So, okay, yeah, it was. It was tough to get right past, you know, people who were concerned about change, but it really I think the public was very satisfied with it. I think you raise you raise an excellent point about the collaboration that anyone sitting in the role of town managers. It’s very interesting to hear that from a town manager in another community that anyone here in Holliston, looking at this town manager act can and should expect that the town manager is going to collaborate closely and with a lot of thought and deliberation with the boards and committees to hire the people who are going to serve the functions with that board or committee sets policy or overseas. He’s going to work very closely with somebody who serves in the town manager role in another community as just a standard expectation and a long history of that collaboration is very impactful.

TA Ahern will handle reaching out to the various committees in Holliston and arranging time with them to meet with SB to further explain/discuss the Town Manager Act.

Discussion of Regional Sustainability Coordinator Position

We had 2 companies that responded to RFP. Nobody under the same agreement as Matt Zeddik, who was an individual working with the company, you know an LLC. Behind his name on a contract or hourly basis. Right? So the dynamic has somewhat shifted. Generally James Keys is on the call Chris Mayo, the IT Director and myself are taking the majority of items that were handled the day to day is not being overseen by those things that the big ticket items are being handled by staff, and then we have the resources of Wesson and Samson. This was their proposal. It made a lot of sense for us at the time, but sort of the day-to-day operations of managing a 3rd party technical contract is really falling to James myself. So this was how we split up what would be a $51,500 budget.

The biggest thing that led to Sherborn and Holliston, not ultimately completing what was originally designed to be a joint position was the fear that we would get into a competition with one individual working for 2 towns on a competitive grant. And who does that person actually work for. And the trend that we’ve seen instead is more regional grant opportunities which would reduce those types of conflicts.

If we can get people’s fears away through an MOA with Sherborn on things like potential grant conflict. Then I think that this could be a great outcome for us.

A lengthy discussion occurred regarding duties of this person, who would be providing them with “marching orders” and who they would report to. These are all areas for discussion.

Holliston & Sherborn would also work together on various Climate Action and Sustainability projects which would benefit both communities and still keep our costs for a coordinator lower (because we do not need a full-time person but having one “full time” person working for both communities is liable to attract a better option).

Clerk Dimmick made a motion to direct TA Ahern to develop an MOA for the sustainability coordinator position between Sherborn and Holliston. VC Sparrell 2^nd the motion – passed.

Updates on DPW Facility Project (Article 21, May 2023 Annual Town Meeting)

After a lengthy discussion regarding Land Court and other obstacles put forward regarding a new DPW facility – as well as the need to do something sooner rather than later, the following motion was made by Clerk Dimmick:

Move to approve the use of funding from Article 18 of the October 2022 fall town meeting to authorize the development of an alternate DPW facility option to the current. 20 Cross Street design, previously approved by town meeting in May of 2023.

Motion was 2^nd by VC Sparrell and passed.

Clerk: Dimmick: Holliston household hazardous waste day coming up on Saturday, August 3, 2024, 8AM to Noon at Adams Middle School.

Celebrate Holliston 300th Book is on display in the Select Board office

Received by TA Ahern:

What was the reason for the shutdown of both sidewalks on Central Street? It’s inconvenient for those of us who do not drive. We are looking to make Central Street far more convenient, obviously, and we’ll look to get those up as soon as possible. Right now. The sidewalk on Central Street is part of the entire rebranding trying to make it easier for those coming off the rail trail to get to downtown and vice versa, and so we’ll try to move along with that project as quickly as possible, and thank you to those businesses that have worked with us on the outcome there, as a sidewalk will now be on the side of central fire as well going down to C-v’s. But I will share with DPW. The need to move the contractor along as quickly as possible for those who need those sidewalks, and there are 2 alternate routes that are parallel to Central Street and Charles Street. . There are alternate routes in that they run parallel. So perhaps those directing traffic can direct pedestrians as well to alternate routes.

What’s going on with Franklin, Norfolk. The bars were removed. Those are the orange sticks, as I call them, reflective. Another step back so that people cannot turn from Norfolk onto Franklin. I don’t know why somebody wouldn’t be able to turn, so I will bring that to the attention of DPW.

Weekly A/P and Payroll Warrant(s)

Motion made by Clerk Dimmick to approve the weekly warrants, 2^nd by VC Sparrell, passed.

Comments from the Town Administrator

Summer Select Board Schedule

August 5, 2024
August 12, 2024
August 26, 2024
Sept. 9, 2024

There’s an upcoming joint meeting between the Planning Board and SB on July 30.

I just want to acknowledge a couple issues that were created recently, Eversource disconnected streetlights, probably the most dangerous of which is in the Highland Street, Prentice, and Hollis area, and so we brought that to their attention. We got into a little bit of a kerfuffle, where they said, well, no, you own the streetlights now.

We said yes, but you disconnected them so. James has been fighting them with them. I’ve been fighting with them, and it does appear that they have a work order out there to go reconnect those great. So some of the growing pains of now taking over the streetlights which allowed us to convert to LEDs. But now that we get into these little turf wars, we’re very concerned. And so obviously we escalated the ones that had any type of public safety impact. Highland Street being so, they’re telling me we own them, and we should take care of them. Does that mean we can also move those poles?

There are also a variety of committee vacancies which can be found online for additional information or to indicate interest.

Board Business:

Individual motions were made by Clerk Dimmick and 2^nd by VC Sparrell for the following: