| January 16, 2013 | Contact | Calendar | The Mix | Archives |
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I try to observe all the town-related meetings that I can; it's the best way to learn how it all works. On Monday I attended the first meeting of a new committee to update the land use ordinance. It could be a productive committee; there is enough balance between business interests and non-business people. I am happy to see Emily Newell and Nancy Zane getting involved. But there are a couple of problems. There is no one from the planning board or the comprehensive plan group on the committee. At the meeting I submitted a written suggestion that the committee fix that oversight by making John Piotti and Don Newell members of the committee. After some discussion, there was consensus among committe members that those two should be included. KVCOG sent a planner, Joel Greenwood, to the meeting to assist. Joel agreed that the usual way to review such an ordinance was to have the planning board and code enforcement officer involved. They are the ones who have enforced the ordinance for years.
It was interesting to see the quandary this need for a decision created among the selectmen and business interests. After a period of some apparent discomfort, the selectmen postponed the decision until the next selectmen's meeting.
The selectmen also said that they were considering hiring someone to take notes at all committee and board meetings. Given that Unity is seriously strapped for money, this suggestion was quietly dismissed and the committee decided to let the alternates take minutes. Don Newell pointed out that the idea of restricting membership and using Robert's rules of order in a committee to update an ordinance is a brand new concept. Previously it has been done by consensus and anyone could have input. He said that recommended changes from concensus-based committees usually pass town meeting easily. That would be because everyone's voice was heard and there was agreement before town meeting. I think of town meeting the way some people think about the market or the economy or any of those complex entities that you can put "the" in front of and that appear to have a kind of organic intelligence and judgment that is best not to go against. Town Meeting likes information early on, not at the last minute. Town Meeting likes real community process, not nominal imitations. If town meeting suspects that the committee is deliberately non-inclusive because it has a hidden agenda, then it will not accept its recommendations and they will have wasted a lot of time. If the selectmen do the right thing and expand the committee to include these important sources of information and insight, I could be comfortable with not running for selectman this time around, and instead could get more of my other projects done this year. I could relax into my winter tasks of improving Unity's website and presenting the ordinances online in a highly navigable way with maybe some color coding to unite similar topics that appear in different sections and a FAQ for quick inquiries. |