Sounds like a great state of confusion regarding the SACC's original mandate & what they eventually produced....why did this take two years & get so far off the original course??
I thought that they (SACC) were supposed to produce a document outlining the different choices available for town government & let the BOS look it over & decide (with town voter input) what would be the appropriate next step including a cost analysis of each choice....

Five people shouldn't decide? The SACC was a BOS appointed committee! Seems like Mr. Johnson would rather wash his hands of it as to not have the onus of a potential bad decision placed on them. The SACC clearly went beyond the scope of their mission and no one ever stepped up to put the brakes on or was squelched trying to do so.

What I can tell you from a legal standpoint is that any change to the Tewksbury Town Charter MUST be approved by voters at a Town Meeting. The only way the BOS could squelch the proposed changes would be to refuse to schedule a Special Town Meeting. That is what Mr. Johnson meant by five people deciding. From what I hear, people on both sides of the issue agree that it should ultimately be decided by the voters and not by a committee or board. I tend to agree. With something this major, and make no mistake a change of this type is a major, major change, it should be the will of the people by a vote.

I just printed the "final" draft....rest assured that I will give it a good read....

You misunderstood what I was saying. The BOS could have and perhaps should have dissolved this committee when alleged violations to Open Town Meeting laws first surfaced...and a resident's attempt to attend an earlier one of their mtgs. was allegedly squelched....it was always within their jurisdiction to do so at that or any other time when IMO, this started snowballing away from their mission statement as far back as January when Mr. Wilson came on board and Mr. O'Neill ran with starting to draft the charter article. The town charter COULD have been updated as required without changing our form of government but that's a moot point now. If the committee believes so strongly that a Town Council is the way to go I would like to see them convince the number of registered voters they would need to get enough signatures to get a Special Town Mtg. to be called without the Selectmen's help but I doubt that will happen.

When in doubt, throw it out! This whole idea was a waste of people's time and effort. Keep the Open Town Meeting!

The BOS should take a stance in supporting the committees work as an alternative but instruct them to go back to the table to provide them with an alternative town meeting document. At the point of completion, revision,public input,legal counsel ya·da ya·da call a STM to vote on which direction the voters want to go. Either one, two or none of the proposed charter plans will go to the ballot based on the outcome of STM. Spliting the town over an up or down document from a commitee who has apparently gone rogue seems to have undermine BOS stated mission for this group to review and suggest recommendations to the exisiting format or change to a different one. Either way the BOS has the authority to rien in the group. If they decide go forward as a citizen group thats ok.

Jon you bring up an interesting option ... a second version that merely "tweaks" certain aspects of the charter and improves the open town meeting structure. So town meeting voters would be able to decide on two separate articles at town meeting. BOS members, thoughts? I would not go so far as to say that the committee has "gone rogue." Someone had to draft a document with the proposed changes. There seems to be "good faith" disagreement on whose responsibility that was.

I would be amenable to a second version that merely "tweaks" certain aspects of the charter and improves the open town meeting structure. That was what I had originally envisioned the SACC would come back with.

I am with David Gay on this one...

Exactly, David. And Bill, if by "document" you meant draft a recommendation I would agree. Their mission was not to draft an article nor whole new charter document.

Karyn, the BOS has made it clear that it was not their role to adopt or accept or reject the Committee's recommendation -- something it seems all involved agree on. So if the recommendation had to go before voters, the voters were going to demand specifics and details. The only way to provide specifics and details was to inject them into the charter itself. This is no different than a recommended zoning bylaw change. The only question is, whose responsibility should it have been to draft the proposed charter amendments. David Gay, a strong town meeting supporter, has said it could have been the committee (after being directed to by the BOS) or it could have been the BOS working with Town Counsel. Had the proposed changes been minor, no one would have had a problem with the committee drafting amendments. The issue has arisen because the changes are major. So again, I have no problem saying that there is simply a good faith difference of opinion.

It was the BOS' role to move forward or not with a recommendation at their discretion as the SACC was appointed BY them. In that scenario, if they deemed the recommendation worthy, the details would have followed as a second step by whomever the SELECTMEN chose to do it. The Committee overstepped their boundaries and took it upon themselves to essentially put the cart before the horse in this issue which as you said is a MAJOR one for the Town.

Karyn you bring up a separate issue that we havent really discussed. Should the selectmen, as a board, have given a thumbs up or thumbs down to the recommendation of the SACC. Interestingly, this is something Mr. Wilson has said he was hoping for, by way of guidance/direction. Mr. Johnson, on the other hand, has said the BOS should not be taking the decision out of the hands of the voters. For example, lets say 75 percent of the voters wanted to change the form of government but the Selectmen squashed the recommendation and never let it move forward. So readers, what say you? Should the Board of Selectmen give a thumbs up/thumbs down vote to the recommendation of the SACC or should they stay neutral?

It seems to me we are getting hung up on process questions instead of discussing whether one form of governance will be better for our town or not. This committee was charged with making a recommendation related to that, and they have given an answer. Whether they chose to write a new charter or not is somewhat besides the point. Let's discuss the choices between the 3 main forms and make a decision. I believe the SACC had made several presentations regarding why they proposed the council over the other two options. Unfortunately I wasn't able to attend them, as is often the case for Open Town Meetings, which is the main reason that it doesn't work for us anymore. We need to elect people to do our business and TRUST them. Do we really think Scott and the rest of the folks proposing this are doing all of this work because they want that huge stipend we pay them?

In my opinion, The Board of Selectmen should stay neutral on the recommendation of the SACC. I base my opinion on the fact that THEY appointed the SACC, so they have no right to give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down. I think they should have a Town Meeting and the first thing on the agenda should be if the Citizens of the Town of Tewksbury want to accept the changes submitted by the SACC. And proceed from there. This whole process has been one confusing mess! I watched the BOH meeting last night and a report was given by the BOH Rep to the SACC meetings. He had no idea if he had a final draft or it was still an on going process. Hence, my comment confusing mess.

For the record 'Bob Barker', this is not a site to denigrate people with shaded accusations. Take it somewhere else.

I have no problem with everyone's opinion being shared on this website...usually the truth will bubble to the top....just casually observing the rehtoric...interesting interpersonal relationships here....I still have a lot of heavy reading to do "SACC Final Report"......been busy chain sawing trees from the storm....promise that I will eventually get to it.....

I am now reading the report and, while the evaluation of the other options are brief, at least they are there. The SACC covered the major talking points. I wish that the first section of the report could have been presented early on, along with a recommendation for drafting the charter for the preferred option. As I noted above, it just seems like it is an all-or-nothing deal for the residents reading the report. It is what it is. I *think* I'll stop complaining about how it went down....in writing, at least... :)

Finally got through the whole charter, and reviewed he powerpoint presentation from last spring. Great job by the SACC! They give a clear presentation of the 3 main forms of government and a sound argument for their recommendation. I especially like the 9 versus 7 members, including the district representatives. I would be even more comfortable with 13 members, doubling the representative positions, but this is clearly a step forward for Tewksbury, and I hope we can win at Open Meeting to abolish Open Meeting.

Yes, they did a good job - a lot of time and effort. I appreciate all the time spent on it, even if it doesn't produce the result I wanted. As for it being "clearly a step forward".....well, that is in the eye of the beholder.... :)

I agree, I like the 9 member district representation, I would prefer the 13 member but would settle for 9. It is time to move forward from OTM into a more modern form of government. OTM is no longer feasible in a town of this size.

After responding to Bob Barker's post, after he outed someone who writes on this site. I have thought about it and I apologize for my remarks on a previous post. I think now that it was the wrong thing for him to do.

I am up to Article 3; wanted to update with what I have so far. The document is well written, a lot of statistical data backing up their recommendations. I am impressed. Now, Scott Wilson's childish behavior aside, I hope he and the rest of the team address the following concerns and recommendations I will try to outlay in this forum across several submissions as I work my way through the articles.

The make up of the nine council members is a good idea, however, the split is completely wrong! As you read through the document majority vote is 2/3. Ok, their suggestion is 4 district councilors and 5 at large, total 9. So for an item to pass; the five at large members carry the most votes! Only one more from the other 4 and motion is passed (6/9 = 2/3). This is not town representative form of government.

These at large councilors are elected by the town, however, are not affiliated with any one district. I also submit that as the town grows the 4 members carry the burden of more people per district. Today as it is set in this document approximately, 1 District member will represent 7K people. And the town continues to grow. I recommend 6 district members to reduce this representative form from 7K to 5K.

This has the benefit of true representative form of town council as it also swings the majority vote back to the districts away from the at large candidates. After all isn't this the form of town government we want. "...this is an issue of representation for the residents"

Sec. 2-9.4.1 Here they talk about the performance review of the town manager. Wouldn't it be nice if the guidelines to establish his/her goals short and long term were in the public domain. This way we could truly evaluate his/her performance and then submit to our district member our interpretation of their respective annual performance. Isn't this what this new town representative forum is supposed to seek -- true transparency!

Stay tuned for the next Article sections.

Done with Sections 3 and 4
Town Manager
Section 3-1.5: Might want to consider adding in the same provisions for town employment be excluded or prohibited for 1 year after leaving office? Not a big deal or sticking point.
Section 3-1.1 to 3-8.4 This describes the town manager's role quite extensively. This should be used as a metric for the annual performance review. Nicely written.
Section 4-1.2 Good News! You are correct Bill. The School Committee, Planning board, housing, library, etc.. will remain elected positions.

On to the next sections. Pretty good so far just some minor modifications/suggestions.

Sections 5 through 7 seem to be ok nothing exciting or decisive.

Bill, This document is quite chalk full of town manager roles and job requirements. I wonder what our current Town Manager thinks of this article? Is it possible for you to get him to comment on this charter with respect to his current role and how it would change, if it changes at all?