Municipal Opertions / Government and how it is suppose to work:

from the current Open Meeting Law Guide:

What constitutes a public body? While there is no comprehensive list of public bodies, any multi-member board, commission, committee or subcommittee within the executive or legislative branches of state government, or within any county, district, city, region or town, if established to serve a public purpose, is subject to the law. The law includes any multi-member body created to advise or make recommendations to a public body, and also includes the governing board of any local housing or redevelopment authority, and the governing board or body of any authority established by the Legislature to serve a public purpose.

Short version - Templeton Advisory Committee talked about, voted and sent email to selectmen concerning creating ad hoc committee to look at regional school district. As I understand it, Advisory Committee chairman sent it to Chairman of Templeton Board of Selectmen, I never received it in my official selectmen email account. Apparently the BOS chairman never forwarded along. This was mention at BOS meeting on November 21, 2019 meeting.

Here is the problem:

From: AdvisoryCommittee Templeton
Sent: Saturday, November 23, 2019 8:48:01 AM (UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
To: AdvisoryCommittee Templeton
Subject: FW: Workshop of 12/04

All,

Based on our conversations at the meeting this past Thursday, we will be starting this ad hoc committee on the 4^th.   We will need 2 members from the AC to sit on the committee.  Are there any volunteers?  Please let me know as soon as you can.

Tony

From: Terenzini, Carter
Date: Tuesday, November 19, 2019 at 12:22 PM
To: AdvisoryCommittee Templeton <advisorycommittee@TempletonMA.gov>
Cc: Currie, Michael
Subject: Workshop of 12/04

Good Day Tony:

FYI:

The Chair has put the Committee’s request for an AD Hoc Committee re: Regionalization on the 12/04 agenda of the workshop;  We also anticipate getting our FY ’19 Audit presentation; finally, there may be some matters of interest relative to the escalator factor we use for the education budget(s) in setting the proposed budget and five year revenue and expense projections.

Many Thanks

Carter Terenzini

Town Administrator

Selectmen policies and procedures; exhibit A

Workshops - in part . . . . unless extremely urgent and extraordinary circumstances require immediate action on some matter, no votes will be taken at the work shop."

Failure to pass on to the rest of the board of selectmen is the only reason this has not been dealt with sooner and what would the real emergency be?

First, there is lack of communication and now, it appears policies and procedures will be tossed to the wind because of it. Any resident who wishes to call this as bullshit, I would agree with them. Hard to show people you are doing right when you fail to follow your own policies that you wrote to govern yourself.

While you are busy telling us to do our jobs; consider this:

from the last T/A weekly report:
Weekly Report: I’ve reached out to Tallage Associates to ask for a review of our current tax title to determine if it might be worthwhile to engage in a sale of tax liens. We will do that mid December after Cheryl closes out the FY ’19 lien process (Which each go from $75/lien to a touch above $100/lien on 01/01/20). In a brief look at the Energy Reduction Plan I’ve noticed
there may be a capital project or two that could produce some lower operating costs for the NRSD.

The coop-la on the roof of town hall is being looked at for repair, it has been in rough shape ever since the old school building was turned into a town hall. the estimated cost is 5 figures but further investigation is required. By the way, I consider the reuse of this building a smart move and a way where the town avoided more debt. Is that doing your job?

Tallage is a company that can come to town, look over properties that have back taxes and penalties owed to the town; if they think certain properties are a good investment, they "buy" the back taxes/penalties so the town gets paid and now Tallage will deal with the actual property owner rather than the town having to go through the process of liens / land court.
Templeton has used this company in the past during my first term as selectmen. Is this doing our job?

Can things be done better, absolutely. Am I still looking at how to improve things, yes. Have I forgotten that burned out house on Pleasant Street, no. Am I thinking about communication improvement out of Town Hall, yes, that needs improvement.

Am I going to hold your hand at Town Meeting and turn the pages for you, no. If you want to hold me accountable as a selectmen, I am holding you accountable for being a resident: be sure you know what you are being asked to vote on before you get to town meeting. If you are unsure of what you are being asked because it was not read to you, stand up and ask; "what is the question or motion before us, since you have not read the complete motion to us, I want to be sure I understand what you want me to consider? Put officials on the spot and ask questions. That is my nickels worth.