Town Government Study Committee
Minutes for December 10, 2008
A regular meeting of the committee was held in the Selectmen’s Meeting Room of the Town Hall beginning at 7:50 p.m..
In attendance for the meeting were: Art Slicer, Jim Gugliotti, Kristine Sullivan and First Selectman Derrylyn Gorski. Pua Ford was excused.
The purposed of the evening’s meeting was to finalize the town wide questionnaire regarding town meetings.
Prior to reviewing the questionnaire, there was discussion of the Town website. It was also reported that Sarah Shepard is work on a chronology of Town meetings, inclusive of anecdotal stories of town meetings.
A draft questionnaire had been e-mailed to all of the committee members prior to the meeting. Ms. Ford had e-mailed her proposed revisions to all the members prior to the meeting. Additional revisions were discussed and made to the questionnaire, including that the final date for submission of completed questionnaires will be January 31, 2009.
At the end of the review of the questionnaire it was moved by Mr. Gugliotti and seconded by Mr. Slicer to adopt the questionnaire as revised and forward a copy to the Board of Selectmen for review and appropriate action prior to the questionnaires distribution. The motion passed unanimously.
After the form of the questionnaire had been finalized, there was discussion and concurrence that questionnaires would be color coded based on their method of distribution as follows:
Questionnaires to be mailed with the Town meeting notice and made available in the Town Hall will be on white paper.
Questionnaires distributed at the churches will be on lilac colored paper.
Questionnaires distributed at the recycling center will be on goldenrod colored paper.
Questionnaires distributed at the library will be on blue colored paper.
Questionnaires distributed to other town clubs and organizations will be on green colored paper.
Color coding of the questionnaires will provide a passive means of determining what “groups” of town citizens responded to the questionnaire.
Distribution of the questionnaires was delegated as follows:
Mr. Slicer will bring them to the schools, Lion’s Club and Veteran’s Assoc.
Mr. Gugliotti will bring them to the churches, BVFD and Horse Council
Mrs. Sullivan will bring them to the Scouts, Garden Club and Library.
Mr. Slicer distributed copies of a “Citizen’s Guide to Town Meeting – Ten questions you’ve always wanted to ask”. There was a brief discussion of how a similar document might be utilized on the Town website and/or as a handout through the Town Hall.
It was then moved by Mr. Slicer and seconded by Mr. Gugliotti to accept the minutes of the committee meeting on December 3, 2008 as amended. The motion passed unanimously.
The next regular meeting of the committee was scheduled to be on Wednesday, January 7, 2009 at 7:30 p.m., in whatever room is available in the Town Hall to meet in.
There being no further business to come before the committee, the meeting was adjourned at 9:12 p.m. based on a motion by Mr. Gugliotti seconded by Mr. Slicer which was passed unanimously.
Respectfully submitted,
Kristine Sullivan, Acting Secretary
