Brattleboro Selectboard Special Meeting Scheduled – FY15 Budget Discussion Continued

by Not Signed In | Town News | 2256 Views

The Brattleboro Selectboard will hold a special meeting on Tuesday, April 29, 2014. Executive Session at 6:00pm and Special Meeting at 6:30pm in the Selectboard meeting room at the Municipal Center.

Jan Anderson
Executive Secretary
Brattleboro Town Manager’s Office
(802) 251-8100

…

BRATTLEBORO SELECTBOARD
TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 2014
EXECUTIVE SESSION – 6:00 PM
SPECIAL MEETING – 6:30 PM
EXECUTIVE SESSION TO FOLLOW
AGENDA

1. CONVENE MEETING
2. FY15 BUDGET
3. APPROVE WARNING – Special Representative Town Meeting
4. ADJOURNMENT

Comments | 5

  • Submitted by eschmitt on April 25, 2014 at 5:45 pm

    public comment?

    Will there be any opportunity for public comment and participation? What time should someone be present if they wished to make comments to the board?

    • Submitted by cgrotke on April 26, 2014 at 7:56 am

      Yes, a bit before 6:30

      The public portion starts at 6:30 pm at the Municipal Center. Arrive a few minutes before to get seated. This meeting could get crowded, I’d imagine.

      This board is pretty good about encouraging public input on any agenda item. Usually they will discuss a topic, then open it up for wider discussion.

      It’s helpful to be concise and on topic. If there are a lot of people, they may limit how long each gets to talk (so everyone can have a chance).

      If you want to give them any handouts, make a few extras for the media (and post the info here, of course…)

  • Submitted by SK-B on April 26, 2014 at 9:56 am

    Faulty meeting warning

    The Town cannot schedule as executive session without scheduling a meeting. If the Board expects to go into executive session at 6 pm. then a public meeting should be scheduled at 6 pm. Members of the public have a right to be at the meeting to hear the motion to go into executive session, to hear the reason for executive session, and to witness the vote to go into executive session.

    Also, it is improper to announce that a public body will be going into executive session because it is logically possible that the motion to go into executive session will be voted down.

    For the past several years, the Town of Brattleboro has been careful to give proper wording to warnings of meetings which are expected to go into executive session. I find it inexplicable why proper procedure was not followed this time.

    • Submitted by DonInGuilford on April 27, 2014 at 1:54 pm

      Good Point on Exec. Session

      This is a regular, though luckily not frequent, error made by those warning meetings of municipal & school boards. You’re right that the best option would have been simply warn the meeting for 6 pm; it would be permissible to say something like “the board may vote to go into executive session.” My better bet is to assume the E.S. would be at the end of the meeting, to make the meeting more public-friendly. The boards I follow (Guilford Town Selectboard & School Board) will tend to put at the end of their agenda: “Executive Session If Necessary” on every warning as a standard feature. This gives the public a clear idea of when they should arrive & begin immediately to observe the actions of the board, & to comment on items, & as a courtesy that the public & media can plan for the possibility that the end of the meeting will be closed to them. It’s hard to think of a type of action that would require the Exec. Session to be at the be beginning rather than end of the meeting anyway.

      • Submitted by KAlden on April 27, 2014 at 3:36 pm

        By scheduling the executive

        By scheduling the executive session at the beginning of the meeting rather than the end -does this mean that any public comments will not be taken into consideration? This type of scheduling seems like one more way to shut out the public.

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