Good afternoon! Here are the remarks I will be distributing and reviewing this evening at the Selectboard Meeting:
Welcome to the first meeting of the new Selectboard season! I am excited to serve as your Chair, and am looking forward to a busy year ahead of us.
As some of you may be new to attending Selectboard Meetings, I thought I would help to give a lay of the meeting, including some non-negotiable boundaries within which these meetings will operate:
Logistics:
⦁ The publized sections of the meetings always begin at 6:15pm, generally on the first and third Tuesdays of each month
⦁ The meetings are held on the second floor of the Municipal Center
⦁ The back entrance is handicap accessible (including elevator service)
⦁ The agenda is available at the entrance to the meeting room
⦁ Please sign in upon entering the room
Public participation comes near the beginning of the meeting and:
⦁ While the Board can listen and respond lightly, this is NOT the place to have action taken. No actual action can be taken on items that have not been “warned” (that means released on the public agenda the Friday before the meeting)
⦁ Full, robust, and action oriented discussions happen on warned items, so this is a great time to state your desire to have the item you want to fully discuss placed on a future agenda. It is always best to reach out to Town staff (Jan Anderson) to request a place on a future agenda if you want full discussion
⦁ Comments will be be kept to 2 minutes. We have full agendas, and our ASL interpreters MUST leave by 10pm sharp
⦁ Absolutely NO derogatory, degrading, threatening, or inappropriate language (I judge by whether it would be suitable for children) will be tolerated. This boundary is put in place to provide for a civil meeting space, which is also televised and often viewed by our local children, who we should always be inviting into our Democratic processes. Violation of this boundary will carry the consequence of having to leave the meeting. In short we are entitled to free speech, but we are not free of consequence of our choice of speech.
I am available for questions or clarifications, and can be reached at bstarr@brattleboro.org. All Selectboard emails follow this format, and we are always available for questions 🙂
Thank you for being engaged in our town governance process!
Brandie Starr
