Rules Committee Update, Final Meeting 2019

By Moderator appointment, I served on the Town Meeting “Rules Committee” during the 2019 Session. The Rules Committee explores proposals and makes recommendations to Town Meeting about Town Meeting procedures. Here’s updates from some of our final topics we looked into and my current leanings on them:

The Rules Committee is subject to Massachusetts Open Meeting laws, and meetings are broadcast live, as well as available for viewing on demand, via Norwood Community Media.

Committee Topics For Final Meeting 2019

  • Consent Agenda

    • General

    • Specific: Motion for Reconsideration

  • Final Report To Town Meeting

    • General

    • Specific: Should the final language specify the Committee split?

    • Specific: Should the final language include the minority position?

  • Non-binding Recommendations In Final Report

    • General

    • Specific: Change how often Rules Committee is appointed

    • Specific: Electronic Voting

    • Specific: Seating at Town Meeting

    • Specific: Alternative Days / Times For Town Meeting

Consent Agenda: General

Overview: A proposal was made to adopt a “Consent Agenda” procedure for Town Meeting, where standard and non controversial topics are grouped together and approved with one vote instead of voted on motion-by-motion. Any item that turns out to need discussion can be flagged by Town Meeting member(s) to be pulled back out for individual discussion. Any items not pulled out are considered approved in bulk. Town Meeting referred the proposal to our Rules Committee for study.

Arguments in favor: “Consent Agenda will reduce time wasted on items that don’t need any discussion and are never rejected.”

Arguments against: “Town Meeting members may flag every item for discussion anyway, defeating the purpose of Consent Agenda."

My latest stance (last updated 9-12-2019):

I am still generally in favor of a Consent Agenda, with certain caveats. These caveats will continue to fuel my desire for oversight by the Town Meeting Members with an implementation that does not sabotage their ability to flag problems. For example, the following two things have been brought to my attention:

First: The meeting during which the Motions and Agenda are set for Town Meeting is NOT subject to Open Meeting Law, because it is considered a working “staff” meeting. This means there is less public oversight than we originally thought.

Second: Under the procedures and laws related to Consent Agenda use, a motion that is added to a Consent Agenda does not mandate a person to disclose their Conflicts of Interest for that motion.

Consent Agenda: Motion For Reconsideration

Overview: The Committee voted on the number required to perform a “hold” action, but the vote was not unanimous. A motion for Reconsideration was presented to see if a compromise could be reached to make changes in order to get to a unanimous in-favor regarding the holds.

Arguments in favor: “It might undermine the chances for Consent Agenda to pass if the Committee doesn’t appear unified. New information has been brought to light about the Motions process.”

Arguments against: “Unanimous agreement is not required for a Committee recommendation, and we already discussed the pros/cons at length.”

My latest stance (last updated 9-18-2019):

When I was approached about the possibility of reconsideration, I entertained that idea because

  • new information had been forwarded by a constituent regarding exploits in Consent Agenda oversight (lack of Open Meeting Law requirements on Motion formation meetings & no requirement for Conflict of Interest disclosures for Consent items)

  • there was indication that other committee members from the opposing stance were willing to talk about it

But there was not apparently a willingness to reconsider, as evidenced by the discussion that occurred during the meeting. I am not particularly moved by appeals to “time”, since serving in a public office means my time is not my own, it belongs to my constituents. With clearly not enough votes for reconsideration, and no willingness by committee members to spend the time to hear the new evidence of possible exploitative mechanics, it was pretty obvious that a motion for reconsideration was dead on arrival.

I will still continue to favor a 1 person hold. 5 is not a “compromise” between 1 and 10 if the mode of towns using Consent Agenda is 1 person holds. Mathematically that would be like saying between you, I, and Tom Hanks, we should each get 2 Emmy Awards because between all of us there is a range of between 0 and 7 Emmy Awards received. Unfortunately I don’t have the mode either, but I will make it a point to add it to my working file of data points regarding Norwood vs other towns so we have it for future reference.

At this point, it will fall to the Town Meeting Members to decide how they feel about the number.

Final Report: General

Overview: The Committee is tasked with filing a final report to the Town Meeting of the results of our research and deliberations, as well as any additional recommendations we have. Things that are additional recommendations that the Town Meeting didn’t ask us to study are essentially non-binding, but will be regarded seriously by Town Meeting Members and Officials.

Final Report: Should Language Include Vote Split?

Overview: Regarding the Committee’s vote on the number of holds, there are two options: to state simply that a majority favor, or to list the specific vote.

Arguments in favor of just “majority”: We’re not required to list the vote split

Arguments in favor of listing vote split: Makes a more compelling argument for how strong support was

My latest stance (last updated 9-18-2019):

I was in favor of listing the amounts in order to avoid nebulous interpretation by Town Meeting Members. Seeing simply “majority” would have allowed a reader to presume any of the following 3 scenarios

  • a 50/50 split

  • 1 person hold out

  • a strong majority

It would be unwise for us to allow a Town Meeting Member to subjectively interpret things because we were vague, so listing the number clears that up.

Final Report: Should the language include the dissenting opinions?

Overview: The current draft includes both the majority opinion, but also the counter arguments that arose during the meetings.

Arguments in favor: Allows Members to weigh full scope of topics

Arguments against: We’re not required to include dissenting opinion. If the Committee is making a recommendation, does it undermine that to include counter points to the recommendation?

My latest stance (last updated 9-18-2019):

I am still somewhat neutral on this. There was no standard that we were aware of for whether to include it or not. As was mentioned, we’re not the Supreme Court, we don’t have to list the dissent. Personally when I get reports I like having the info about all the data explored and why it was or wasn’t eliminated, because it could prove important or even strengthen the recommendation position. I consider it to be part of the “underlying methodology” the same as any research or data science report I review. Reviewing underlying methodology is important to validate results. For example: do they know if we discussed the Conflict of Interest aspect of it? But listing dissent points is ultimately a convenience since all of our meeting discussions are subject to Open Meeting and are recorded via NCM. It wasn’t a deal breaker to me to strike it since I tend to post robust thought process stuff here.

Non-Binding Recommendations

Overview: The Committee investigated topics beyond what Town Meeting requested, so long as it was within the scope of improvements to Town Meeting procedure and rules.



Non-Binding Recommendation: Change How Often Committee Is Appointed

Overview: The Committee is currently technically by the rules supposed to be re-appointed every year. The Committee explored whether this is too often, and if we wouldn’t be better served having longer terms for Committee members?

Arguments in favor: Reduces overhead for the Moderator

Arguments against: What should it be?

My latest stance (last updated 9-18-2019):

I was in favor of this recommendation. The longer the term, the more institutional knowledge the Committee will have, even with some turnover occuring. It was tricky to review some aspects of the rules with so many of us being fresh to it, and having limited time to compile good data from scratch. I was fine with 3 or 5 year terms. The literal only downside to the 5 year is since TM terms are only 3 years, you’ll get a little committee turn over if a person doesn’t run for re-election, moves, or switches districts (since we have a representative from each district). But that’s still probably fine.

Non-Binding Recommendation: Explore Electronic Voting for Town Meeting session votes

Overview: The Committee researched Electronic Voting for Town Meeting votes. We got a demonstration of the equipment, were able to ask detailed questions, see some case studies, and gather some information. But our request to the Town Meeting is to explore implementing it.

Arguments in favor: Doesn’t hurt to investigate; Transparency; Efficiency

Arguments against: Cost; Willingness of Members to adopt

My latest stance (last updated 9-18-2019):

To clarify: this is not about changing how residents vote in municipal or general elections. This is specifically about devices for Town Meeting Members to use during Town Meeting to record votes.

After personally getting a very in-depth demonstration of the voting devices, software, etc I’m a fan thus far. We’d need to establish some proceedural rules around them, but there are other towns we could model rules language from. I’m a huge transparency fan, and there were many ways for it to show and record the votes. It also had pretty good accessibility features.

I fully agree with the idea of this recommendation being for the Town to explore the option, rather than a direct recommendation to implement it. The depth of our research on it was not nearly so deep as our research on Consent Agenda, and since this comes with a price tag, worth a deeper dive. But I was definitely optimistic that it could be a good fit for our Town Meeting.

Even though I post my own voting record, voters are taking it on faith that I’m not fibbing. And I don’t think voters should have to be in that position with their elected representatives. When you’re a representative, your voting record is your credit score … No record = no score, no score = no credit. Let’s give voters more ability to understand how their representatives are representing them.

Non-Binding Recommendation: Clarify Seating Area At Town Meeting

Overview: To reduce confusion during sessions and make life easier for the Moderator, Committee wants to recommend that Moderator more clearly define the area where Members sit vs visitors to the Town Meeting sessions. Particularly for hand counts.

Arguments in favor: Faster more accurate counts

Arguments against: We’ve tried, but people still sit where they want

My latest stance (last updated 9-18-2019):

This becomes even more important with the advent of Consent Agenda. Holds have to be seen/heard to be effective. Providing a behavioral nudge to encourage people to be closer and for guests to stay in their designated area makes life easier all around. Plus there are newer Members to Town Meeting, so extra reminders are wise. Starting to realize why the legislatures at the State and Federal level have a “gallery” heh.

Non-Binding Recommendation: Investigate alternative days/times for Town Meeting

Overview: The committee didn’t dig deeply on this, sharing anecdotes with each other. But we were all in agreement that it would be good for the Town Officials to conduct some research.

Arguments in favor: Doesn’t hurt to investigate; could improve quorum

Arguments against: Anecdotal data on which days were good or bad

My latest stance (last updated 9-18-2019):

There won’t be a perfect day or time, so best to have someone conduct some serious research and determine which option would provide the most gains for improved quorum, reduced costs, and maintaining of attention spans. I’ve never had good luck with weekends. Having been at and hosted all-day off sight meetings for business, I find attention spans aren’t much improved by having long marathon meetings; you still end up with a lot of rubber stamping and in-one-ear-out-the-other by attendees after a few hours. Not that multi-day meetings are much better, since your train of thought has to be picked up each time and you’re coming off a different kind of all-day brain commitment after work/caretaking/family obligations. So it’s a matter of taking a look at what data we can get to identify a sweet spot, if one exists.

To the topic of child care - even though the Town does provide child care services for Town Meeting members, I spoke with a Member who talked about

  • disruption to their child’s sleeping schedule, since the kid would normally not be up as late as Town Meeting.

  • depending on the kid’s age, object permanence is an issue, and if a session runs longer than expected it can be very stressful on super young kids

  • the child being afraid of strangers

Those things are tricky to deal with, so it comes as no surprise that some Members still miss sessions if it’s conflicting with their family needs. But maybe this is just a case of the Town Managers needing to show off the service to alleviate parent’s concerns on this front?

Other Topics

The Rules Committee is always interested in feedback about Town Meeting procedures and ways to improve productivity, understanding, efficiency, and healthy engagement during Town Meeting. I like to gather feedback from fellow Town Meeting members in my district, as well as constituents, to inform my stance on Committee discussions. District 7 Meeting Members and Residents can send their thoughts to agrow@usa.com

(Update 1-7-2020) Please note: as of the end of the last session of Town Meeting for the 2019 calendar year, under the previous rules, the Rules Committee was disbanded as per the “reappoint each year” clause. In the 2020 session, the new 5 year terms will begin. It is my intention to apply for the Committee again, though how often the Committee will meet without new business posed by Town Meeting directly is yet to be seen. You are still welcome to forward me feedback about procedures, regardless of whether the Committee has met, and regardless of whether or not I’m on it. I will take your suggestions to the relevant officials. It’s been a pleasure to serve on the Rules Committee, and huge thanks to all my fellow Committee members for serving on the Committee!

Amanda Grow