Council
to close date on vacancy Names due by August 8
By Elizabeth Prata
Gray--The Gray Town Council met in workshop Monday
night to discuss how best to fill the one vacant seat
on the Council, opened when Matt Sturgis resigned
in June. Councilor Skip Crane said that he would like
the process to be as open as possible and advocated
for Council to vote openly for any applicants. "The
process shold be simple as possible, with a straight
up or down vote," Mr. Crane said. The Council
used a closed ballot process last year to fill the
seat opened by Richard Barter when he resigned, which
was filled by eventual appointee Richard Hall. At
that time, there were 7 candidates lined up to fill
the seat. This time there is one so far, Julie DeRoche.
Last time, the Council asked applicants to fill out
a questionnaire and interviewed the applicants at
a televised meeting and the Council wants to stick
with that process. The Council would like to see lots
of people apply, but none of them wished to draw out
the process any longer that it needed to be. They
decided Monday night to close the opportunity of submitting
a name by August 8. Applicants would then have until
August 12 to submit their questionnaire answers and
they will be interviewed at the August 16 regular
Council meeting. Council voting will take place that
night.
In other business, the Council reviewed the zoning
draft revisions and created definitions to some of
the new uses being added to the various zones. They
updated the language linked to the official zoning
map. The Council had discovered that without updating
the official map language, which drives the zoning,
that the text that the previous Council had labored
over would have been moot. The Council also discovered
that the zoning ordinance requires that the Ordinance
Review Committee review the changes before the revisions
are adopted. Both these items are now rectified.
Planner Dick Cahill had proposed streamlining some
of the language in the administrative portion of the
Zoning, adding the word 'Zoning' in front of "Board"
and the like. Councilor Denise Duda also wanted to
clean up some typos and streamline language but was
advised by Mr. Cahill and Manager Mitchell A. Berkowitz
that fixing typos would trigger the need to go to
Planning Board hearing. Mr. Berkowitz said that Ms.
Duda was a good proofreader and suggested that she
take on the duty of proofreading the zoning drafts
in the future. Vice-Chair Andy Upham said that, "We
are policy makers, not editors," and that if
staff couldn't put out a good product then that would
be an issue.
The Council cleaned up those particulars and then
moved on to discussing how the Council wants to create
agendas. They have now added update slots on their
regular Council meeting agendas and also a place for
action items to be done in the near term. They will
be describing what items are to be discussed at Workshop
at the televised Council meeting. The Council's expectation
is that if citizens know what business the Council
plans to conduct at an earlier time period, they have
more of a chance to participate in the process.
Mr. Upham said, "We should listen to the people,
and reflect an agenda that replicates what they see
are the big issues, and add those to our own priority
list." He also wants the Council to be more efficient,
saying, "Our work flow will go better if we take
out the re-work and the error rates."
Mr. Crane liked that idea and agreed with Mr. Upham.
The Council meeting agenda for August 2 meeting shows
these changes.
The August 8 workshop meeting will be a legal one,
with Town Attorney Bill Dale invited to come and present
to Council information about the Pennell pleadings,
the large-scale Freedom of Information requests lodged
by several citizens lately, the conflict of interest/incompatibility
of office issue raised by Council last meeting. The
Council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, August 2,
and the workshop with Bill Dale is scheduled for Monday,
August 8. Both are open to the public.
