Issue 2 May 31, 2024

Select Board Meeting May 20, 2024

This was newly elected Ralph Gifford’s first meeting, with an in-depth discussion of the failure of the ballot question at Town election, and Select Board member Jason Allison’s motion for a new charter commission, as opposed to the Government Study Commission.

The first agenda item was public comment but there was no people publicly commenting.

The next item was the failure of the ballot question at the town election. The Town Administrator, Kate Hodges, went through the impact of this failure:

1)      Financial: Lancaster is limited to hiring from a list of people who have passed their civil service test.  Currently there are no known candidates. A new list of candidates will come out in July.

2)     If there are any local candidates in the list, then they will have to complete medical and emotional health screening. Then Lancaster would pay for the candidate would go to the police training academy (26 weeks) and get paid the union wage for their time.  The total for the candidate’s schooling is about $44000.

3)     Then they will undergo field training (6 weeks) learning about Lancaster. Total bill for all selection and training would be about $100K.

4)     If Lancaster was not in civil service then the field would open up to all other candidates, including any interested Lancastrians.

5)      People did not understand the impact of the ballot question; lots of people thought a no vote would further support the police, but support in hiring more police economically required a yes vote.

6)     Lancaster went into civil service via a ballot question so that is the only way to come out of it.

Hodges went on to say there will be several ballot questions on next year’s ballot and the ballot questions need to be more comprehensively explained.

Commissioner Everett Moody then spoke in more detail to the ballot question:

We are going to have 4 hires during this next year:

1)      The Commonwealth has a scarcity of police officers

2)     Hiring could be

a.      a lateral transfer

b.      hire off of the list

3)     People who passed the civil service test are put on the list.  Lancaster had one person on the 2023 list and he was hired by Leominster. He was the 147th person on the list.  Leominster would have done background checks on all 146 people before this person.

4)     Commissioner Moody said they will continue to take a look at candidates off the new list.

The question needs to be brought back to a ballot vote as soon as possible.

Next agenda item was the various committee and commission positions opens.  Chairperson Steve Kerrigan asked for people to apply.

Next agenda item was organization of the Select Board. Kerrigan made a motion to have Allison as clerk.  Roll call was accomplished by this vote; Allison was approved as clerk. Gifford made a motion to have a list of annual goals. Kerrigan said that is done in January.  Gifford made a proposal to become chairperson; this was voted down. Kerrigan was voted in again as chair.

During the Audit and Management review letter discussion, it was decided a shorter summary document was needed for better comprehension.

At thirty-six minutes into the meeting, Allison then made the motion for the Select Board appoint a charter commission and overhaul the town’s government.  The formation of the charter commission takes 900 signatures. This Charter Commission is an option other than a Government Study Committee which had ended their tenure this past year with a recommendation for a 5-person Select Board, an Article to be on the next Town Ballot in 2025. After the 900 signatures have been obtained, the Select Board would appoint persons to a Charter Commission to write a Town Charter. This motion was approved.

Allison then spoke to low voter turn-out for election and town meeting. He wants to promote getting 2000 people to vote at town elections. He is calling it V2K.

The Lancaster Historical Commission Update by Allison stated that things had been closed out.

Next Agenda item was for up to 3 floating holidays for town employees in exchange for other standard ones where the town government is active. This was approved.

Hodges talked to the Town’s Financial Policies.  She has gone through the current document and has distributed proposed changes for review.

The next agenda item was a document to be signed as the last step of the process to allow abutters to purchase the small parcels of land approved for sale at Town Meeting. All signed.

Next, due to the mistake on the previous documents, there was a re-signing of the document of acceptance of the parcels of land given to the town per the warrant article at Town Meeting in North Lancaster by the 702LLC.

The further numerous steps needed in the matter of the Hawthorne Lane were discussed. The matter was referred to the Planning Board.

Appointments and resignations were discussed and approved.

Use permits were approved.

The Select Board then went into executive session.