TOWN COUNCIL RE-ELECTS GRIESEMER AS PRESIDENT, HANNEKE AS VICE PRESIDENT

REPORT: TOWN COUNCIL MEETING OF 1/6/20. PART 2.

Editor’s note: We reported on Part I of the Town Council Meeting of 1/6/20 in last week’s Amherst Indy.  The video of the final two hours and fifty minutes of that meeting originally went missing but is now available on Amherst Media’s website. A written summary follows.

Election of Council Officers
This half of the meeting included a discussion of the roles of Council officers. Councilor Cathy Schoen (District 1) voiced her concern that too much power is concentrated in the offices of President and Vice President. Besides the prescribed duties of the offices, President Lynn Griesemer (District 2) and Vice President Mandi-Jo Hanneke (at large) serve on influential committees, with Hanneke chairing the Community Resources Committee (CRC) and serving on both the Governance Organization and Legislation Committee (GOL) and the Joint Capital Planning Committee (JCPC). Griesemer is a member of the Finance Committee, the JCPC, and the Town Manager Goals ad hoc committee. 

Although the only duty of the Vice President described in the Charter is to preside in the absence of the President, Hanneke participates in agenda creation, meeting with Griesemer and the Town Manager, and has been attending meetings with UMass at the request of Griesemer. This was news to several of the councilors. Councilor Pat DeAngelis (District 2) said she felt left out in learning about this important liaison relationship, and asked to be informed about what was discussed. Griesemer stated that Hanneke had been involved in discussions about the proposed new student housing at UMass, including the implications of public/ private financing and the impacts on surrounding neighborhoods

Councilor Alisa Brewer (at large) and DeAngelis expressed their desire that others be allowed to participate in agenda setting and certain other duties to learn how they are done, and to have the opportunity to represent the Council at some public events. Everyone agreed that Griesemer and Hanneke were doing a good job in their positions, but hoped that others can assume a larger role in the government.

Changing the Rules on Public Comment
The rules of procedure of the Council were amended to not require public comment at special meetings of the Council (not regularly scheduled meetings). This was in response to a request from the Outreach, Communication and Appointments Committee (OCA) to be able to conduct public interviews for the Planning Board, Zoning Board of Appeals, and the Finance Committee without any public comment. OCA made this request in order to prevent any members of the public from making potentially disparaging remarks about candidates. Councilor Darcy DuMont (District 5) disagreed, saying that this rule change would set a bad precedent and noting that the Council has had a significant number (17) of special meetings over the past year. The rule to not require public comment will be in effect for the public interviews for the vacant Planning Board seat on January 22. 

Reorganization of Council Committees
Councilor George Ryan (District 3), Chair of the GOL, introduced a proposal to reorganize council committees. The proposal includes splitting the CRC into two committees, Town Services and Outreach Committee (TSO) and Community Resources Committee. The TSO would deal with Town departments to increase information sharing and participation in Town affairs. The CRC would work on the Master Plan and zoning issues.  Under the proposal, OCA would be disbanded, and appointments to town committees and boards would be handled by GOL. There was little time to discuss this proposal, but Brewer pointed out that some members of OCA—Brewer, Dumont, and Councilor Sarah Swartz (District 1)—had just heard about OCA’s potential demise that morning and that committee members had not been asked for feedback on the matter. Griesemer urged councilors to give their feedback to Ryan before the next  GOL meeting, on January 29, which is after the next Council meeting.

Council Election
Greisemer announced that no public comment about the election of Council officers would be allowed, but there were no members of the public present by the time of the vote. At the end of the meeting, both Griesemer and Hanneke were reelected unanimously. Councilor Steve Schreiber (District 4) nominated Schoen for Vice President, but she declined saying she felt that it was important to keep the leadership team together at this point in time.  High school student Julian Hynes had objected to the decision to prohibit public comment about the election during an earlier public comment opportunity, suggesting that with a general decline in democracy nationally, people in Amherst ought to do what they can to promote democracy at home and that this means encouraging rather than discouraging public participation wherever possible.

After the swearing in of the officers, the meeting was adjourned at 11:50 p.m.

Many items were postponed until the next council meeting 

The next meeting of the Council will be January 27 at 6:30 PM in the Town Room of Town Hall.