TSO Approves Appointments To Boards And Committees

Report On The Meeting Of the Town Services And Outreach Committee (TSO), September 30, 2021

Highlights

• TSO approved town manager’s nominations for appointments to five boards and committees
• Approved criteria for reviewing residential parking proposals and a process for reviewing proposals for changes in the public way
• Scheduled deliberations/public hearing to consider parking issues on Lincoln Avenue and Kendrick Place

Present
TSO members: Councilors Evan Ross (Chair, District 4), Alisa Brewer (at large), Darcy DuMont (District 5), Andy Steinberg (at large), George Ryan (District 3), and Dorothy Pam (District 3) came after the start of the meeting
Staff: Town Manager Paul Bockelman, Superintendent of Public Works Guilford Mooring

The meeting was held via Zoom and was recorded.

Election

Evan Ross was elected unanimously as the new chair and Alisa Brewer was elected as the vice chair of the committee.

Appointments

Town Manager Paul Bockelman provided nominations for appointments and reappointments to the following boards and committees: Board of Health, Community Preservation Act Committee, Energy and Climate Action Committee, Cultural Council, and Design Review Board. The nominations were recommended unanimously (5-0) by the TSO and will be sent on to the full Town Council for approval. In the discussion, Councilor Darcy DuMont asked about the size and depth of the applicant pools, and Bockelman reminded the committee that he does not share that information with them. He has agreed in the past to provide aggregate data about the diversity or lack of diversity of applications for all positions, noted that he hasn’t reported that in awhile, and promised to provide a report soon.

Board of Health

Lauren Mills, Longmeadow Drive, was appointed to a two-year term expiring June 30, 2023.

Timothy Randhir and Maureen Millea will continue as members with terms expiring June 30, 2024. Nancy Gilbert will continue as a member with a term expiring June 30, 2023. And Stephen George will continue as a member with a term expiring June 30, 2022. 

The town manager provided the following biographical profile for Mills:

“Lauren Mills is interested in representing a broader segment of the community as the Board of Health explores the social determinants of health and the role of public policy in supporting people, especially the BIPOC community and low-income members of our town. She is eager to include the issue of systemic racism as part of the complex intersection of health and public policy. She expressed an interest in discussing safety issues that have arisen in organized sports.”

Community Preservation Act Committee
The following individuals were appointed to one-year terms expiring June 30, 2022 as representatives of their respective committees (noted in parentheses).

Ana Devlin Gauthier (Conservation Commission) 

Andrew MacDougall (Planning Board) 

Cultural Council
Christy Anderson, Maplewood Drive, and Joy Jarme, Cottage Street, were appointed to three-year terms expiring June 30, 2024.

Nicolas Graber-Mitchell will continue to serve with a term ending June 30, 2024. Matt Holloway, Robin Thompson, and Rachel Wang will continue to serve with terms ending June 30, 2023. Julianne Applegate, Jennifer Lind, and Arthur Pero will continue to serve with terms ending June 30, 2022.

The town manager provided the following biographical profiles for Anderson and Jarme. 

“Christy Anderson is an architectural historian and has taught art and architectural history at Yale University, the Courtauld Institute, MIT, and the University of Toronto. She also serves as the Editor-in-Chief for The Art Bulletin. Locally, she has served as the director of the Leverett Crafts Center in addition to her teaching responsibilities. She has served on committees for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities as well as statewide committees on the arts. Anderson is eager to support fundraising efforts and is especially committed to reaching out to communities who may never think of applying for a Cultural Council grant.”

“Joy Jarme is a writer with over ten years’ experience as a music journalist and blogger for independent publications. She has helped curate, book, and run local band nights in small clubs in Los Angeles. She currently serves as the Executive Assistant for the Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs at the University. She is passionate about supporting BIPOC artists and artists with disabilities and is committed to doing whatever she can to amplify their voices. As a Philippine immigrant, she says she has a vested interest in working towards racial equity, justice, and inclusion in the spaces she inhabits.”

Design Review Board
The following individuals were appointed to one-year terms expiring June 30, 2022 as representatives of their respective committees (noted in parentheses).

Katherine Davis, Jencks Street (Historical Commission)
Thom Long, Heatherstone Lane (Planning Board) 

The Design Review Board provides that one member each shall represent the Planning Board and Historical Commission. At its meeting on September 22, the Historical Commission voted to have member Katherine Davis represent the commission on the Design Review Board. At its meeting on September 14, the Planning Board voted to have Thom Long represent the board on the Design Review Board. There is one at-large seat available on the board.

Energy and Climate Action Committee
Vasudevan Raghavan, McIntosh Drive, was appointed to a two-year term expiring June 30, 2022.

Donald Allison, Bay Road, was appointed to a three-year term expiring June 30, 2024.

The town manager provided the following biographical profiles for Raghavan and Allison.

“Vasudevan Raghavan is a mechanical engineer who also has an MBA from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He sees himself as a problem solver who is excellent at organizing and managing tasks and processes. He is seeking to be a change agent to find innovative solutions to address climate change.” 

“Donald Allison is an attorney who is prepared to bring his legal expertise to the challenge of creating a sustainable planet. He has considerable experience in environmental law and brings the perspective of a person committed to sustainable agriculture in his service on the Board of Directors of the Biodynamic Farmland Conservation Trust, Inc., the non-profit organization which owns the land, buildings, and equipment at Brookfield Farm.”

Townwide Residential Parking Criteria 
TSO adopted unanimously and with minor modifications the document discussed at the TSO meeting of 9/23 establishing criteria to be used for evaluating requests for changes in residential parking. The goal of the document is to provide a more consistent set of criteria to guide the TSO when it must make recommendations regarding parking and roadway uses proposals. These decisions have previously been made on a street by street basis without consistent criteria.

TSO Public Way Review Process
The committee adopted a document with minor modifications and by a vote of 4-0-1 specifying the process by which requests for changes in the public way will be managed. Moving forward requests for parking changes or other public way requests should be sent to the Town Council president. The president may refer the request to the (TSO) with notification to the Town Council or may bring the request to the Town Council for discussion and a formal referral vote. This is at the discretion of the president, who may choose to bring extensive or potentially contentious requests to the full Town Council first for an initial discussion prior to referral. 

Proposals can come from: 

• Town staff
• Town committees
• Town councilors

Lincoln and Kendrick

A public hearing on resolving parking problems on Lincoln Avenue was held on March 9, 2020. Since then committee members Ryan and Pam, in response to a request from Superintendent of Public Works Guilford Mooring to develop townwide policy for parking, have offered an expanded proposal that includes a greater portion of Lincoln Avenue (extending south of Amity Street) and Sunset Avenue. A public hearing was never held on that expanded request.

Ryan recommended that TSO  return to the initial proposal addressing parking congestion on Lincoln and move forward with it. The public hearing has been held, the staff work has been done, and people in the neighborhood are looking for relief, he said. In addition, he said that considering the revised and expanded proposal would delay action. However, the committee decided to begin deliberations on the Lincoln parking proposal at their meeting on October 14. They will also schedule a public hearing to address parking concerns on Kendrick Place on October 21.

The discussion of North Pleasant Street upgrades between Hallock Street and Triangle Street that was on the agenda for this meeting was postponed.