Session Transcript 22-06-2020 Town of Wellesley
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Session Transcript: 22-06-2020 Town of Wellesley - Town hall >>Good evening, my name is Mark Caplin, moderator. I have been informed a quorum has logged in so I will now call the 2020Wellesley annual town meeting to order. This is the start of the much delayed annual town meeting due to the COVID-19 pandemic which is being held in accordance with the applicable provisions. OK, we had a little computer malfunction there but we're ready to go. So let me start again. Good evening, my name is Mark Kaplan, Wellesley town's moderator. We have a quorum of more than 121 town meeting members logged in so I will now formally call the 2020 Wellesley annual town meeting to order. This is the start of a much delayed annual town meeting due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is being held in accordance with applicable provisions of both the general laws of Massachusetts and the by-laws of the town of Wellesley. Before we get down to the formal business of the meeting, I want to recognize, and I'm sure I can speak for all of us when I say this, how much we have all appreciated the efforts of our first responders, our police, firefighters, EMTs, employees of the board of Health, other healthcare professionals, school and town employees and other essential workers especially those who work at the supermarkets and groceries in town for all of their efforts in support of our wegbeing during -- of our wellbeing during these last four months. It has truly been appreciated. I want to ask for a moment of silence in memory of the more than 120,000 Americans, including 8,000 residents of Massachusetts, who have passed away due to the virus. (Silence) Thank you. This annual town meeting and special town meeting are being held remotely on the Zoom meeting platform as authorised by the provisions of chapter 92 of the Act of 2020 which is the official title of the emergency legislation that was enacted by the Massachusetts State legislature and signed by Governor Baker a little more than two weeks ago. These proceedings are being live-streamed on Wellesley public media and are also being televised on Commcast channel 8 and Verizon channel 40. They will be rebroadcast on those channels on various occasions in the coming weeks and will also be available on demand on Wellesley public media which can be accessed at Wellesley media.org. Wellesley's town meeting is a representative town meeting as opposed to an open town meeting in which any citizen can participate. It was established by a special act of the State legislator applic able only to the town of Wellesley known as chapter 202 of the acts of 1932. I am sure that the drafters of that legislation could have never dreamed of the town meeting taking place in this virtual remote form. In fact, as recently as three or four months ago none of us here could have envisioned it either. I can't help but think what form this prime example of local democracy might take 88 years from now. But that will be a problem for our successors and descendants. For now, we are where we are and we need to deal with the here and now. And that here and now is the task before us tonight which, depending upon actions taken by the town meeting members during the course of this meeting, will also occur possibly on other nights as well but the main objective of what we are trying to accomplish here is to complete the business of this meeting by no later than 11 :59pm on Tuesday, June 30, which is the end of fiscaliary '19/'20. One minute later, fiscal year 2020 begins - 2021, eXcuse me, and we need to have a Budget in place in order to enable the town Government of Wellesley to continue to function and for the essential public services that that Government provides to have the necessary funding and other legal authorisations to be able to continue on and after July 1, 2020, when fiscal year 2021 begins. My plan tonight is to have this meeting continue until around 10:30 and possibly later if it appears that we can complete the business of both the annual town meeting and the short town meeting that is incorporated within it in a single session. At around 9pm we will have a short 5 or 10-minute refreshment/bathroom break where you're on your own but please return to your computers promptly. If we cannot finish all of our essential business tonight, we will resume tomorrow night at 7pm and if we are not able to finish by 10:30 tomorrow night, we will reconvene at 7pm on Monday, June 29. And if we still haven't finished by around 10:30 next Monday night, we will resume on Tuesday June 30 as early in the day - perhaps even as early as 12 noon - in order to ensure the annual town meeting can be dissolved before midnight when the current fiscal year ends so that the necessary funding and authorisations for fiscal year '21 can take effect. Let's hope that we don't get to that point but I think it's important to alert you to what the future schedule of meetings will look like in case we don't complete by then so that you can all plan your schedules accordingly. But hopefully the substantially reduced warrant, the expanded consent agenda, the prerecording of most of the presentations, the advance opportunity for your questions to be answered in the question and answer session that we had last Thursday night and the three test runs that we have had to try to get everybody familiar and comfortable with the process, as well as the advisory committee's very comprehensive and informative report to the town meeting and two supplemental reports, that hopefully all of those measures will enable us to complete everything that needs to be done tonight and, at most, tonight and tomorrow. I am able to report to you from contact with mediators in other representative town meetings in comparably-sized towns in Massachusetts that most of them have been able to complete their business in one session by expediting and employing the procedures I have just described, in some cases it's been two but for the most part they have been able to do it in one session. There are a number of people with me tonight. For those of you who are not aware of it, I am speaking to you from the Great hall Of the Town Hall which those of us here have come to refer to as Mission Control or Central Command and there are a number of people here who play vital roles in the town meeting that I would like to introduce and you Session Transcript: 22-06-2020 Town of Wellesley - Town hall may be seeing them at some point tonight. We have Casey Kato who is our elected town clerk and she is responsible for recording everything that takes place at this town meeting including the actual votes taken and for preparing the official minutes of the meeting. Tom Harrington is our town counsel who is responsible for answering any legal questions and advising me on any legal issues that might arise during this meeting and for ensuring that everything we do during this meeting complies with all legal requirements. Stephanie Hawkenson is the town's director of communications and projects. She is responsible for displaying all motions, Power Points and other essential information on your screens so that you can act in and vote on a fully-informed basis, not in the Great Hall but in an office nearby watching everything that we do to make sure we do it right is Meghan Jopp, the executive director of the town of Wellesley. And last but certainly not least is Brian Dupo n t, the town's director of information technology, who has been educating all of us, especially me who had the steepest learning curve of anybody, on the technology that is enabling us to conduct this town meeting in a way that will enable us to complete the essential business that needs to be completed before the end of the fiscal year while at the same time keeping all of us as safe as possible so at this point I'm going to recognize Mr Dupont who will give us all a short refresher on exactly how we are to access the Zoom meeting platform and the Zoom poll voting procedure that we'll be using tonight. Mr Du Pont. >>Hi, good evening, folks. I'm hopeful and confident this is the last time you will actually have to hear from me throughout the rest of tonight and however long this goes. I'm hoping that all of you have received the technology guide that we distributed this morning to all town meeting members and registered visitors. I understand there were a few technical glitches getting that email out to a few folks. It is my understanding that everybody has it. That technology guide should be your guide book for any sort of technology issues that will arise in tonight's meeting. Everything that we have discussed in our previous test is there. Once again, I wanted to say a quick note of thanks to our volunteers and league of women voters who have provided support both tonight and in our previous test meetings of helping to get people signed in to our meeting.