CPA, Library, Capital

The Community Preservation Act Article 21 passed Town Meeting by a 104 to 16 vote.

This means the town will VOTE on it at the Fall election in November, 2022.

For the details of the debate from tonight on the CPA and some of the other topics, please see these notes. This is not official nor is it complete. This is simply a best effort to capture what was said.

The Morse Institute, Bacon Free Library passed easily.

"The library is the essence of democracy in that people can educate themselves freely." - heard in debate tonight.

Capital Plan, passed after questions about:

Changing our police vehicles to hybrid and/or electric when available
Why we change 20% of our cruiser fleet every year (hard use of vehicles)
The Stand Up Gas powered Blower had a few moments in the spot light - it was identified that while it is noisy, Natick has no Noise ordinance and while electric models are available, the batteries do not last enough.
Ladder truck - change in plan - no longer pursing a platform ladder but cost will still be $1.5M

I lost steam on Article 17 but tuned in again to hear Mr. Sidney approaching the microphone around 10:00 to motion for adjournment.

Thank you Town Meeting Members and all of our town Staff who attend these long sessions!

Statement on Recusal

Here are the remarks I gave last night when letting my committee know my decision to recuse: After the School Committee meeting on October 15th, several individuals wrote into the SpeakUp Natick portal requesting that I recuse myself from voting on the possible closure of Johnson. The substance of these messages, sent to the full committee, carried a familiar refrain. The messages - often using the same language – said some version of the following: Catherine Brunell should recuse herself from deliberating and voting on the closure of Johnson because she lacks objectivity, as her children go to school there and she is from that neighborhood. I asked myself the question if there was any merit to the request for me to recuse myself and started to do some research about why people recuse From what I can tell from the minutes, in Natick, It’s never happened before - not with the Kennedy, Wilson or the High School - not even for members whose children were to attend the future rebuilt s

Questions that I am asking or have received...

Serving in this role, I hold a seat that gives me the ability to ask my questions and yours to our administration with the hope that the questions reinforce our strategic goals. I've long relied on the value that, "two heads are better than one." So here are some of the questions that the School Committee has been asked this week by parents and constituents: Cameron Middle School in Framingham 1) Will outdoor structures be used in the fall to allow for outdoor mask breaks when the weather is poor or lunch in a safer setting? While this falls into an operational issue at the school and is not typically in the purview of the School Committee, because of COVID we have an interim COVID policy (page 120) where it is stated that the school committee establishes an emergency, interim policy to promote public safety and safety of students and faculty. Perhaps one example of the use of the application of this policy could be seen in the March 15th School Committee meeting

In other news... (With correction about the Special Election)

If you voted yesterday in the State primaries... you might have been surprised like me - I thought I would also be casting a vote for the Natick Select Board seat that sits open... But, because of laws beyond anyone's control - Natick has to hold another election next week for an uncontested race on Tuesday September 13th. Voting information here. I'm told that years ago Natick had to hold PRIMARIES because there were often so many people who wanted to run in the elections. Sigh. I'm always grateful to anyone who will run and am happy to cast a vote next Tuesday - but I'd like to hope we have some contested races in March. Correction: After publishing the blog, thanks to my readers, I learned that the above is incorrect: The Select Board, by town charter, can have a vacancy until the next election (March 2023), they may call for a special election themselves or be required to call for a special election if 200 people sign a petition calling for one. The speci

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