By Chris Kopacko, Contributing Writer
Westborough – Like many Massachusetts municipalities, Westborough's form of town government is an open town meeting. But a number of factors, such as low voter participation and meetings that extend many hours and sometimes over several days, have caused the Board of Selectmen to consider different options. Those were discussed during a prolonged discussion held during its June 11 meeting.
Hearing from members of the Massachusetts Municipal Association (MMA) present various forms of municipal governments, selectmen considered whether or not they would like the town to update its governing style. They also spent time inspecting the town's charter and overall organization as a whole.
With the MMA was Hans Larsen, executive director for the town of Wellesley and Jeff Nutting, town administrator for the town of Franklin. Also present was Marilyn Contreras, who provides assistance in drafting town charters for the commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Larsen spoke of Wellesley's representative town meeting style of government, which is comprised of a legislative body of 240 elected town meeting members from each precinct in the town. According to Larsen, a representative-based town government provides for more “spirited and informed” discussions during town meetings.
“It stands in contrast with the open town meetings I'se seen,” he said.
Contreras – who was asked to review Westborough's town charter prior to the meeting – described the charter as “kind of half charter, half operations manual”.
“There are a lot of dots here, but there is not a lot of connecting of the dots,” she said. “You have lost, in your drive to specificity, the overarching principles that a charter is supposed to capture.”
Contreras specifically cited inconsistencies in terminology within the charter that needed to be corrected.
“You'se created new terms, this is never a good thing,” she said. “The commonwealth has plenty of terms, use our terms.”
Nutting described the town of Franklin's city council form of government – one that has no town meeting but rather an elected council to serve as the legislative body – as “email government as opposed to snail mail government.”
“Nine people do [in Franklin] what your 100 or 200 people do at town meeting,” he said. “It's certainly, from a day-to-day operations perspective, much more efficient.”
The state requires that municipalities have a population of at least 12,000 to be eligible for a city form of government. Westborough currently has a population of over 18,000. Contreras pointed out that while municipalities may adopt city-style governments, many elect to keep their “town” titles.
The Westborough board members offered their thoughts after hearing from their guests.
“Quite frankly, I's leaning towards Jeff's [Nutting] position,” Selectman Denny Drewry said. “I like the advantage of a city council because you can do things and it doesn's take a year and a half.”
Selectman Leigh Emery wasn's as convinced on which course of action would be best.
“I want to learn a lot more about both of these forms of government,” she said.
Selectmen Chair Ian Johnson asked the guests if they had any recommendations for Westborough moving forward. Contreras said it was important to first have a vision, and then look at examples.
“Read some other charters, and see if anything is resonating,” she advised.
Nutting recommended fixing the charter before making any decisions on new forms of government.
“That is going to put you in a better place,” he said. “There's so much in this charter that needs fixing, it should really be the first bite of the apple.”