Organizational meeting raises questions

The first board meeting of the newly constituted Town Board was held on Tuesday, January 2.  All board members were in attendance at the meeting: Supervisor Donal Collins, board members Rick Werwaiss and Destiny Hallenbeck, and newly elected board members Angus Eaton and John Wapner. There was an audience of about 40 people, both in-person and online. 

The Town Organizational Meeting Agenda, designed to set forth a working model of town government for the coming year, guided the meeting.

Under new business, Supervisor Collins began the meeting with a reading of a Proclamation of Recognition for the Honorable James F. Forster, who retired from the position of Town Justice at the end of 2023.

The board adopted a number of resolutions for 2024 that laid out the basic protocols and procedures that will ensure that town business can be conducted under the approved structure. The board approved appointments to various departments, including the Town Clerk’s office, the Planning Board, and the Zoning Board of Appeals.

Details of those resolutions are set out in the agenda. These agreements are documented in resolutions #1 to #39, which were passed with little discussion by the full board.

The process got more complicated when Supervisor Collins introduced Resolution #40-24:

• The Town Board of the Town of Chatham authorizes and delegates to the Supervisor, powers and duties of the day-day administration and supervision of all Town and Special district facilities and employees consistent with and in the furtherance of any and all State and Federal Laws ... and with any and all local laws, resolution and policy heretofore and hereafter adopted by this Town Board.

After this resolution was open for discussion, Collins announced that board member Angus Eaton had sent him some suggested revisions to the wording of the resolution that would need attention, but they had been submitted too late to be incorporated into that night’s discussion. Collins suggested that the board pass the resolution as it was written and then discuss suggested changes at the next board meeting on January 18. He emphasized that passing the resolution on January 2 would allow for the day-to-day business of the town to be conducted under the authority granted to him in the resolution.

To a question raised by Angus Eaton on this issue, Town Attorney Rappleyea advised that the board members could communicate with each other in the interim by phone, email, or text to exchange information and to discuss changes to the wording and intent of the resolution, but said that any decision about the final outcome of that discussion or information sharing would have to be conducted at a public meeting to comply with the NYS Open Meetings Law.  Attorney Rappleyea said that any email communications of this type should be conducted on the town email system, so that any interested party could look at the information that had been exchanged between members of the board. Eaton invited all board members to communicate in this way prior to the next meeting. The board then voted to approve the resolution as written.

Subsequently, resolutions #41 through #51 passed unanimously.

On resolution #52, the appointment of listed members of the newly established Community Preservation Fund Advisory Board was tabled at the suggestion of Supervisor Collins, to allow new board members to interview and familiarize themselves with candidates for this Advisory Board prior to voting on the resolution. Later in the meeting, Collins said that he was aware that the majority of the board would like to discuss the Advisory Committee protocol, as well.  He said that this would be added to the agenda for the next meeting of the town board.

Board Member Werwaiss asked for clarification on the need for resolutions and Town Board approval on populating Citizen Advisory Committees; Supervisor Collins advised that this has not been the custom in the past. Werwaiss said he would want to consider this as those committee assignments came up.

There was no resolution in the agenda regarding the make-up of the various Citizen Advisory Committees, and thus the board did not vote to approve the listed members of those committees, although there was discussion about several specific appointments. Based on this writer’s review of the agenda and the video of the meeting, the membership of these committees was not approved by the board.

During public comment, several audience members raised objections and concerns that board members would discuss and exchange information outside of public board meetings. Despite clarification by some board members that these communications would not result in any decisions, as these are properly considered in a public meeting, some audience members complained that they would be deprived of watching the process whereby the board discusses and makes decisions.

The next regular Town Board meeting is scheduled for January 18 at 6:30 p.m.  The agenda for that meeting is expected to reflect promises made at this 2024 organizational meeting as the board continues to work on organizational issues related to board structure and committees, as well as considering the role of the supervisor relative to the role of board members in decision making and to clarify and/or decide on the procedures to form and maintain the Citizen Advisory Committees.