When the Select Board met for its annual strategic planning meeting June 4 to discuss its goals for the coming year, one thing was obvious to the board members: the Harvard Charter, adopted at Town Election in May, has increased their workload. And since they will be executing many of their new responsibilities for the first time, it was clear by the end of the meeting that it will be a long year ahead.
The heftiest new responsibilities include preparing the town budget, recruiting and appointing most members of the town’s boards and committees, and preparing a strategic plan. The plan is in addition to the board’s goals, and its purpose is to take a broader look at issues the town faces using input from the master plan, the capital plan, and the Finance Committee’s five-year plan.
The goals for the strategic plan must be completed within 60 days of Annual Town Meeting, according to the charter, although Town Administrator Tim Bragan told the board the plan is not due until Aug. 7, which is about 90 days after this year’s Town Meeting. Select Board member Ken Swanton questioned whether the August date would give the board enough time to do the work to come up with the plan, which is defined by the charter as a “set of priorities and yearly goals for the purpose of assessing and adjusting the town’s direction.” Some items members mentioned for possible inclusion in the plan were a senior housing development, planning for the possibility of new housing at Vicksburg Square, and a water and sewer plan for the commercial district along Ayer Road.
To help with the board’s economic development goals, the board agreed the town would benefit from the charter-recommended position of a director of community and economic development to replace the current town planner position. The charter defines the director as someone who would be responsible for not only coordinating the efforts of the various land-use boards to meet the Select Board’s goals for development in Harvard, but also for identifying development opportunities. The board tasked Assistant Town Administrator Marie Sobalvarro with researching salaries and job descriptions for this position.
Facilities management at last
The charter requires the appointment of a facilities manager, and it defines the duties to include preparing and implementing maintenance programs for all town buildings (not including the schools), regular inspections of the buildings, and recommendations for repairs. The Department of Public Works (DPW) will still have an annual budget for those repairs, but it will no longer have to use that budget to define the work that needs to be done. Bragan said he discussed this approach with DPW Director Tim Kilhart, who said he’d be happy to have someone else identify problems. Board member Alice Von Loesecke said the position should include management of school buildings, and Bragan said that, under the provisions of the charter, the schools could be included if the School Committee agreed to it. Bragan added that the position could be an expansion of the current building commissioner’s job, or a new position that could possibly include the duties of the building commissioner. The board plans to further discuss the position this summer.
The board’s new responsibility to appoint most of the town’s board and committee members will require it to interview candidates in public meetings. And because current terms of elected officials expire the day after Town Election, next year’s appointments must be made by May. The board agreed that it will advertise for candidates in February, hold interviews in March, and make appointments in April. Bragan said that this will phase out as elected officials are replaced with appointed officials, whose terms will expire at the end of a fiscal year.
Other charter changes discussed included the new budget process, which the Select Board now owns. Last year the Select Board met with departments to discuss their budgets in preparation for this new responsibility and found that the quality of their responses varied greatly. This year the board plans to formalize the process so that its budget meetings will run more smoothly.
One building committee for all
The board also discussed creating a permanent building committee for town building projects, and Bragan gave members a draft of a committee description based on Chelmsford’s committee. Its membership requirements include an architect, an engineer, someone in the construction business, and an attorney, prompting von Loesecke to ask if that would be realistic in a small town like Harvard. But members agreed that it would be a good idea to have, at the least, building committee members with experience from past projects, especially when it comes to understanding how requests for proposals and bids work. Von Loesecke said that the board will get recommendations from people who have served on past committees to help define the membership and function of a permanent building committee, and the board plans to discuss the issue again in July.
Board members briefly discussed the topic of Devens, but the work involved in planning for 2030, the year the town will have to begin creating its Devens disposition plan, will fall largely to Harvard’s new Devens Jurisdiction Committee. The board increased the membership of that committee from seven to nine and appointed those members at its June 5 meeting. Wallace said she would speak with the selectmen in Ayer and Shirley to let them know of the new committee’s charge.
Select Board member Kara Minar reported on what the town would need to do to get in the queue for state funds for a traffic circle on Ayer Road, which would replace the crumbling 1925 bridge near the Harvard Post Office, calm traffic, and possibly discourage truck traffic. The first step, she said, is a project initiation form, which does not require any funding commitment from the town. But Town Planner Bill Scanlan, who typically would fill that form out, has already left his position.
A failure to communicate?
Finally, the board talked about improving communication with other boards and committees and the public. Select Board member Stu Sklar suggested creating email address contacts for board and committee members, and Bragan said he would come up with a standard and set up the contacts. Members also discussed the best way to educate board and committee members on the state’s Open Meeting Law, and Executive Assistant Julie Doucet was tasked with working with the town clerk to come up with a proposal. Minar and von Loesecke will take on the task of how the Select Board will address any misinformation that might appear in conversations on Nextdoor Harvard related to the board’s work. And in response to the charter provision to support volunteers, the board is considering making its liaisons to other boards responsible for mentoring new members on those boards. The charter also specifically states that the board should hold “regular citizens forums,” and although the requirement was mentioned, there was no further discussion.
The board is keeping a running list of amendments they would like to make to the charter, and it plans to submit warrant articles for those amendments for the next Annual Town Meeting, which is now set for May 4, 2019.
