Southborough resident John Butler has been involved in town government for many years, and currently holds a seat on the Advisory Committee. He is also one of the drivers behind a movement to change the way the government in Southborough is structured. It’s a proposal that has garnered wide support from selectmen, Advisory Committee members, and others around town.
Voters at town meeting ultimately will get to decide whether the town pursues a so-called Town Manager form of government. In the following post Butler explains how the change would come about and what it would mean for the town.
—-
At town meeting this year voters will decide whether to continue the process begun by the Town Government Study Committee in 2007 to create a Town Manager government for Southborough. The proposal also includes changing from the current three person Board of Selectmen to a five person board. All of Southborough’s neighboring towns have already made this change.
The process of considering this change in Southborough began several years ago with the Town Government Study Committee. It spent a year studying town government and issued its principal recommendation that the town change to a town manager and five person Board of Selectmen. That committee’s charter did not include implementation.
As currently structured, all the town’s major department heads, such as the police and fire chief, report directly to the Board of Selectmen, which is the executive management for the town. Under the proposed new structure, these positions would report to a town manager appointed by the Board of Selectmen, much the way school principals report to the superintendent. The Town Manager would become the full-time executive management, freeing up the Board of Selectmen to act as a policy and review board.
In October of last year a group of about thirty citizens signed the warrant that will appear before voters in April. The warrant asks town meeting voters to create a “Drafting Committee” to draft the legislation that would make this proposed change.
Those signing the warrant in October included all the members of the Board of Selectmen, a majority of Advisory Committee members, and most of the members of the Town Government Study Committee, as well as several former Selectmen and the former Town Administrator, now retired, Janice Conlin.
“This change is long overdue,” Selectman John Rooney said at a board meeting late last year.
Then-Selectwoman Bonnie Phaneuf agreed saying, “We need this change. This job has become impossible.”
If Town Meeting chooses to create the Drafting Committee, a draft would be presented to the April 2012 Town Meeting. That Town Meeting would then decide whether to approve, defeat, or amend the draft. If approved in April 2012, it would go to the state legislature for enactment, which is usually automatic, but takes about six to twelve months.
The complete change would take a little less than two years, if Town Meeting approves at each stage. The proposed change would have no effect on the management of the schools, which would continue to be managed by the Superintendent and the School Committee, as governed by State law.
The report of the Town Government Study Committee, as well as the presentation made to the Board of Selectmen about this proposed implementation, is available on the Town website. The drafting committee, if created by Town Meeting, is expected to base its work on the similar legislation drafted by Sudbury, and many other nearby communities, that have made the change during the last several decades.
–John Butler
