This year, the Board of Selectmen began offering virtual office hours. They have decided to turn the zoom meetings into a biweekly offering.
Selectmen currently plan to hold office hours on the weeks that the Board isn’t holding a meeting. Each meeting will feature two selectmen.
Next up is Tuesday, February 9th, 7:30 – 8:30 pm with Lisa Braccio and Chelsea Malinowski.
In past promotions, the board has pitched the hours as a way to bring to discuss your questions, concerns or interests with selectmen in an informal setting.
As I previously posted, the office hours aren’t a public meeting (so they won’t be recorded or have minutes). But they also won’t be private. Participants will all be invited into the zoom session, just muted until it is their turn to participate.
The format was adopted by selectmen to be more welcoming to participants. (Otherwise, residents would be sitting in a “waiting room” having no idea how long they’ll be waiting and how many people are ahead of them.)
However, if you have a sensitive topic to broach for which you would prefer greater privacy, selectmen have noted that the public can always contact them individually to talk. (Click here for the BOS page with links to each individual selectmen’s email address.)
The next BOS meeting is slated for February 16th, so I’d expect office hours to be held again the week of February 23rd.
