Charter Review Committee

To: Falmouth Citizens

From: Charter Review Committee (CRC)

Re: November 2020 Warrant Articles and Progress Report as of 10.20.2020

The fourth Charter Review Committee is winding up its active work by the end of the calendar year with five Warrant articles for November 2020. We will be submitting a semi-final report before the end of 2020 which will contain virtually all of the work we intend to do. But it is “semi-final” because there will remain an additional six recommended Charter changes that have been postponed until the November 2021 Town Meeting. This decision was made by the Select Board in order to keep the 2020 Warrant as short as possible under the pandemic meeting conditions.

We are including under “documents” below the links to three recent products of our work:

1. “November 2020 Warrant Articles” includes information on five articles for the Town Meeting on November 16. For each article there is the language originally suggested to the Select Board and the explanation for the change, plus the current Charter language showing the adds and deletes.
   1. For one article (number 5 on the Warrant) the Town Meeting recommendation language is shortened with the deletion of a phrase that the CRC voted after the original article had gone to print.
   2. For each article, the proposed recommendation and the explanation should match the Warrant Book, although website posting is happening  as the printed book is being mailed out. The current language showing adds and deletes is not printed in the Warrant Book but clarifies what stays the same and what changes. There is some added explanation for article 9 that became available after the Warrant Book was finalized.
2. “Improving the Operations of Governmental Bodies” is a statement of recommendations for Select Board consideration that do not rise to the level of formal Charter changes but are seen by the CRC as valuable steps to make more effective the volunteer boards, committees and other multi-member bodies that do so much for the Town.
3. “Charter Review Committee Statement on Personnel-Related Matters” is a similar statement by the CRC of concerns and suggestions that have not been made formal Charter amendments at this time. The purpose of the position paper was both to reinforce efforts that were being initiated by the Select Board and to point out other conditions that the CRC felt deserved Select Board attention.

It is the intention of the CRC to include three additional position statements for Select Board consideration in our (Semi-) Final Report in December, 2020.