Looks like a somewhat busy week ahead for meetings of various city committees, boards, and commissions.
Tonight (July 10) at 6 PM is the Human Rights Commission. The main topic on the agenda looks to be “Public access to government meetings enhancement through teleconferencing and hybrid meetings.” The commission will be taking comment, getting viewership numbers from GCTV, and formulating recommendations to be provided to the mayor.
Tomorrow (July 11) will be the busiest day, with meetings of the Board of Assessors, the Council On Aging By-Law Committee, the Conservation Commission, and the Greenfield Charter Chapter 7-7 & 7-8 Review Ad Hoc Committee.
There were also supposed to be meetings of the Economic Development Committee and the Library Board of Trustees tomorrow, but those have been cancelled.
While there is not much agenda detail for most of Tuesday’s meetings, the exception is the ad-hoc Charter committee. This week marks the final meeting of that body, and they will be voting on recommendations to the City Council on Chapters 7-7 and 7-8, which set the rules for the citizen petition process. Per the agenda, the language they’ll be voting on was drafted by Al Norman.
I have not scrutinized the details of the proposed changes, but since they’re coming from Norman, my guess would be that the gist of it is to lower the bars for gathering signatures in support of citizen petitions and submitting them to the Clerk and City Council. It will be interesting to see how that discussion goes.
Then on Wednesday (July 12) at 5:30 PM, we have a meeting of the Appointments & Ordinances Committee of the City Council. Looks like they have a few appointments to consider, as well as proposed ordinances regarding the Public Safety Commission, a ban on the sale of nips, and dog bits and “dangerous dogs.”
The proposed changes to the Public Safety Commission are mainly to add language detailing the process for handling citizen complaints. Such language is currently non-existent, and the Commission effectively has no oversight role. Having watched their last few meetings, I suspect the current members of the Commission might oppose these changes, but they seem long overdue.
Finally, on Thursday (July 13), there is a meeting of the Historical Commission at 5 PM. The only specific item they have on their agenda is “Cleary Jewelers storefront.”
There was a also a Zoning Board of Appeals scheduled for Thursday, but that has been cancelled.