August 10, 2009
There has been a change in the Planning Clerk, and a change in the Planning Board agenda. I don’t know if those two changes are interrelated. “Communications” is on the agenda again for 5:30. That means that the Planning Board’s backroom meetings are legally noticed. That is an improvement. However, it does not satisfy the legal requirement that the public be accommodated. At these backroom meetings, the public is generally me, although in the last few months, I haven’t been able to get there. I arrived at 5:45 for this meeting…. and I was not accommodated. If you’ve never been in there, go in and look at the conference room. There are lots of file cabinets, and a large table with 5 chairs. There are 6 members of the Planning Board. There is a planner; there is an engineer; there is a wetlands inspector; there is a clerk; normally, there is an attorney, although not at this meeting. On this agenda, HYH was being discussed, so there was an additional engineer, and an additional planner. The Code Enforcement Officer was present. Does that sound crowded? It was. Isn’t this a little ridiculous? Why do they do [...]
