Just filed my last minute citizen's petition at the Weston Town Hall, an amendment to Article II of the General By-Law, POWERS AND DUTIES OF TOWN OFFICERS. If this Article is approved by the voters at the May 13 Annual Town Meeting, it should go a long way to improving communication between the voters and our elected and appointed officials.
"The first 10 minutes of each meeting of every Town of Weston board and committee shall be available for resident questions and comments. Draft minutes of each such meeting shall be posted on the Town of Weston website within 10 days of the meeting."
If you look at the town website weston.govoffice.com you will see that the selectmen, for example, have not posted meeting minutes since their November 27 meeting. They have had 6 meetings since then. Although minutes must be formally approved at a subsequent meeting, draft minutes would at least give the voters some idea of what has been happening, including votes taken.
The selectmen deserve credit for making the first 10 minutes of their own board meetings available for resident questions and comments. This is not the case at meetings of other Weston boards and committees.

Good idea, but if the Chairperson of a Board or Committee isn't fined $100 per day for non compliance, it will never be taken seriously. Sad but true.
William C. Crum

If Town Meeting approves it, Bill, it will be a town by-law and I believe it will be taken very seriously. In any event, a voter could always remind such a chairperson that he or she is not in compliance with our by-laws.
Right now, for example, voters are not entitled to speak at a public meeting of any board, only at a public hearing. That will change if this Article is approved by the voters on May 13, as I hope that it will be.

Good luck, but without any enforcement mechanism it will just be eloquent "dust in the wind". Tom Crane repeatedly held up posting WTMAC meeting minutes for months. Do you think he or others will listen to you? Will the Town Counsel try to ambush you like with similar Citizen Petitions last May?
William C. Crum

Ah, ambushed by town counsel. I remember it well. Just as I was about to address my fellow voters at town meeting, and present my proposed article about timely posting of informative agenda and minutes of meetings of the various boards in town, up pops attorney Lauren Goldberg of Kopelman & Paige, to let everybody know that my article, if approved, would not be binding.
Naturally I was not happy that I had heard nothing from Lauren or from anyone at K&P or in our town government to the effect that there was any problem with the wording on my citizen's petition. If I had been so informed, I could easily have re-drafted my petition with the required reference to the by-laws and got the necessary 10 signatures of registered voters in an hour or so, days before the deadline.
Unfortunately, videographer/editor Gloria Cole had a Rose Mary Woods moment, so that the Weston Media Center's video of that town meeting is missing the entire audio of my exchange with town counsel. Too bad.
I do remember getting a big laugh from my fellow voters over a couple of questions I had for Ms. Goldberg. That was fun. Less fun was the fact that my Article was voted down. Hopefully I shall have better luck this time.

Ms. Jancourtz:
I hope the anti-hunting Citizen Petition isn't sand bagged at Town Meeting this May.
The Petition should be discussed at the first ten minutes of one of our Selectmen's meeting and Town Counsel opinion solicited for the little it is worth. Someone should benchmark all the other MA municipalities that prohibit hunting. This should be a front page article in the Town Crier and the petition published therein and on WestonPatch.com.
William C. Crum