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Finding an outlet
for info
“As a citizen of the town, I don’t
think I should have the authority to go to the police chief and give him a
stack of questions and him be required to research the answers,” Selectman
Bill Keller said.
Questions such as that
should go through the town manager, he said.
The issue was recently
before the selectmen because public safety officials had received a list of
questions relating to the possible creation of a rail trail. Expecting more
questions to surface throughout the process, Town Manager Maureen Valente
asked the selectmen how they would like staff to handle the situation.
“Both the fire chief and
police chief have received calls and I think been given a list of questions
to be addressed,” Valente said. “We would just like some guidance from the
Board of Selectmen.”
Her concern was having staff
researching and answering the same questions two or three times. Town staff,
such as public safety or public works employees, have too much on their
plates to answer questions again and again, Valente said.
“There is a town-appointed
committee to look at all these things. It’s great to see other people are
interested, but I don’t think we need a parallel effort here,” Selectman John
Drobinski said.
Last year, the selectmen
created the Rail Trail Conversion Advisory Committee to evaluate the options
of converting the rail bed into a trail and then advise the town. At the 2005
annual Town Meeting, voters approved spending $25,000 for a feasibility
study.
Although this is the only
town-appointed group discussing a possible rail trail conversion, at least
two other groups also have an interest in the topic Friends of the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail includes residents
from
On the other side of the
table is the Sudbury Citizens for Responsible Land Stewardship, a group
consisting of
Selectmen Chairman Larry
O’Brien reminded residents that all meetings of the town-appointed committee
are open to the public and questions about a rail trail can be forwarded to
them. Valente noted that as part of the rail trail committee’s mission, they
will be looking at the public safety issue and coming up with their own set
of questions.
“If when they get to the
point of discussing the public safety issues and they put together their list
of questions that they would be asking for support from staff on, we
certainly could suggest and urge the committee to take into consideration
questions (from others),” O’Brien said.
The selectmen told Valente
staff should feel free to answer simple inquires by residents, but not to
have them do duplicate research that may be asked for by the rail trail
committee. A yes or no question, such as if there are already plans to
install a traffic light at a specific intersection, is something staff could
easily answer without any research.
“Beyond that…they should put
that list together and maybe give it to the rail trail committee and ask them
if they would include that when they get to public safety, so there’s one
overall list of items that the public safety staff and public works and
whoever else might be approached will look at all at all at one time,”
Valente said. While on the topic of the rail trail committee, selectmen
reminded residents no decision has been made on whether a rail trail will be
created on the north-south rail bed.
“I think there’s some
perception…that the decision’s already been made what’s going to happen,”
Drobinski said. “I don’t think any of us have any idea what’s going to
happen.”
He also noted the
town-appointed committee is only acting in an advisory role to the selectmen
and Town Meeting would always have final approval.
“It needs to be continuously
stated over and over that the charge of the committee is to submit a
recommendation to the board,” O’Brien said. “That’s all that it is, a recommendation.” |