Shaffer doubles as meeting minute taker

By Mary Carey
Staff Writer

Published on July 27, 2007

You think being a town manager is hard? Try recording the minutes at Select Board meetings. The town manager takes the notes in Amherst, a longstanding town tradition.

"I was stunned the first time I saw it," Larry Shaffer, who's taking the minutes now, told the Select Board Monday, after a far-ranging discussion of minutes.

"It's a tradition, and if it works, there's no need to upset it," Shaffer said. "But it's very unusual."

In Northampton, a clerk takes the minutes at Northampton City Council meetings. In South Hadley, the administrative secretary is the scribe.

David Nixon, Hadley's town administrator, sometimes takes the notes. Other times an assistant does. Nixon neither insists on doing the honors nor is he opposed to it.

"It obviously is important to capture the gist of what is going on and who is representing what position," Nixon said of the challenges. "You want to be able to capture that accurately."

He'd be taking notes even if he wasn't the only one doing it, Nixon said.

"I often take notes while people are talking. The big difference is after the meeting, when I'm responsible for typing them."

It makes the follow-up easier, though, with his notes becoming a to-do list, so to speak. "I'm doing the work that is being described in the minutes."

Wendy Foxmyn, of Northampton, a longtime municipal official who has worked in various places, including as assistant to former Town Manager Barry Del Castilho, agrees with Shaffer that it's not every day you see a town manager in a community the size of Amherst taking minutes.

<h4>Term limits</h4>

But then, Amherst likes to do things a little bit differently than the average town. And that includes setting term limits for volunteers who serve on its 40 or more committees. Panels range from the Aquifer Protection Committee, Council on Aging and Council on Youth to the Zoning Board of Appeals, and they are often in need of a member or two to round out their ranks.

But it's been a policy of the Select Board not to reappoint people to a second term, board member Anne Awad said Monday, explaining why she would not vote to reappoint longtime members to the Kanegasaki Sister Committee. Amherst has had a warm relationship with the Japanese city for about 15 years during which time Awad has visited there. Even her own mother was a two-term member who would have liked to serve on the sister city committee longer but recognized when it was time become an active supporter versus committee member, Awad said.

Committees need "fresh blood," Awad said. If they're having a hard time attracting it, that might say something about its long-term viability.

"That's a new one," Nixon, the Hadley administrator, said of the board's two-term policy. "Usually towns have the opposite problem. They have so many vacancies they can't find people to fill them, so they hang on to the folks that are in them."

Foxmyn said there are people who have served 20 or more years on committees in many towns she has been to.

"It's good to get some changeover, but it's also good to have the historical knowledge as well as on-the-ground knowledge," she said. "I have to say, the boards I've worked with - selectmen in particular - when you have a real mix of old timers, newcomers and middle of the road, it's worked best."

As for Awad's mother, she might want to join Amherst's newest committee, the Nyeri, Kenya, Sister City Committee. Awad, whose daughter-in-law is from Kenya, pitched the idea of forming the relationship to Town Meeting, this year, and Town Meeting endorsed it. She is seeking members now.

<h4>Meetings</h4>

MONDAY: Comprehensive Plan Committee Comprehensive Plan Subcommittee, 8 to 10 a.m., Town Room, Town Hall.

TUESDAY: Comprehensive Plan Committee, 4:30 to 6:30, Town Room, Town Hall.

WEDNESDAY: Select Board, 6:30 p.m., Town Room, Town Hall.