8 June, 2011
At their Monday night meeting, Planning Board members discussed appointments to other committees, but were unable to agree on who should be appointed to the Community Preservation Committee for the coming year.
"I'll volunteer for Community Preservation, " said Ken Weismantel, Chairman of the Planning Board.
But his offer to serve on the Community Preservation Committee, the committee responsible for managing and making spending recommendations for the 2 percent Community Preservation Act (CPA) tax collected each year from residents, met with opposition from other board members.
Mark Abate suggested that John Coolidge be allowed to continue to serve on both the Community Preservation and the Open Space committees, even though he is stepping down from the Planning Board.
"I was actually going to nominate John for that," said Abate, "as well as for Open Space."
Deb Thomas and Carol DeVeuve also supported appointing Coolidge, but DeVeuve said that if the board did not want to support his appointment she would be very interested in serving.
While Abate felt that Weismantel would do a good job, he urged the board to support DeVeuve.
"In all candor, I think that we all know, or those of us who have been around know, that this is an important appointment," said Abate. "And I feel that you are now the chairman of the Planning Board and to divide up some of the center of influence is important and so I urge the board to vote for Carol [DeVeuve] for this because I think she'll do a terrific job. I think we need to leverage our talents a little bit.."
Weismantel was not without support, however, and John Coutinho said he thought Weismantel would be the better candidate.
"I believe that Carol would do a great job, however, Ken has had experience with several other elected positions as well as boards," said John Coutinho. "John has been on this, been the representatie for a long time I believe that Ken could bring a lot of experience to bear."
In the end, appointments were made to other committees including the Downtown Revitalization Committee, and the Sustainable Green Committee, but the question of who will be appointed to the Community Preservation Committee remains undecided.
The board will reconsider the appointment at their next meeting on Monday, July 20th at 7:30PM.
