Malaguti States That More Meetings Being Recorded

During the June 17 Town Council meeting, a portion of public comment was dedicated to one of the five citizen petition warrant articles approved at the March elections.
The article stated: “Shall the Town vote to amend the Londonderry Municipal Code Title V – Administrative Code Chapter III – Boards, Committees and Commissions Section I General Authority Section I. B. to remove the word “Advisory” from “Budget Committee” in accordance with RSA40:14-b that states the “Budget Committee” shall create the default budgets.”
Town Council Chair, Chad Franz, explained that originally they didn’t have it on the agenda for the meeting, since the citizen who gathered the needed signatures and submitted the warrant article, Deb Paul, said she would be going forward with getting the required signatures to do a charter amendment.
“Last meeting, the petitioner did share that they were gonna move forward with getting the required signatures,” Franz said.
However, he said he was asked by someone to have a discussion about it like the other warrant articles, so he added it to the agenda.
Town Councilor, John Farrell, argued that the Town Council is doing what they are supposed to be doing by discussing the different advisory petition warrant articles before deciding to move forward or not, and noted that since during the Deliberative Session they were changed to advisory only, meaning that they aren’t obligated to implement the changes.
Resident, Tony DeFrancesco, noted similar arguments as Farrell, and said that unlike other warrant articles there were no public hearings, and there may be some people in town who voted for the warrant articles, but didn’t necessarily understand them.
“There was no conversation about it at all,” he said.
Resident, Ray Breslin, on the other hand, said he thinks for the most part voters are well informed, and understood what they were voting on.
“It’s very important that the voters are listened to,” he said.
Also during the meeting, Town Manager, Mike Malaguti, gave an update regarding meetings being recorded, noting that it’s an issue that has gotten a lot of attention as of recently.
He also noted an advisory citizen petition warrant article asking voters if they supported all boards and committees in town being recorded. The vote was 3,125 to 1,017 in support of it.
“I’m happy to report to you that we’ve been responsive as I have indicated to the public,” Malaguti said.
He said for example, last week, the Recreation Committee meeting and Old Home Days Committee meetings were recorded, Beautify Londonderry was recorded earlier that day, and the Cemetery Trustees meeting would also be recorded later that week.
Malaguti also noted, they can’t put it up instantly and it would take some time to get the recordings online.
“We thank the public for providing that feedback,” Malaguti said.