Agenda - 11-06-2014 - 5c - Laserfiche WebLink

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13 DRAFT 486 487 Pete Hallenbeck: My personal opinion is to drop the quorum requirement because we've blown it two or three times 488 and if we blow it one more time, it is just, it's getting to the point it's not excusable and that's also based on the fact 489 that if we can just impress upon people how important it is to be there, it's not clear what the quorum is doing and the 490 Commissioners can still ask Planning Board members who are present for comments and input. 491 492 Laura Nicholson: It's just funny that you're saying we need to make sure that we all know that it's really important to 493 be there but it's not a requirement. If it's really important to be there it should be a requirement. 494 495 Pete Hallenbeck: It should but then when you don't have it, we were lucky that we had only a 30 minute delay. What 496 would happen if you had a meeting and you didn't have quorum and you tell all these people I'm sorry we just don't 497 have the people, we'll try this again in three months. 498 499 Laura Nicholson: I agree I just don't see how we can't have a quorum. 500 501 Lisa Stuckey: Why don't we ask staff, what's the problem? Do we know why people haven't shown up? What's 502 been the issue? 503 504 Perdita Holtz: I think it just depends on the personalities that you have on the Board. How seriously people take their 505 position. 506 507 Tina Love: There has never been a time when staff went to the meeting without a quorum. I have never left work at 508 the end of the day that staff didn't have a quorum. If I haven't heard from you, I get on the phone and I call you and 1 509 keep on calling until I reach you, and I'm sorry about that, but we have to ensure there is a quorum. Then staff gets 510 to the meeting and for whatever reason, and things do come up last minute but there just isn't a quorum. I don't 511 know what other process we can do to fix that. 512 513 Tony Blake: Send the Orange bus. 514 515 Maxecine Mitchell: For me, I know we get a copy of the calendar every month, I put it on my personal calendar and 516 an alarm goes off and I say hey you've got a meeting. I don't care if it's an hour before, I'll throw on my clothes and 517 get up here because I've made up in my mind I'm committed and I know it's part of my responsibility on the Board. If 518 something comes up, an emergency, the first thing I try to do, I'm calling from South Carolina when my sister passed 519 away to say she passed I can't make it. Things like that, you can't help but if you're here you should be making it to 520 the meeting. I think it doesn't have to be a rule we just have to be committed and show up unless it is out of our 521 control. 522 523 Laura Nicholson: I just think if the quorum isn't a rule then we're making ourselves seem less important. Like we 524 can't make it to a quorum, we've already embarrassed ourselves by not being there so let's just not hold ourselves 525 accountable and I think we should hold ourselves accountable by saying there has to be a quorum. 526 527 Pete Hallenbeck: If the quorum requirement were effective, we would never have not had a quorum and I see this as 528 the price of failure of value of success and the price of failure having the quorum is we hold up the public. The value 529 of success is we have a quorum, the meeting starts but after that I don't see a lot of difference because the 530 Commissioners can still ask our opinion and we are still there to get input. I think that's why I come down on the side 531 of dropping the quorum requirement. It's just that simple weighing of the price of failure and the value of success. 1 532 don't see any difference in the outcome. 533 534 Tony Blake: What's the reason for the joint meeting? 535 536 Pete Hallenbeck: I think Laura's right on the money, it does bring the Planning Board out, it makes it part of the 537 process, it give value to it, adds importance to it. By the same reason if we don't show up it makes it look like the 538 Planning Board isn't important it doesn't care and the people are not there and you're holding up the citizens. 539 10