KENT—A small but attentive crowd recently gathered at the town hall for a Democracy Day program, “Town Hall and You: A Civics Lesson,” presented by town officials.
During the Sept. 15 program, First Selectman Marty Lindenmayer and Town Clerk Darlene Brady outlined the duties of town departments, boards and commissions, and the budgetary process that establishes town spending for each fiscal year.
He noted that some boards, such as the Planning and Zoning Commission, are elective.
“If you don’t like what you see, you can run in the next election,” he said. “The meetings are open to the public, so you have a chance to get directly involved.”
It was noted that meetings for municipal boards are recorded and can be viewed on YouTube. Viewers can also listen in during the meetings broadcast on Zoom.
In addition, agendas are posted at least 24 hours before meetings are held and include folders with all the communications and other written materials that will be referenced during the meetings.
“All the boards and commission have adopted their own way of managing their meetings,” Brady said. “It could be in-person [recorded and available for viewers to watch] or Zoom only. It’s left up to the chairmen. We started during Covid and decided to continue afterwards. It’s great of them all to continue to record their meetings.”
Andrea Schoeny, president of Kent News, Inc., the parent company of the Kent Good Times Dispatch, asked why the Board of Education does not record its meetings.
She noted that the meeting agenda for the week before included a link, but neither she nor KGTD staff could access the meeting. She said when she attempted to go back to the link, it had disappeared.
Lindenmayer said the town has directed recordings be made of boards, commissions and committees associated with town hall, but that the state sees the Board of Education as a separate entity that develops its own budget separate from the town.
He noted that the Board of Finance cannot go into the school board’s budget and dictate line items that should be removed or reduced.
“If there is a line item for $6,000 that we don’t like, we can’t remove it,” Lindenmayer explained. “All we can do is say the bottom line should be reduced by $6,000 and it is up to them to decide what to do.”
The autonomy makes it impossible for town hall to insist that meetings be recorded.
“The Board of Education is a separately managed board,” Lindenmayer said. “It’s separate enough from town so it’s in a gray area.”
“We can request that they to go along with the rest of the boards, but it’s not really mandated,” he explained. “You could ask them why they aren’t participating with idea of the rest of town. Like the Board of Selectmen, they have a large number of dollars in the budget, there are issues of curriculum and other issues of interest to the town.”
Selectman Glenn Sanchez said having the Zoom recordings is a benefit for the public and town officials who may be away but are still able to participate in the meetings.
“There is so much great stuff on this website just begging to be watched,” he concluded.
Lindenmayer said the recordings are a good resource for researching issues from past years and also allow citizens to see the interactions of members of boards and commission.
“You get the structure of the meeting,” he said. “It’s all there. In minutes, you get motions, votes taken, and decisions made, but you don’t get inter-relations and interactions.”
The meeting cleared up some areas of confusion for the public.
Election to the Board of Selectmen is a mystery to some residents and varies from town to town.
In Kent, candidates declare whether they are running for first selectman or selectman. In some towns, such as Sharon, the first selectmen candidates run for only that position and the losers are not seated on the board.
In Kent, however, the losing first selectmen candidates go into the pool for selectman and the top three vote-getters are seated.
On the selectmen board, Lindenmayer had faced two other first selectman candidates, Rufus P. de Rahm and Lynn Mellis Worthington.
Sanchez ran for a selectman post. Lindenmayer won and Worthington, the third-highest vote-getter behind Sanchez, was seated on the board.
Brady explained that the designations of second and third selectman do not indicate a level of authority.
“The only reason that exists is because Park and Recreation’s bylaws state that the third selectman will be a member,” she said. “For that, the selectman with the lowest number of votes becomes the third selectman.”
Lindenmayer addressed the lack of a county system in Connecticut.
County government continued through the mid-20th century but had weakened as the state took over more and more functions. Public Act 152 abolished county government in Connecticut in 1960, he related.
“We have the Northwest Hills Council of Governments, an association of towns that gets together to discuss areas of mutual interest such as trash disposal,” Lindenmayer said.
Attention turned to Park and Recreation and Social Services.
Lindenmayer explained that Park and Recreation oversees the park properties while under recreation, it creates activities for the town’s different populations.
Social Services interacts with Park and Rec for some programs, but its main mission is to support families that need assistance with fuel assistance, Medicare, veteran issues, rent control, food assistance and the like.
The town officials directed residents to the town website for information about different town services. Lindenmayer said each department or board has its own page with relevant information.
Sharon Norton, a member of the Kent Library Association, asked if a “volunteer bulletin board” could be created to help residents who want to get involved to find a niche.
Brady said it is “doable,” but said that potential volunteers should be acquainted with the magnitude of their commitment.
“It might say a commission meets once a month,” she said, “but we should be honest with them and say, ‘your commitment will be … .’ It’s good information we should make volunteers aware of.”
