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Date: 12/6/2022
AMHERST – Members of the Amherst Governance, Organization, and Legislation (GOL) committee and Town Council hosted a special meeting on Nov. 30. The meeting was centered on reviewing and editing the working drafts of the recommendations to Town Council regarding town manager goals and Town Council policy priorities for 2023. At the time of writing, the council’s policy priorities are defined in seven objectives, while the town manager’s goals fall into six categories.
The council’s objectives are climate action, community health and safety, economic vitality, making progress on the four major capital investments currently ongoing in the town, housing affordability, racial equity and social justice and maintaining and developing positive relationships with the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Hampshire College, and Amherst College.
Previous drafts of the policy priorities list included long descriptions of each goal. The current draft streamlines these explanations and rewords them with an emphasis on conciseness, which can be summed up for each goal as “The town will continue to make progress on [the given subject] consistent with its previous ruling on the matter [in an earlier meeting] as to what its role and its deliverables are over the course of the year.”
The committee’s recommendation for town manager goals followed a similar pattern, except for the fact that the descriptions of each goal were still long and specific, unlike the revisions made to the council’s priorities. The goals focused on administration, leadership and personnel, finance, policy implementation, infrastructure management and maintenance, community engagement; and the town manager’s relationship with the Town Council.
Goal number one – administration, leadership and personnel – instructs the town manager to practice good leadership and coordination of staff, working towards a diverse, happy and competent town government. It reads:
“To provide leadership by anticipating future needs and positioning the town to meet those needs and improving the delivery of services to residents and businesses. Further, to effectively supervise and manage the town’s workforce through retaining, recruiting, and developing a highly qualified, diverse and effective staff, improving cooperation and coordination of services across departments, and inspiring attitudes of respect, helpfulness, courtesy, and sensitivity toward and among all employees, residents and visitors in Amherst.”
Finance, the second goal, ensures that the town manager will effectively implement the FY23 budget, responsibly plan for the FY24 budget and maximize town revenue to complete the various projects it has underway.
The town manager will be tasked with, “facilitating conversations with the council on the challenges of providing adequate staffing given the level of municipal services desired and existing revenue sources effectively managing and dispersing ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funds and reporting to the council on the impacts and uses of these funds, and ensuring all user fees, such as water fees, sewer fees, solid waste fees, and permit fees, consider and cover the cost of providing services.”
The third goal of policy implementation read, “To effectively and appropriately prioritize and administer the Policy Priorities of the Town Council through regulatory, fiscal, and other appropriate courses of action so that visible progress is made throughout the year in achieving the Policy Priorities.”
In terms of infrastructure management and maintenance, the fourth goal, the town manager will ensure the maintenance of existing capital and public assets and create a five-year capital improvement plan as well as planning for more long-term renovations and projects, with a focus on “public accessibility, safe use, and sustainability.”
Community engagement, the fifth goal, is all about creating a positive relationship with residents,
“To maintain, develop, and increase positive relationships and communication with residents, and local and state governmental entities by facilitating the flow of information to and between the various constituencies, encouraging and supporting new ideas and methods for expanding resident involvement in town government and awareness of town matters, and maximizing the contributions of town multiple-member bodies to the municipality.”
The sixth and final goal deals with the town manager’s relationship and interactions with the Town Council. It is defined as an objective “to maintain, develop, and increase positive relationships and communication with the Town Council to ensure the council’s effectiveness.”
This will be achieved by, “effectively assisting and supporting the council in providing policy leadership and establishing and implementing long-range goals, providing appropriate support for council committees, responding to communications from the councilors in a timely manner, resolving issues at the administrative level to avoid unnecessary action at the council level, and providing regular communications to the council to ensure the council receives relevant information, including analysis and supporting documents as appropriate, in advance of meetings or media coverage.”
The lists are still subject to revision and will be discussed again at the Dec. 5 Town Council meeting and voted on at Dec. 19’s meeting.