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Spring Town Meeting is done, but that doesn’t mean the work is over for Philip Frattaroli. The town moderator has been soliciting feedback and readying for the summer work needed to be done before the fall.
“I had a lot of fun,” Frattaroli said, of his first Town Meeting holding the moderator reins. “It was a fun process. A lot of preparation goes on and I didn’t realize just how much preparation there was. But it was as fun as I thought it was going to be and I really enjoyed it.”
But it was a tough one, Frattaroli added, with all the technical problems, a contentious budget and updating bylaws.
During Town Meeting, it seemed as if gremlins had invaded the tech: the projector was down for a while the first night, the microphones went down for a bit the final night and in between there were moments the voting system was out of commission.
Frattaroli said it was odd since he’d checked out the high school auditorium ahead of time.
“I had done a walk through the Thursday before [Town Meeting started] and everything was working fine,” Frattaroli said, of the technical issues. “It was tough. I got there an hour and a half early each night to ready, but this one, between the length, the technical issues, the town clerk not being there two days….it has to get easier.”
To give him a better idea of how he did in the role, Frattaroli sent out a questionnaire to Town Meeting members. He received 40 responses.
“It was very favorable,” he said. “People appreciated the laughter.”
But, Frattaroli admitted, someone did point out that perhaps his “there’s a pooper at every party” comment wasn’t appropriate.
“I had noticed that Peter Haley was very funny and John Sullivan was a funny guy,” he said. “I thought there was a place for it, but it was 16 hours on an open mic. I made that one mistake and I would take that back.”
People did seem to like his football analogy in tracking how far Town Meeting was getting through this year’s 56 warrant articles.
“I was trying to think of a way to make a graph to show where we were,” he said. “Then I started looking for football fields. I went down to our field, but I couldn’t get a good photo. Then I found some images and I put it together. I debuted that the second night.”
It was one of this Town Meeting’s successes.
When asked what the most difficult thing for him was, Frattaroli said there wasn’t one specific thing. If anything at all.
“Everybody arrived in good spirits and was ready to hunker down and do the work,” he said.
But while he said he didn’t feel overwhelmed, Frattaroli said he did feel grateful at one moment to be finished with the session.
“At the hardest part, [Precinct 5 member] Mariano Goluboff offered a motion for recess and adjournment for the night,” he recalled. “I was so grateful for that. We were able to come back fresh and start again.”
Frattaroli said aside from gathering feedback, he’s readying for the committee work on whether Winchester should move to Town Meeting Time from Robert’s Rules of Order.
Article 56 was overwhelmingly passed when Precinct 3 member Caren Connelly motioned the body form a committee to study the differences between the two and come back with a report at Fall Town Meeting.
The committee will be made up of Frattaroli, Town Counsel Jay Talerman, Town Clerk MaryEllen Marshall, the Select Board, two Town Meeting members appointed by Town Manager Beth Rudolph and a former moderator.
Frattaroli said Haley has already volunteered to serve as the former town moderator for the committee. Frattaroli is a fan.
“He has a brilliant legal mind. I watched all his Town Meetings on YouTube,” Frattaroli said. “I watched a lot of his first nights and the budget nights. And we both went to the Vinson-Owen.”
He said once the committee is ready, meetings will be open to the public.
As for the leftover bylaws reviewed by the Committee on Government Regulations and ready for editing, Frattaroli said he’s glad Town Meeting was able to work through so many in this spring session.
“A lot of people were saying we should push 18 bylaws to the fall, but I’m glad we got a lot done,” he said. “There will be a lot less hanging over us in the fall.”
Overall, Frattaroli said he is still excited about being town moderator, a job he’s wanted for so long.
“I’m still in the honeymoon phase,” he said, looking back at his first session. “If I was ready to throw it in after one, I would really need to rethink that.”
But he still has a lot he wants to accomplish.
“One of the things I want to do is to unify the town,” Frattaroli said. “I want to build trust between the town and the boards and the way to do that is to lighten the mood. In terms of output, I would say we were very successful, but we’ve still got a lot of work ahead.”
