Trash Hauler Bylaw Stalled by Consultant Change. TSO Will Examine Appointment Process for Town Committees

Report on the Meeting of the Town Services and Outreach Committee, March 5, 2026

This meeting was held over Zoom and was recorded.

Present
George Ryan (Chair, District 3), Andy Churchill (at large), Hala Lord (District 3), Pam Rooney (District 4), Jennifer Taub (District 4)

Staff: Athena O’Keeffe (Clerk of Town Council). Paul Bockeman (Town Manager) 

Trash Hauler Consultation Delayed
Town Manager Paul Bockelman reported that consultant Eric Weiss, whom the town hired in December 2025 to help move the languishing (since 2021) trash hauler reform bylaw forward, has left the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission (PVPC), from which the town had contracted his services. PVPC has handed off the contract to Mimi Kaplan, who previously served as the town’s solid waste coordinator and who has considerable experience in this field. Bockelman reported that Kaplan is ramping up and will move forward with the contract shortly, though this change will likely set the schedule back from the originally established timeline.

Exploring Possible Changes to Town Boards and Committees
The Town Services and Outreach Committee (TSO) has been charged with exploring strategies to possibly shrink the size of town boards and committees and to perhaps eliminate some of them. They have also been asked to look at the recruitment and appointment process. The former charge is in response to directives from the 2025 Town Council and established in the Town Manager’s goals for 2026. The latter is in response to concerns raised with the Charter Review Committee that the town’s appointment process excludes certain individuals and political points of view.

The Town Manager Goals established by the Town Council for 2026 directed the Town Manager to, “Work with the Council & TSO committee to develop ways to streamline and improve the recruiting, vetting, selection, and onboarding of community volunteers who serve on the Town’s boards and committees. This process should include exploring ways the Town might shrink the number of boards and committees.”

TSO Chair George Ryan said that the first step will be to reach out broadly and collect information, largely from committee chairs and Town Hall staff. He estimated that this process may take about two months. The committee has divided that charge into three distinct areas of study.

1. Develop strategies to shrink the number and size of boards and committees that contain resident members appointed by the Town Manager.
   
2. Explore ways to streamline and improve the recruiting, vetting, selection, and onboarding of community volunteers who serve on the town’s boards and committees.
   
3. Evaluate approaches to outreach and community engagement, using the “Beyond the Charter” recommendations in the Charter Review Committee’s final report as a starting point to develop specific questions.

The process began at the last meeting of TSO on February 19, 2026  with a committee discussion with Angela Mills, Executive Assistant to the Town Manager, and Jim Pistrang, Chair of the Resident Advisory Committee (RAC), which advises the Town Manager on appointments to town boards and committees.   

Bockelman has suggested that TSO work with the RAC to reach out to chairs of boards and committees with a set of questions to which they can respond. Responses will be collected by TSO Chair George Ryan, who will then report back to TSO with their feedback. Ryan and the committee came up with the following questions, and Ryan asked the committee to come up with additional questions for their next meeting.

• Does the committee have difficulty meeting quorum?
• Does the committee have difficulty finding members?
• Does the committee have the right number of members?
• Do committee members have any questions about the committee’s mission or purpose?
• Could some of these boards and committees be combined?
• Does the committee’s work aid in procuring grants?
• Which committees are advisory?
• Which boards and committees have decision-making authority regarding expenditures of funds?
• How does the committee view the appointment/reappointment process?
• How are vacancies publicized?
• Does the committee reflect diverse viewpoints, and was diversity of viewpoint part of the selection process?
• What goes into the onboarding and training of chairs and committee members?
• What are the rules of procedure for boards and committees?

Clerk of Town Council Athena O’Keeffe pointed out that, through the RAC, TSO could also reach out to staff liaisons to the committees for input. She further noted that this investigation into how committees are appointed and whether their number can be reduced is essentially advisory to the Town Manager and that Bockelman has the authority to create and dissolve committees.

Committees and Open Meeting Law
Pam Rooney said she has been thinking about the fact that advisory committees are not required to adhere to Open Meeting Law (OML). The RAC, for example, is advisory to the Town Manager and is not subject to OML. She asked which bodies are advisory.

O’Keeffe responded that boards and committees that are advisory to the Town Manager are indeed exempt from OML since they advise a single person. RAC solely advises the Town Manager. But the town has treated the Cable Advisory Committee as a public committee even though it reports directly to Bockelman because he wants their deliberations and their process to be public. Nonetheless, that committee is not required to comply with OML. But boards and committees that are part of the public deliberation process and that make recommendations to the Town Council in addition to advising the Town Manager, are subject to OML. Any multi-member body that makes a recommendation that the Town Council can act on must comply with OML. “Only a handful qualify as exempt, and some of those we make public bodies anyway,” she said.

Discrimination in the Appointment Process?
Jennifer Taub raised a concern that certain individuals have been unable to gain an appointment to town committees despite multiple applications. She noted that there appears to be a tendency to exclude people who are regarded as
“advocates” for certain issues, but appointing committees with diverse opinions is important if the committees are to represent the broad interests of the Amherst community well.

Andy Churchill stated that diversity on committees is important, “but we have to worry about appointing committees that will blow up because of disagreement, and I’d want to consider whether we are appointing difficult people.”

Taub responded, “This is fraught . One person’s ‘advocate’ is another person’s engaged citizen. We need diversity of viewpoints, and there are people in town who have been identified as ‘ advocates’ and who believe that they can never be appointed to a committee.”

Rooney added that she has never seen a committee meeting blow up because of the views of a member and spoke to the importance of having committees staffed with people with different views.

Churchill noted that the Charter Review Committee had heard that Amherst residents wanted more opportunities for greater participation in town government, and while he did not believe that there was discrimination in the appointment process, he deemed it worthwhile to examine the how appointments get made and to hear from residents who believe that they have experienced discrimination, so as to ensure that committees include diversity of viewpoints. 

Churchill and Taub both noted concerns that have been raised about the appointment notification process. Churchill said, “We should understand the basic courtesy of notifying people, as we’ve heard from people who have applied and never heard back.” Both agreed that the process of notifying people who have applied and were not selected likely needs improvement and needs standard operating protocols and that the committee ought to examine existing notification procedures.

The councilors agreed to put the question about exclusion from the appointment process back to Bockelman: “Why can’t some individuals  get appointed to town committees?”

Churchill said that he would like to know how widespread the problem is.”How many people claim that they apply repeatedly and can’t get on?” 

Ryan said he only knows of one person who has made this claim. “We can’t determine how widespread it is, but it’s been raised so we should ask Paul [Bockelman] to respond to it,” he said. 

Rooney said she believes that the practice does exist and wants to ask Jim Pistrang who has been on the RAC since its inception, his perception of it. Taub added, “this has happened over a period of years. If someone has applied multiple times and not been selected, they are going to stop applying.”

Concerns About Special Town Council Meeting that Focused on the DPW
There was a brief discussion about the confusion around the special Town Council meeting earlier in the week, which some councilors thought should have been an opportunity for DPW workers to inform the Town Council about their unsafe working conditions, uncompetitive wages, and the breakdown of contract negotiations with the town. Other councilors believed that the intent of the meeting was to hear from KP Law in executive session on the legal limitations of giving the workers a forum while contract negotiations were ongoing, but denying the workers a public forum for comment.

Ryan asked how questions about the event and the outcome might be framed for Town Hall staff.

Churchill asked more generally, what are the ways that people can be heard?  “Why is public comment sometimes unsatisfying, and are there alternatives to ensure that the public can be heard?” he asked.

O’Keeffe responded that there are a host of ways the council can support engagement outside of public meetings. For example, councilors can create district meetings or councilors can schedule office hours, both in person and on Zoom. Engagement with constituents doesn’t always have to happen within a public meeting.Rooney asked why councilors can’t respond to public comments in a meeting.

O’Keeffe said that it is a question of equity. “ If there is a back-and-forth between the commenter and the council, is this offered to everyone? Are we ensuring equal engagement time?” she responded.

Ryan concluded by asking councilors to formulate specific questions regarding public engagement that could be put to Town Hall staff.