Sudbury subcommittee rewrites remote participation policy for full board review

SUDBURY — September 30, 2021 — Sudbury subcommittee strips intrusive disclosure rules from town's remote participation policy. The Select Board's policies and procedures review subcommittee spent more than two hours on Sept. 30 rewriting the 2015 policy, which had required members citing remote attendance to disclose "extenuating circumstances" such as illness, disability or family emergency. The subcommittee aligned the language with 940 CMR 29.10, which permits remote participation when physical attendance "would be unreasonably difficult," and changed "infrequent event" to "temporary event" at the suggestion of Historical Commission member Chris Hager. A quorum provision that had capped remote participation at one member of a seven-member commission was replaced with a requirement that "a quorum of a public body must be present in person." A biannual reporting requirement was trimmed to occur only upon request of the Select Board chair. The draft heads to the full board Oct. 19.