Meetings are held remotely. Go to truro-ma.gov, click on the meeting you want to watch, and open its agenda for instructions on how to watch or take part online.
Monday, April 5
- Conservation Commission, 5 p.m.
Tuesday, April 6
- Board of Health, 4:30 p.m.
Wednesday, April 7
- Planning Board, 5 p.m.
Thursday, April 8
- Climate Action Committee, 10:30 a.m.
Conversation Starters
Planning Board vs. Robert Weinstein
Robert Weinstein, chair of the select board, took some heat from two of his fellow board members who were not pleased when he called the planning board “an embarrassment to the community” in a March 18 article in the Independent.
Board member Sue Areson said on March 23 that some people “were distressed and a little upset” when they read Weinstein’s remarks.
He said he thought the petitioned articles on the June 26 town meeting warrant to make the board of health and the zoning board of appeals elected rather than appointed was a terrible idea. The planning board is elected, he said, and it has done nothing to promote the goals of the elected town leaders — the select board, primarily — regarding affordable housing. The current planning board members all ran unopposed, except for Richard Roberts, who was interviewed along with several candidates and appointed to fill an unexpired term.
“The planning board has done everything in its power to prevent the progress of diverse housing stock,” Weinstein told the Independent.
“Obviously people are allowed to speak as private citizens, even on boards,” said Areson. “I wouldn’t do so and particularly not to the press, because it appeared that some commentary Bob made, that I think was unfair to the planning board, was representing the board. That was not the case.”
Areson, the former deputy executive editor of the Providence Journal, said tension between the select board and the planning board has been no secret and “uncivil discourse and disrespect has gone on for four or five years.”
“It’s counterproductive to lob grenades,” she said.
Board member Jan Worthington agreed. She said it’s unfair to criticize a board that is elected because it means you are “criticizing and chastising those who elected them. I was very unhappy to see that in the Independent.”
The planning board’s Peter Herridge was censured in November by the select board after making false and crude comments related to the Cloverleaf, a 39-unit affordable housing complex.
On March 24 and March 31, the planning board held two closed sessions. Both times the exception to the Open Meeting Law they cited was for discussion “of the reputation and character of individual (board members) and of complaints or charges brought against board members as public officers/individuals.”
The planning board will hold a public hearing on April 7 to go over several zoning articles on the town meeting warrant. That meeting starts at 5 p.m. —K.C. Myers
