Volunteer Appointment Committee Process

The Board of Selectmen hereby implements the following process in order to address the following two issues related to the Board of Selectmen consideration of and appointment to the various Boards, Committees, and Commissions (BCC) of the Town of Reading for which the Board of Selectmen has responsibility to appoint:

  1. The amount of time taken by the Board of Selectmen and volunteers for this process has been extraordinary and not necessarily productive.
  2. The depth of interviews given time constraints does not allow the Board of Selectmen to do a thorough job of interviewing.

The Process

  1. Incumbents will be asked whether or not they wish to be considered for reappointment
  2. Applications for Potential new Board, Committee and Commission (BCC) members will be solicited and received.
  3. The Board of Selectmen shall appoint a two member Volunteer Appointment Sub-Committee (VASC) at the time that Board of Selectmen liaison assignments are established. No member will serve on the VASC for two consecutive terms.
  4. The VASC shall schedule meetings to interview all potential BCC members, including any incumbents that wish an interview, and any incumbents that the Board of Selectmen or the VASC wishes to interview. This process will be used for the "annual" appointment process as well as any appointments that come up during the year. The meetings of the VASC will be posted and open to the public.
  5. The VASC will inform all candidates for appointment or reappointment of the slate of candidates for each BCC that will be recommended to the full Board of Selectmen.
  6. The VASC will transmit a slate of candidates for each BCC to the entire Board of Selectmen along with a list of all candidates who had applied for each BCC. A copy of the application form and/or resume for any new candidate will also be provided to the entire Board of Selectmen.
  7. For the annual appointment process the VASC will present the recommended slate of candidates to the Board of Selectmen in early June as a "consent" item on the agenda. Any member of the Board of Selectmen may ask for any BCC recommendation to be removed from the consent item for consideration by the full Board of Selectmen. Any candidate for a position to a BCC may also ask the Board of Selectmen to consider the BCC for which they applied to be removed from the consent item for consideration by the full Board of Selectmen. The consent item with any remaining BCC appointments will then be considered and voted in its entirety.
  8. Any BCC appointments pulled from the consent item will then be scheduled for interview during a succeeding Board of Selectmen meeting, and the appointment process to that BCC will be by the full Board of Selectmen.

Adopted 2010-06-22