Goals and Objectives

The following are goals and objectives that Selectman Carleen Quinn and I have
discussed as steps needed to restore the Select Board to a position of trusted
leadership. By implementing these changes we hope to make Franconia’s
government and town departments more open, accessible, and accountable to the
citizens for whom they work. We also hope that the implementation of these ideas
will open the lines of communication between the Board, town departments and
employees, improving departmental efficiencies and fostering cooperation and
community pride.

We have segmented this list into several distinct areas; openness and
responsiveness, personnel matters, and administrative efficiency.

Openness and Responsiveness

1. Change the hours the Board meets to a time that allows greater citizen
participation. We feel meeting at 3PM on a weekday in not convenient for
many people. We propose making the meeting time in the early evenings,
perhaps 6PM-8PM.

2. All emails and correspondence directed to the Selectmen will get forwarded
to the intended party for consideration and review. The Administrator’s only
duty will be to respond to all emails by indicating it was received and who it
has been forwarded to. It will be the Board’s duty to decide upon a course of
action or suitable reply.

3. Make the town’s web site a priority and a primary conduit of information for
the citizens and town employees. We feel it should at a minimum contain
timely information regarding meeting minutes and upcoming agendas. Self-
service items like frequently requested forms and subscriptions to
automatically receive email notices for upcoming meetings should be
considered. Each departmental or committee page should include a mission
statement, employee/committee member names/contact info, upcoming
events, agendas, or projects, statistical and/or historical information, and
other timely information that will give the viewer a sense of what’s happening
and why.

4. To complement the web site, direct all boards and committees to place
appropriate notices in the Courier for upcoming meetings and agendas.

5. All public Board and committee meetings should be audio recorded. The
recordings will be archived for historical purposes and available to the public.
Distribution medium may even be on-line via the town website, depending
upon bandwidth and storage restrictions.
 6. Public meeting agendas should be detailed enough so a casual observer can
determine what will take place. We feel that the Select Board’s published
weekly agenda’s are too cryptic and providing more detail will encourage
citizen involvement.

7. Revise the citizen complain procedure for all departments. We recognize one
size does not fit all and each department may have different requirements,
but there are certain procedures that should be followed and enforced:

a. A complaint received must be in writing. The department head must

date and time-stamp the request, and copies are given to the
complainant and a third party (the Select Board or other designated
board) for verification and audit purposes.

b. The department head is given a fixed time in which to investigate the

complaint and respond to the complainant. All complaints are followed
through upon and feedback given, no exceptions.

c. The complainant has the right to raise the issue to the Select Board or
designated board if not satisfied with the department’s investigation.
This board will have final say as to the merits of the complaint.

d. All complaints will be filed and kept as a matter of record; those

complaints found to be valid will be filed as part of the employee’s
and/or department’s record.

8. Community Pride/Spirit Days. We’d like to see the private effort that went
into last year’s town holiday party to be embraced by the Select Board. The
idea is to have one or two community socials where the town’s elected
officials and department heads attend to mingle with the public. This will
provide informal sessions to exchange ideas and concerns as well as being
able to put a face to the government.

Personnel Matters

1. A comprehensive personnel manual needs to be developed. This manual will

define the town’s policy and procedures as they apply to all employees. We
hope that by having clear, consistent, verifiable, and enforceable policies
problems can be avoided or nipped in the bud before becoming problematic.
The “rules of the road” will be known to all and consequences for breaking
them will be clearly defined. The hope is to foster trust and communication
amongst employees, between departments, and with the Select Board.
Perceived favoritism will be a thing of the past.
 2. Revise and in some cases create job descriptions where none currently exist.
Included in this process is should be realistic and quantifiable performance
goals. We need to answer the five W’s of each job; Who, What, When, Where,
and Why. This could be facilitated by having each selectman act as a point
person for one or more departments. This selectman would be the
department head’s liaison to the board and would occasionally spend time on
the job to learn more about the department and its problems.

3. Meet with all department heads on a pre-defined schedule. This is envisioned

as two-way communication giving the department heads the ability to voice
their concerns and priorities.

4. Meet with all elected officials (Town Clerk, Treasurer, etc) for the same
purpose of opening communication giving them the ability to voice their
concerns and priorities.

5. Re-examine the roles to the Town Hall support staff including the
Administrative Assistant, Bookkeeper, Executive Secretary, and
Secretary/Receptionist. The goal is to see how better to utilize the existing
staff. We feel there is a need to better define these roles so that the growing
needs of the town are met.

Administrative Efficiency

1. Make the Select Board Chairperson an elected position, not appointed by

seniority. The position should have clearly defined responsibilities to allow a
meeting to proceed in an organized manner, but not so much power that the
position overshadows the other board members and the ability to function as
equals.

2. Meet with the various boards and committees (Infrastructure, CIP, Energy,
Water, Planning, etc) on a periodic basis. We realize a selectman is currently
attending the individual meetings, but we feel this step is important so the
full board can understand the challenges each is working on from the
perspective of the committee chairman and/or members.

3. Appoint a budget advisory board. We feel the budgetary process in the town
deserves more attention. The time and expertise the Select Board has to
oversee this process is limited. We feel the best solution is to draw upon the
community and use people knowledgeable in the budgetary process and
other fiscal matters to advise the board. We envision this board to work
directly with department heads to come up with fair and equitable solutions
 and advise the Select Board accordingly. The Select Board will retain the final
say in budget approvals.

Carleen and I realize this is an ambitious set of goals that will take some time to
implement and will require fine tuning. We also feel the goals are reasonable, fair,
obtainable, and quite frankly, long overdue. They are not groundbreaking or
revolutionary; it’s simply a matter of common sense. Nothing is cast in stone
and these are only ideas we’d like to develop. Feedback from the
community and town departments will be required to make them work.

If you feel these goals and objectives have merit, then you need to vote for me on
March 11. None of this is likely to happen if the current board remains unchanged.
A vote for me changes the board dynamics 180 degrees. With your help, Carleen
and I can make a difference through positive change, to benefit all.