NORTHBOROUGH – A permanent traffic and safety committee was created during the Select Board’s June 12 meeting.
The temporary committee was chaired by Select Board member Laura Ziton. The committee also included Mitch Cohen, Bill Pierce, Janeen Callaghan, Mark McMenemy and Christopher Deacetis.
According to Ziton, the committee was set up by the Select Board to determine if a permanent committee was needed in Northborough. As part of their work, the committee surveyed 59 communities to determine what they were doing to address traffic and safety concerns.
“Based on our research, we decided that this would definitely be something that would benefit Northborough,” Ziton said.
According to the charge, the committee “aims to promote and enhance the physical, social and economic environment in which all forms of pedestrian and vehicle transportation can work together for a safe, clean, healthy and vital community.”
The committee will create a forum where the residents will be able to voice their concerns, suggestions and requests, promoting traffic safety. The committee will also work with staff to study potential improvements and identify short- and long-term solutions, acting as a pipeline to provide input to town staff and boards.
The committee would be made up of four members appointed by the Select Board and one member appointed by the Planning Board. The members should be diverse, including geographically diverse.
Ziton said the committee was aware of the pressure on staff and that they didn’t want to require staff to attend the meetings.
“But I do want to stress how critical and important our staff’s position is in this,” she said. “They’re always invited to join us.”
She added that if there were topics that would require the police, fire or public works departments, they would be invited as special guests.
Department of Public Works Director Scott Charpentier will be the staff liaison. Ziton said the temporary committee didn’t talk with the police or fire chiefs.
Police Chief William Lyver called for either the police chief or his designee to be a permanent member of the committee.
“You cannot discuss traffic safety without including the police department,” Lyver said.
He said police needed to be present to weigh in on reasonable and unreasonable enforcement expectations. Lyver noted that in the past, there have been recommendations to address certain safety issues, but there wasn’t statutory authority to do so.
“You really need to have someone that knows what traffic safety looks like and how to go about doing it, at least as an opinion that’s based on experience,” Lyver said.
Ziton said it was discussed in “great detail.”
“The big feedback that we were trying to overcome was to not add any additional pressure to town staff, specifically to the police officers and to yourself,” she said.
Ziton said the intention was to gather community requests, and, if it required police involvement, to work closely with the department “but not require somebody to be in attendance at every meeting.”
Cohen said the committee got feedback from other traffic committees, and they ultimately decided that the voting members would be appointed members, though staff would be “intimately involved.”
Cohen said the committee was not explicitly discluding police.
“The staff line says Department of Public Works and other staff, as needed. Our thought there was [to] rely upon the town administrator to assign staff as appropriate. We didn’t want to do that or force the Select Board to do that,” he said. “From what I’m hearing tonight, obviously the police department needs to play an important role in this.”
He suggested adding in the “staff” section police chief or his designee.
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