Town Moderator Prepares For Town Meeting During An Outbreak

NORTH ANDOVER, MA — North Andover Town Moderator Mark DiSalvo has every confidence, he said, that town meeting will be held this year. But with the new coronavirus outbreak worsening daily, he's preparing for a very different meeting. At Monday's Board of Selectmen meeting, he told the board that moderators around the state are discussing changes ranging from basic hygiene precautions to delaying or moving up meetings.

"The spread of Covid-19, and the public health measures that might result in, in my opinion pose a genuine possibility that towns may be unable to hold town meetings," DiSalvo told the board. "Our town needs to be prepared."

A virtual town meeting is not an option, DiSalvo said: while they have the technology, it would be illegal, unless the state acts.

Given that fact, DiSalvo said that he is prepared to take other actions to ensure the town meeting happens. For him, the greatest risk is that the meeting is held, but large numbers of would-be attendees skip the meeting, because they're sick or out of concern for their health.

"Every judgement in that meeting becomes suspect. That's the largest thing we want to avoid," DiSalvo said. "If we have a meeting and we're in the middle of an epidemic, I need to make it as safe as reasonably possible for every attendee."

Coronaviruses are a family of viruses that include the common cold as well as much more serious diseases. The strain that emerged in China in late 2019, now called COVID-19, is related to others that have caused serious outbreaks in recent years, including severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the U.S. was on Jan. 21.

Canceling town meeting would have major consequences, the moderator noted.

"It is the legislative branch of a local government, so it has to meet. If there's no town meeting held, we will not have a budget. We will not deal with critical issues around bylaws, zoning and other policy circumstances. And we'll be in violation of the Massachusetts constitution," he said.

DiSalvo is a co-chair of the Massachusetts Moderators Association's 2040 Committee, which is tasked with looking at how town meetings might change over the next 20 years. In that role, he has been part of conversations with other moderators and with state officials on what actions they can take.

At the most basic level, town moderators can ensure meetings are as hygienic as possible. That might mean holding meetings in bigger rooms than usual, so that people can sit further apart. Microphones and any other shared technology will be regularly used. Handshakes and other contact will be encouraged. These changes are likely in towns that have meetings scheduled within a couple of weeks.

Towns also have the options of accelerating or delaying town meeting. Both moves have downsides. An accelerated town meeting would mean less time to discuss articles and budgets ahead of the meeting. A delayed town meeting, meanwhile, risks going over the June 30 deadline. But doing so might allow a town to avoid the height of the outbreak.

There is a more extreme measure available, which moderators can take unilaterally, DiSalvo said. If public health officials make rules or recommendations against large public gatherings, as they have already done elsewhere in the country, town meetings can be broken up into multiple simultaneous gatherings. North Andover has done this before, when 3,000 people came to a meeting in 2018: the meeting was split between the high school's gym, auditorium and cafeteria. If the max gathering size were 100 people, the meeting could be split between numerous rooms in the high school, DiSalvo said.

The meeting could even be brought to certain quarantined spaces, DiSalvo said. For example, if an assisted living facility were under quarantine, staff or residents on location could be deputized as moderators and clerks. It's been done: DiSalvo's 2040 Committee co-chair Wayne Davis had a remote Carlisletown meeting held two miles away from the main meting.

There are other options that would require the state to act. Currently, a town can operate on a monthly basis on 1/12th of the previous year's budget, if they have held a meeting but failed to pass a budget. The state could extend 1/12th budgets to towns that cannot hold or complete their town meetings.

To the Board of Selectmen, DiSalvo made a general request: if it becomes necessary, the town should "conform to the law as closely and prudently as circumstances will allow," but it should prioritize protecting the public and continuing government operations, and "clean up the form after."

DiSalvo said he will work with the town's public health officials, who also presented on the new virus at Monday's meeting.

The disease, which apparently originated in animals, is now transferring from person to person, although the mechanism is not yet fully understood. Its symptoms include fever, coughing and shortness of breath, and many patients develop pneumonia. There is as yet no vaccine against COVID-19 it and no antiviral treatment.

According to the CDC, the best way of preventing the disease is to avoid close contact with people who are sick, to avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands, to wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, and to use a hand sanitizer that contains at least 60 percent alcohol if soap and water are not available.

To avoid spreading any respiratory illness, the CDC recommends staying at home when you are sick, covering your cough or sneeze with a tissue and throwing the tissue in the trash, cleaning and disinfecting frequently touched objects and surfaces.

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Christopher Huffaker can be reached at 412-265-8353 or chris.huffaker@patch.com.