Well, we had our Town Board meeting last night and, during our work session, prior to the televised portion of the meeting, I tried to introduce a motion that would have permitted the public to address us at the beginning of our meetings rather than have to wait for the end in order to speak. I was proposing a 1-3 minute time limit, depending on the number of speakers that wanted to address us prior to the meeting, and no limit for those at the end of the meeting. No other Town Board member was willing to second my motion so that "ended" the discussion. The Town Supervisor indicated that if anyone requested speaking time before one of our meetings, she was inclined to grant them permission. She would grant them time after any already scheduled Public Hearings. To further enhance public communication with The Board she also suggested that The Council, as part of their Council Remarks, at the end of the meeting could report any e-mail correspondence they might have received since our last meeting. Of course, by that time it's usually close to 11:00pm and since we usually start our work sessions at 5:00 we are all pretty tired and anxious to conclude the meeting. Not likely to embark on any kind of in-depth discussion.

Regarding the Tree Law revision, we decided to take it back to the drawing board and see if we couldn't come up with something more workable and less restrictive, while still protecting valuable species. Hopefully we'll come up with something we can all live with. No one wants to adopt unenforceable "feel good" laws but I still feel strongly that we can and should do something to protect the character of our neighborhoods and help our tree population thrive. I think there is a consensus on The Board for us to do this.