Town Committee Looks to Disband
BAR HARBOR––By the time the Age Friendly Committee adjourned its short meeting on Wednesday, it was clear that its future was not only in question but also in jeopardy. Both Committee Chair Susanne Hopkins and Committee Vice Chair Allie Bodge made it clear that due to changes in their lives, they would not be seeking reappointment. Member Sharon Linscott said that because she is starting a new job, she would be turning her committee resignation in to Town Clerk Liz Graves Thursday or Friday of this week.
The committee already has one regular seat vacancy and two alternate seat vacancies and with the loss of these three members, that leaves only three members left. Members Peter Houghton, Andrea Lepcio, and Teresa Wagner are one short of ever having a quorum for a meeting.
The majority of the members present at the meeting voiced concerns about the rules and regulations of being a committee under the town’s purview and having to follow the guidelines that all town boards and committees have to follow limits how and when the committee can meet and who can be on the committee.
Committee members felt that it would be beneficial to having a more efficient and effective committee if members did not have to be residents of the town of Bar Harbor, if they could communicate freely via email, and if they could have meetings when it was most convenient for the majority of the members and via a forum, whether in person or online, that allowed for greater flexibility.
These potential changes would also allow for the committee to work on a more island wide, or even regional, scale. In addition, they could recruit new members and stakeholders from different organizations and hopefully reorganize and reenergize the committee.
Some of the members who are having to end their service on the committee expressed interest in carrying on with the committee if they had the freedom to meet and communicate more conveniently.
Linscott stated that before leaving her position at Island Connections, she would disseminate the important documents that are currently being housed on the Island Connections computer system to current members and Graves so that the members would not lose accessibility to the documents, some of which have existed since the founding of the Age Friendly Committee (Task Force on Aging). Linscott stated that once she leaves her current position, she would lose accessibility to the documents.
Linscott also spoke about the committee drafting a formal letter to the town council asking them to make the necessary ordinance changes to remove the Age Friendly Committee as a standing town committee and stating the reasons why. Hopkins volunteered to write the letter to the town council but asked for all members to weigh in on the drafting of the letter.
There was some good news amongst the angst of an uncertain future. The town was awarded a plaque by AARP for being, “a member in good standing of the AARP network of age-friendly states and communities.”
This means that the town, via the Age Friendly Committee, “has successfully completed a (5-year) cycle of improvement” toward making Bar Harbor a “livable community for people of all ages.”
The committee was created in 2020 and its mission is that it “strives for a community where all of the residents of Bar Harbor, regardless of age, can live, grow, and thrive.” It’s meant to explore how to make Bar Harbor more “age-friendly” in the areas of transportation, housing, outdoors spaces and buildings, social participation, respect and social inclusion, civic participation and employment, communication and information, and community support and health services.” These coincide with the AARP requirements for age-friendly community status.
Its members are appointed by the Town Council. There were no appointments to the committee earlier this week.
For a committee to cease to exist, typically, the Town Council would have to find the establishing motion for the committee and rescind that motion. It could also amend the bylaws by taking the establishment provision and striking that.
Sometimes in communities, a committee will quasi-disband when everyone is removed from that committee. The committee exists but it does not function.
Earlier this year, the Town Council put the Cruise Ship Committee on a hiatus while a cruise ship disembarkation lawsuit plays out in federal court.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
Bar Harbor’s Age-Friendly Committee page
Ecode for the Age-Friendly Committee.
Facebook: @AARPLivableCommunities
Twitter: @AARPLivable
 | A guest post by
|