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WESTBOROUGH, Mass. — Westborough Selectman Tim Dodd, tasked with improving the board's communication policy, came up with a more efficient plan for responses that was approved Tuesday by the rest of the Board of Selectmen.
Town Manager Jim Malloy will respond to all queries to the general selectmen email address.
"I tried to look at what other towns have done," Dodd said. "What we wanted to do was make [communication] available for those who wanted to reach the board."
The goal was also to fix the correspondence problem of multiple responses from separate board members to questions posed by email.
A one-page "how-to" guide would also be added to the town's website, Dodd said. The guide would explain how best to invite selectmen to events or how to ask general questions.
Malloy said he would not give out opinion-based answers by email to avoid conflict with open meeting laws. Most questions are about requesting agenda items, he said.
"If we get into a situation where someone's looking for an opinion, I'm not going to give out an opinion on behalf of the BOS," he said.
Although Malloy will handle all responses, all five selectmen will receive copies of the questions sent to the general email and will be copied on Malloy's responses.
The plan was approved in a 5-0 vote of the board.
"I think it's great," Selectman George Barrette said. "It's very detailed, it's clear. I like it a lot."
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