Frankly, I’ll be glad when the town council moves on to serious business – like the budget. As a concerned citizen, I watch the council’s meetings each week but it’s getting pretty frustrating to listen to discussions about, for example, how minutes of meetings should be done. Each of them may be an expert in his or her field, but so far I have not heard that any councilor has actually been a secretary or a town clerk. And I’d wager if they understood that job, they’d never want to be one, either.

For more than 50 years, I have prepared minutes for various bodies: Lawyers’ associations, bank trustees, community boards, boards of directors, and it seems every group I’ve volunteered to serve on. It’s very convenient to know shorthand, which isn’t taught any longer.

For eight years, I did the minutes for the Windham Planning Board and still do the same for the appeals board (or more correctly, the Zoning Board of Appeals). Years ago, I reviewed the law with various experts, including the town attorney, to make sure these important records would be accurate. And, believe me, there are rules governing meeting minutes.

Boards and committees and councils are made up of individuals, different ones at different times, and almost to a man (or woman) they each have their own preference for the way minutes are composed, so it’s a good idea to have some knowledge of what is required, under the law and to tactfully explain this so costly clerical time is not wasted on personal whims. One thing I’ve discovered is that as soon as a new person is on a board, there are new ideas about how minutes should be done. And frequently, when the minutes are reviewed, they are amended because “That’s not what I meant.” I’ve seen times when minutes have come close to being rewritten for this very reason.

Minutes are not final until they are reviewed, amended if necessary and approved. Until that happens, they should be called draft minutes.

A good thing to remember is that minutes are the official record of what happened, not what was said, at a meeting.

A clerk legally needs to record verbatim, when testimony is given during a public hearing, or if it is stated by a speaker that he or she wants something on the record. Anything which is read into the record should be copied and attached to the minutes to avoid misinterpretation.

Some will remember the hours-long, weeks-long, public hearings of the recent past when a stenographer was hired to record all those words spoken for and against various developments in Windham. Verbatim can be revealing.

I think if a person can’t recall what they said or what was said, or missed a meeting, they can take the time to pick up a video at the library. We’re not talking Oscar-winning performances, here. Pretty soon, we all hope, reruns of these various town meetings will be telecast on local cable. Many people in the viewing audience have family or other time-demanding meetings during weeknight evenings and depend on being able to catch up with the council activities by watching reruns.

And as for the idea about running public notices across the bottom of the TV screen during meetings, as far as I know, public notices for nonprofits are already publicized free on local cable.

I wish councilors would remember they’re representing all of their constituents, not just the ones who call them. Don’t forget the silent majority.

This past week I attended a special meeting at Unity Gardens, just down the street from where I live. It was absolutely pouring that day and I wondered if the weather would impact the meeting, since it was set up to give senior citizens an opportunity to voice their opinions about what the town needs in the way of services geared toward the special needs of this part of the population.

Southern Maine Agency on Aging called the meeting and I know that among those invited were legislators and town councilors. However, of that group, only Sen. Bill Diamond was there. It was an excellent meeting and I have a whole list of issues and suggestions from those who were in attendance. I’m sure Sen. Diamond as well as the department heads from the agency welcomed the input from the senior citizens.

See you next week.