Canton, Massachusetts · Saved source text
By-law minutes February 2 2026
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Municipal By-law Modernization Committee Minutes for February 2, 2026 Remote via Zoom 7:00 pm Meeting was held remotely so roll call was taken for attendance Members Present: Larry Overlan, Jen Kemalian, William Quinn, George T. Comeau, William Kring, Paul McAuliffe, and Louis Jutras Absent: Dr. Susan Harrington, Randy Scollins The meeting was called to order by the Chair Mr. Comeau at 7:03 pm. Mr. Comeau asked the members if they had any comments or updates on the draft minutes. No changes or comments were offered so the Chair entertained a motion to approve the minutes of the th January 5 meeting. The motion to approve was offered by Ms. Kemalian and seconded by Mr. Overlan and minutes were unanimously approved 7-0. The chair then opened the meeting for any public comments but no one from the public was in attendance so the committee moved on to the next order of business which was to review the articles submitted for Town Meeting. Ms. Kemalian provided the committee with an update on the submitted bylaw articles for the upcoming annual town meeting. Overall, the articles were approved to form by Town Counsel. They did make a change in the moderator article by establishing a transition clause as well as updating Section 5 Order of Business by removing the election of a moderator. Item (a) was revised to the following language: (a) Term of Office - The moderator shall be elected to serve a two (2) year term, beginning with the 2027 annual town election and every two (2) years thereafter. The incumbent town moderator’s term shall expire upon election of a successor moderator at the 2027 annual town election. Mr. Comeau asked if any of the committee members had any comments or concerns with the format or wording changes and there were none. He also provided a general overview and discussion that the articles will be discussed at a Finance Committee meeting and that members could attend if they wanted a descending opinion heard. Having completed the discussion and update on the warrant articles the committee moved on to the next agenda topic and received an update on the General Code project. Mr. Jutras notified the members that we have received the invite to the code web portal and that the initial moderator account was created. Our 100 day review period has begun and we have until June 25, 2026 to complete the process. Mr. Jutras logged into the online portal and provided a Page | 1
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brief overview of the functionality to the members. He also noted that he met with the Town Planner, Connor Murphy, and provided him access to the site. Overall there are 277 questions to review and 100 of the items are related to zoning / land use. 46 questions are listed as non-deferable while the rest can be deferred to a later time. The questions can be printed or saved to PDF so it was requested that a copy of all 277 items be sent to the members. Mr. Jutras as for direction from the committee to confirm that all members would like access to the portal and also inquired about a training date and time as General Code will provide a review of the site as well as the processes to select and submit our responses. It was confirmed that everyone will receive reviewer access to the portal and the committee also selected February 19 at 6 pm for the training date. Mr. Overlan asked if additional training sessions could be scheduled so Mr. Jutras will check with General Code on this request. Once the training session is confirmed, Mr. Jutras will send out the training link and proceed with the account creation for all of the members. Having completed the previous agenda item, the committee then discussed the next meeting date and March 4, 2026 at 7 pm was selected. Mr. Jutras will work on the location and notify the members. Having complete all of the agenda items and seeing that there were no additional items to discuss the chair made a motion to adjourn at 7:47 pm Respectfully submitted, _____________________________________ Louis Jutras Page | 2