Canton, Massachusetts · Saved source text
By-law minutes March 4 2026
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Municipal By-law Modernization Committee Minutes for March 4, 2026 Pequitside Tavern 79 Pleasant St 7:00 pm Members Present: Dr. Susan Harrington, Larry Overlan, Jen Kemalian, William Quinn, William Kring, and Louis Jutras Absent: George T. Comeau, Paul McAuliffe Randy Scollins The meeting was called to order by the acting Chair Dr. Harrington at 7:06 pm. Dr. Harrington 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 nd February 2 meeting. The motion to approve was offered by Ms. Kemalian and seconded by Mr. Quinn and minutes were approved 5-0-1 as Dr. Harrington was not in attendance at the meeting. 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 a discussion on the General Code training session and next steps for the project review. Mr. Jutras provided the members with a quick review of the training session conducted by General Code and needed some input from the committee on the review process as well as if the committee wanted to provide access to various department heads at this time. The discussion continued and the committee walked through various reasons for the need of department logins and it was agreed that all department heads should have access to the portal so Mr. Jutras will work on creating the accounts and will send all of the department heads an e- mail explaining the process. The committee then discussed the best way to start reviewing the questions and, based on the location and equipment available, the group logged into the ecode portal and began reviewing the 46 Non-Deferrable questions. 24 questions were answered and the remaining 22 Non- Deferrable items are all related to Zoning and Land Use so those will need to be reviewed by others. Once the Non-Deferrable items were completed the committee then jumped into the remaining 231 questions and started with question 1-001. In the end the committee dealt with 10% of the questions at this meeting; stopping at question 335-003. There were 6 to 8 questions that needed to be reviewed or assigned to others, so those questions remain unanswered at this time. Page | 1
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During the question review Mr. Overlan noted his disagreement with the committee on questions CODE-005, gender neutral language, and 1-001, imposes a fine of not more than $50. Mr. Overlan did not agree with the use of “they”, “their”, and “them” and felt that the references should use “he or she”, “his or her”, or “him or her”. On the question of changing the fine amount Mr. Overlan fent that the current wording should remain and not be revised to “up to $300 for bylaw violation pursuant to MGL c. 40, § 21”. The committee stopped its review process at 8:30 and reviewed options for the next meeting date. March 24, 2026 at 7 pm was selected. Mr. Jutras will work on the location and notify the members. Having completed all of the agenda items and seeing that there were no additional comments from the committee, the chair entertained a motion to adjourn at 8:36 pm which was moved by Mr. Quinn and seconded by Mr. Overlan and the motion was unanimously approved. Respectfully submitted, _____________________________________ Louis Jutras Page | 2