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Town of Blackstone Council on Aging approves updated bylaws
Summary
On Jan. 9, 2025, the Council on Aging for the Town of Blackstone voted to amend its bylaws to clarify membership rules, remove obsolete reporting duties, allow remote participation, and set the effective date as Jan. 9, 2025.
The Council on Aging for the Town of Blackstone voted Friday to approve amendments to its bylaws, effective Jan. 9, 2025, during a meeting in the John Eldridge Room.
The change requires prospective council members to submit a formal application rather than a letter to the Board of Selectmen, preserves a requirement that at least 50% of council members be age 60 or older, removes obsolete duties assigning the annual report to the chair and secretary (those responsibilities now rest with the department head), and authorizes remote participation for members under specified conditions. The council also set the bylaws’ effective date to Jan. 9, 2025 after removing an out-of-date historical date from the text.
Council members discussed several specific edits during the “old business” portion of the meeting, including: replacing the former letter-based application with a standard application form; adding the 50% membership guidance drawn from state guidelines; deleting lines that assigned annual-report duties to the chair and secretary because a department head has performed those duties for years; and removing a fixed meeting date and time in favor of deciding those details at annual reorganization. The council also retained language that a member participating via remote audio/video is considered present for quorum purposes.
At the close of debate, Ed Colette moved to accept the amendments and an unnamed member seconded the motion. The council recorded the vote as affirmative; the presiding member declared the motion approved. The transcript records the presiding member saying, “As these the date effective date will be 01/09/2025.” The meeting roll call showed five members present and two absent when the measure passed.
Practical effects of the changes include a formalized application pathway for applicants, an explicit age-composition guideline intended to prioritize senior representation, and updated administrative assignments that reflect the senior center’s existing practice of having the department head prepare the annual report.
The council directed staff to update distributed copies of the bylaws to show the corrected effective date and the agreed edits. No additional implementation timetable was specified at the meeting.
The council moved on to a Friends group update after the vote.
