ACT Committee shifts committee times, approves rules changes and reappoints TAC members and consultants

The ACT Committee of the Borough of West Chester on Jan. 7 voted to adjust committee scheduling and to approve several governance items, including amendments to council rules, appointment of members to the Transportation Advisory Committee (TAC), formalizing an interview process for boards and the reappointment of engineers and legal consultants.

Chair Brian Traus said the committee recommended swapping the Finance and Smart Growth meeting time slots (so Finance takes Smart Growth's current slot and vice versa) to reduce waiting time when meetings overlap. The motion to switch the two meeting times was approved unanimously by the three committee members present (Brian Traus, Brian McGinnis and Sheila Vaccaro), recorded as 3–0.

Committee members also revisited proposed amendments to the borough council’s rules and procedures. The group agreed the document should remain aligned with the General Assembly’s requirements and Robert’s Rules of Order. Members restored language on the process for advertising and filling vacancies (language that had mistakenly been struck from a draft) and agreed to require that committee recommendations tied to financial matters appear on a published agenda as a motion before the committee takes a recommendatory vote. The committee voted to advance the amended rules; that action was recorded as approved 3–0.

The committee approved last month’s meeting minutes by a 3–0 vote.

On appointments, the ACT Committee moved and approved membership terms for the Transportation Advisory Committee, naming the following recommended members: Rayotte, John O’Brien, Patricia Shields, Laura McClain and Jim Wiley. Committee members agreed terms will be staggered (some members will serve one-year terms and others two-year terms until a 2-year normalization is reached), but specific initial term lengths were to be determined in consultation with the appointees; the appointment vote was recorded 3–0.

The committee also agreed to formalize a process where individual boards and commissions pre-screen and interview candidates and forward recommendations to borough council for final appointment. Under the proposed process, borough staff (Dana) will advertise vacancies, collect resumes and forward applications to the relevant board, which will interview candidates and make recommendations for council appointment. Committee members said this mirrors the process already used by some boards, including the bid board, and is intended to save council time while keeping appointment authority with the council. The committee agreed to the change without objection (recorded 3–0).

Finally, the committee indicated support for the recommended reappointments of municipal engineers, planning consultants, the independent auditor and solicitor (legal counsel); no objections were raised and the committee accepted the reappointments as recommended.

Ending: The committee took no changes to outside appointments beyond the ones approved, and staff will proceed with advertisement and implementation steps outlined in the meeting for staggering TAC terms and for boards to conduct candidate interviews prior to sending recommendations to council.