Trustees press for clearer roles, joint meeting with Kingston on potential Newtown cemetery donation

Trustees discussed the status of a potential donated parcel known informally as the Newtown cemetery that crosses municipal boundaries with Kingston and the need for better coordination and clearer trustee procedures.

At least one trustee said she had contacted Kingston to follow up on a possible donation and felt her outreach was met with resistance at a previous meeting. The conversation turned to governance and communication: trustees agreed that future intermunicipal outreach should be coordinated by trustees as a group and that town legal and planning staff should be included before substantive commitments are made.

The chair and trustees emphasized that roles and responsibilities for trustees and the superintendent should be clarified. Joyce said she performs both superintendent and clerk duties and that previous budget changes consolidated a small clerk stipend into the superintendent salary; trustees agreed to collate existing handwritten and electronic records, to convert key documents into Microsoft Word for version control, and to schedule a winter workshop to review and formally adopt updated bylaws, the superintendent job description, and trustee responsibilities.

Trustees also discussed contacting Kingston for a joint meeting to ensure both towns agree on donation terms and responsibilities before major project work begins.

What happened at the meeting - Trustees agreed to compile and convert trustee records and job descriptions into an electronic format for group review. - Trustees agreed to plan a winter workshop to update bylaws and role descriptions and to pursue a joint discussion with Kingston before committing to major project work related to the Newtown parcel.