Reading Select Board

Loaded: Reading Select Board minutes from January 9, 2018 through September 8, 2026: 219 meetings and 1,536 votes. The board was called the Board of Selectmen until spring 2018, when Town Meeting approved the new name; the minutes use “Select Board” from June 19, 2018, and the Town Manager reported on July 10, 2018 that the change was official. The town’s archive holds the board’s minutes back to 1980; MassVoter has loaded 2018 on. The posted minutes are signed, stamped paper copies scanned with a computer-read text layer, so quoted words may keep small reading errors; the five newest sets (June 23 through September 8, 2026) were posted as images with no text layer, and MassVoter read them with text recognition. Joint meetings with other boards (Finance Committee, School Committee, Board of Health, Library Trustees, Charter Review Committee and others) are included, but only the Select Board members’ votes are shown; votes the other board took on its own are left out. Not here: executive-session minutes; thirteen early-2018 notes saying the board attended another body’s meeting; meetings whose open-session minutes are not posted, including February 19, 2020, March 30 and September 28, 2021, March 22 and August 30, 2022, December 12, 2023, September 10 and September 24, 2024, and February 20, 2026 (all approved at later meetings), and the open session of July 31, 2018 and the packet-only dates October 5, 2023, March 26 and November 19, 2024, and July 22, 2026; and meetings after September 8, 2026 (the September 22 and October 6, 2026 minutes are not posted yet). Reading’s minutes give the mover, the seconder and usually a count (“approved with a 5-0-0 vote”, “approved by a vote of 5-0”); a count that matches the members present with no one opposed is shown as every member present voting yes, and “approved with a unanimous roll call vote” the same way. When members voted no or abstained the minutes name them (“approved by a vote of 4-1, with Karen Gately Herrick opposed”), and remote meetings in 2020–2022 and many 2025–2026 votes have a roll call by name. When the count is short because a member recused, stepped out, did not vote, arrived late or left early, as the minutes say, the other members present are shown voting yes, with a note. Where the minutes give no count or the count cannot be read, we show the result only (20 votes); where a split count names no one, or a count does not match the members present, we show the count only, with a note (24 votes). Officer elections recorded by roll call are shown by name; choices made by a show of hands are shown as a result, with a note. Two members are named Karen (Karen Gately Herrick and Karen Rose-Gillis); the minutes use full names. We will ask the town to confirm any noted vote.