Select Board targets noncompliant committee members

Select Board 2026-10-07 Part 2 · Meeting of October 7, 2026

ORLEANS — The Orleans Select Board moved to crack down on noncompliant committee members after an audit found roughly 60 of them had not completed state-required ethics and open meeting law training. Acting Chair Michael Herman led the session in place of Chair Mefford Runyon, who was traveling. Executive Assistant Molly Bates said the audit found about 60 of 170 to 180 board and committee members had not created accounts in the state's ethics-training database, and she emailed noncompliant members on October 1 with an October 15 deadline.

Select Board member Kevin Galligan asked whether Zoning Board of Appeals members were currently deliberating cases while out of compliance, calling it a risk exposure. Town Manager Kim Newman said the training has long been required by state law "but no one has ever actually enforced that component before." The board directed staff to draft rules barring noncompliant members from voting, targeting a January 1 effective date, and continued the Code of Conduct and handbook review to its October 28 meeting.

In the full story:

• Roll Call and Attendance
• Draft Code of Conduct and Multi-Member Body Handbook: Merging Two Documents
• Compliance Audit: Who Is Out of Compliance and Why
• Proposed Enforcement: Blocking Votes, Removing Members
• Tracking Technology: From Spreadsheets to a Statewide Database
• Calendar and Next Steps
• Who Was There
• Organizations And Documents Referenced
• The complete report: 1,712 words

Source: the Select Board 2026-10-07 Part 2 meeting of October 7, 2026, reported from the official video recording and transcript.

Checked against the record: before publication this article was automatically compared with the meeting transcript.