Panel Votes 8-1 to Accept Counsel's Edits

Hybrid Town Meeting Committee, · Meeting of August 18, 2026

Natick's Hybrid Town Meeting Committee voted 8-1 to accept town counsel's edits to one warrant motion but stalled on its home rule petition. Patricia Demeo was the lone vote against the Motion C edits; minutes show the roll call with no debate beforehand. Members spent most of the meeting debating whether the word "hybrid" could describe an individual attendee and whether the Select Board must approve hybrid format at every session, with Frank Foss saying "I oppose that vigorously.

You do not call a meeting the select board calls it." The committee struck a 48-hour voter notice requirement from the draft petition but left a per-session Town Meeting vote requirement intact. Demeo estimated retrofitting a backup location, if Natick High School is unavailable, "could be like over a half a million" dollars. The petition vote was pushed to the committee's August 25 meeting.

In the full story:

• Substantively, the group worked through several contested passages
• Who Was There
• Organizations And Documents Referenced
• The complete report — 2,363 words

Source: the Hybrid Town Meeting Committee, meeting of August 18, 2026, reported from the official video recording and transcript.

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