Submitted by Robert Kalantari
The Handbook for Appointed Board and Committee Members, amongst many other processes and guidelines to be followed, states, “Consider serving as a Chair of the Committee, as annual rotation of the Chair is encouraged.”
To the best of my knowledge, and myself serving on the ZBA board for the past years, this is a standard practice at all boards and committees; the chair position is rotated to allow other board and committee members to gain the experience and bring new ideas to the table. However, this is not the standard practice at the Board of Health. For unknown reasons to me, this board has not allowed a very qualified board member, Dr. Ann Kiessling, to serve as the chair. This is despite Dr. Kiessling nominating herself many times to be the chair in the past several years. However, they keep on nominating other board members to be the chair, including those who have already served as the chair on this board multiple times.
Maybe the other four members of the BOH can explain their rationale why they don’t want to pass the torch to Dr. Kiessling and let her serve as the chair at their next meeting.
Robert Kalantari is a member of the Zoning Board of Appeals. This letter reflects his personal view, not that of the board.
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I attended the recent BoH meeting when the voting occurred for Chair and Vice-Chair. Of the nominated candidates, Dr Kiessling was the only candidate who didn’t have a prepared statement about her goals for the Board going forward.