Citizen Advisory Group

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Mayor David Cohen, Board of Alderman President Lisle Baker, and School Committee Chair Dori Zaleznik have formed a Citizen Advisory Group “to assist in planning for additional tactics and strategies to improve the City’s operational efficiency and effectiveness in future fiscal years including the functions of the Executive, School Committee, and Aldermanic branches of Newton’s government.” The convening of this advisory group is in response to a resolution passed by the Board of Aldermen, which asked them to appoint this group prior to May 20, 2008 when the citizens of Newton will vote on the override request.

In forming the group, the Mayor Cohen, President Baker, and School Committee Chair Zaleznik relied on the recommendation of their colleagues to create an advisory group with a mix of skills and abilities, and sought residents who had not served in Newton elective office before. The Citizen Advisory Group will be chaired by Newton resident Malcolm Salter, a former Senior Associate Dean and chaired Professor at the Harvard Business School. For over two decades, Mr. Salter was also president of Mars & Co, a strategy consulting company serving Fortune 100 clients in the United States, Europe, and Asia.

The Group’s preliminary charge is:

To help define the choices facing the City with respect to municipal and educational service levels and their long-term funding requirements.
To help identify, within this context, innovative ways of increasing short- and long-term operational efficiency and effectiveness and developing new or enhanced sources of funding for City services—including the people, facilities, and equipment that make the delivery of such services possible.
To make sufficient progress in these tasks by the end of this calendar year so that the Mayor, the School Committee, and the Board of Aldermen will be able to integrate promising strategies and actions into the process of planning for the fiscal 2010 budget and beyond.

The Members of the Citizen Advisory Group are: