The evening of 2026-04-27 was a meeting of the Mendon Town Board.
The stated purpose of the meeting was to ‘consider a potential change in the Town’s Health Insurance Broker’.
I don’t have too much to say on the health insurance discussion. The presenter made it sound like a clearly beneficial choice, but that was his job.
Sounds like it will save the Town ~$5k (~$6k but there was a ~$1k fee mentioned). But it’s unclear if that is a monthly savings, or yearly. I am all in favor of saving money. Doubly so when it’s government spending, as that’s all our money. But due diligence and process is also important. As a general rule, if there is time pressure to make a decision, you shouldn’t be there. Either because you failed to manage your time (shame on you) or you’re being manipulated (shame on them).
The presentation did add more weight to the idea the health insurance system is broken. And we need to throw it out and replace the entire mess. But that’s won’t be happening without governmental approval, due to how involved they are in the system. Which may actually be the problem.
I will give the Board credit for doing their due diligence. Both in asking good questions, but also in tabling the action. To paraphrase what Kim said, having received the documents today, they needed more time to process the information.
A portion of the health insurance discuss was around retiree health insurance. Which doesn’t sit well with me. I’m having difficulty nailing down exactly why. But it doesn’t seem right to be paying health insurance to people who are no longer working for you. Retirement is a little different, because if you do that well, you are paying for that while the employee is working for you, and they just get it later on. Maybe it’s the ‘no taxation without representation’ idea? A past Board, thus past representation, committed the current Board, thus current taxpayers, to pay for a service. Going to have to think on this more.
Now, besides the topic of the meeting, it was a very interesting meeting.
To start with, it was not publicized in a manner that I noticed, so I wasn’t there. Yes, a legal notice was posted on the Town’s website. But I generally don’t go looking that far down the page. I look at the ‘Current Meeting Agendas‘ page, because it should be showing all the upcoming meetings. Even if the agenda portion is sometimes a placeholder.
This odd meeting time was brought up by Gary commenting from the audience. He was focused on the legal aspects in regards to open meeting law. Which felt appropriate to me, from where I was sitting while watching the recording after the fact.
The board itself was clearly split to start with. To such an extent, for a minute it looked like they might not even approve an Agenda.
In the end, the Board did table the topic. Which changed the context of the meeting. It’s not a special meeting to change health insurance (even if that was the intent at the start). It’s a special meeting to review for a future action. And it was recorded, so that the public/staff/whoever can observe at their leisure. Should they feel so inclined.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the April 27, 2026 meeting of the Mendon Town Board.
Agenda was not available anywhere I could find. Although a Legal Notice was.