Shared services agreement meeting on Thursday

The General Government and Committee-of-the-Whole will meet at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday to discuss the "shared services agreement" between Newburyport, Amesbury and Salisbury.

This is in regards to the health department.

At-large Councillor Donna Holaday said that Amesbury Mayor Thatcher Kezer III and, I think she said, his Chief of Staff Kendra Amaral will be at the meeting.

As we all may know, people in Amesbury - and in particular, members of the Board of Health there - are up in arms because they were not given a copy of the draft agreement before it went to our City Council.

Read more about Amesbury's dissatisfaction with the way things have gone here, in a piece that ran in last Friday's Daily News. Well, the BOH and 10 citizens, according to the story.

The board had expressed frustration over the fact Kezer had not attended BOH meetings over the past two months, but Kezer's attendance last night did little to soothe members rankled at being left out of the loop. In fact, by meeting's close, the board voted to rescind the temporary authorization they granted April 30 to allow Newburyport's Jack Morris and Maureen Lee to conduct contracted services for the town.

For more information about the agreement, read this from Friday's Current. Written by me.