Are you curious about how the Town of Plainfield is run and what the various roles are? Below is the beginning of a collection of resources to help describe it. We hope to expand this as we better document how our town works and figure out how to make it work better. If you have suggestions, or would like to sign up for occasional e-mail updates, just fill out the contact form at plainfield-ma.us/contact, select Moderator's Minute, and send in the request.
The Town of Plainfield is directly governed by Town Meeting. All registered voters in town are members of town meeting. For more information, see the Secretary of the Commonwealth's Citizen's Guide to Town Meetings web page or download a PDF of the guide.
General bylaws for the town are set by Town Meeting, acting as the legislative body of the town, and other bylaws, rules, regulations, and policies are established by boards and committees authorized to do so by town meeting or by state law. These are colllected on the bylaws and policies page.
Boards and Committees are established by Town Meeting. Some of these have been created by amending the town bylaws, while others have not. For those that are not, their roles and responsibilities are described by the enabling state laws and/or the town meeting vote that created them.
Town Meeting also votes whether to leave different aspects of the town in the care and control of particular boards or officials or to delegate certain powers to boards or officials.
The following job descriptions are in draft form and are expected to change. The abbreviation after each position indicates who appoints them.
