Town of Buxton
Minutes for September 3, 2014 Selectmen’s Meeting
Prepared by: Beverly Gammon
Members Present: Clifford L. Emery, Jean C. Harmon, Penny J. Booker, Peter E. W. Burns, Dennis P. Santolucito
Others Present: Dave Harmon
Selectmen’s Meeting Agenda
The meeting was called to order at 7:03 PM.
Clifford L. Emery led the pledge.
Opening Bids – Demolition & Removal of Property at 177 Old Orchard Road
Selectman Emery opened three bids:
- Peter D. Pinkham Inc. – $3589
- SS & B Construction LLC – $6450
- CIA Salvage Inc. – $4800
Selectman Emery said this is something the Board wants to get done so they will be acting on this by next week.
- Approval of Prior Meeting Minutes
Selectmen Meeting Minutes August 27, 2014
Approved 5-0
- Discussion held between 5:00 & 7:00 p.m.
Between 5:00 and 6:00 the Board reviewed payables, payroll, and signed documents.
At 6:00 Jan and Brent Hill were in and had a conversation with the Board about what work is left to be done at the EMA building with the remainder of the grant money from Narragansett Number One. The Selectmen are going to talk to Tom Kennie and find out what his schedule is. Selectman Emery said they may be able to do some work this fall, then finish up in the spring.
At 6:30 Larry Curtis who is on the Planning Board came in and talked with the Board about an overhead projector system for this room and what that would entail. Selectman Burns is going to talk with Tony Vigue some more about it. He said they have what the Board is thinking about in Standish, and Selectman Burns is going to go over and take a look at it.
Selectman Harmon said the Board briefly talked about whether or not there are any ordinance changes they might want to get on the November ballot and they agreed there are none.
- Email from John Sylvester, Chairman Twelve Town Group – Re: Twelve Town Group Meeting September 8, 2014 at 6:30 at the Waterboro Fire Station, with eleven candidates running for Senatorial seats in November
- Maine Public Health Alert – Re: Eastern Equine Encephalitis Virus
- Review of Projects and Issues
Selectman Booker reported that she is looking at the insurance cost in preparation for the Board’s discussion on carry-forwards. She mentioned the Board’s workshop last night and said they discussed several issues and came out with two or three things they are following up on.
Selectman Booker said she received an email from Tina Plummer at SAD 6 about the Budget Advisory Committee meetings and she advised Tina that she does plan to attend those meetings again this year.
Selectman Santolucito said Selectman Burns talked with him about the Budget Advisory Committee meetings and said there may be a possibility that he would like to serve on that next year as well. Selectman Santolucito said the workshop was useful for him and said the Board got a lot accomplished in a short amount of time.
Selectman Santolucito said he has reached out to all the Department Heads starting with the Fire Chief and he is going to spend some time getting to see the facilities and learning more about what each department does, hopefully sometime later this month.
Selectman Harmon has been in every day. She attended the workshop last night and said there were several things that she committed to do; one of those was to have Fred Farnham measure a property line that residents came in to talk about a couple of weeks ago. She said he was able to go there and determine where the property lines are.
Selectman Harmon said that the Board talked about replacing flags around town. Tom Kennie will be ordering those. She said the Board also talked about several properties the town has to sell. They had the Treasurer pull out a previous ad that ran a while ago on the same property and will run the ad again with a much lower minimum bid.
Selectman Harmon has been working on carry forwards. She sent a letter to Department Heads asking them to take a look at their last fiscal year budgets, see if there is any money they want to carry forward, and get back to the Board in the next couple of weeks with the numbers and an explanation for why they want to carry that forward.
Selectman Harmon said the Board also talked last night about ordinance changes, because the deadlines are coming up in order to get them on the ballot, and determined that they will not have any on the November ballot.
Selectman Burns was in last Thursday and met with Chet Ouellette to go over the list and status of projects he is working on. He was in again yesterday and met with Chet and our heating guy. They reviewed the choices they had for new thermostats that are going to replace the eight in the Town Hall. He said they did select one and one has been installed in this room. Selectman Burns said he believes the Town is certainly going to be saving some money year-round with all the options that the program gives us.
Selectman Burns said he attended the workshop last night. The Board spent about three hours and he said they accomplished an awful lot. He mentioned receiving his invitation to go back on the Budget Advisory Committee this year and said he will be responding to Tina Plummer on that.
Selectman Burns talked about a request he had from one of the Trustees on the West Buxton Library Committee about painting the building. He told the Trustee that we are past the budget season but it is something the Board can consider for next year. He contacted someone to look at the building, see what repairs would be needed, if any, to the outside, and give the Board a rough estimate that can be used to put in a request for the next budget season to have that building painted. Selectman Burns said he received that estimate today so he has the information needed to move forward.
Selectman Emery said he has been working out of town but calls in every day to keep up with things. He talked with the Public Works Director and Fire Chief on several occasions last week on different things going on in their departments.
Selectman Emery said the Board had a good workshop last night and he talked about some of the discussion at their workshop including a piece of tax acquired property where the neighbors are having issues with the people living there and how the Board is going to try and solve those issues. They talked about the Old Orchard Road property and how they are going to handle that, and that has been taken care of. They talked about the old Town Garage. Selectman Emery said the Board has asked a lot of the Public Works Department this fall and they are pretty backed up, so the Board is not sure if they are going to take the garage down this fall or in the spring; it is going to entail the Public Works Department working with whoever is dismantling the building and they do not know if they
have the time to do it this fall or not.
Tomorrow night Selectman Emery and Selectman Burns are going to visit with a resident who is talking about donating a substantial piece of property to the town.
The Board talked about issues with some of the doors on the end of this building and water stains on the back door. They decided to sand and poly all the doors. They also talked about installing new thermostats and Selectman Emery said that will happen probably in the next week.
The Selectmen were very discouraged when one of them rode by awhile back and saw that the sluiceway for the water that goes into the old horse trough up in West Buxton was destroyed. The Board thinks they have a good idea how that happened and they are looking into that. He said the Board talked about new flags for the roadway, putting a five acre lot on Upper Egypt Road that the Town owns up for sale.
Selectman Emery said the Board talked about carry forwards and overdrafts, and contacting our legal people about a document dealing with the property up in the Chicopee area that we are cleaning up. He said there were a lot of other small items that they talked about but these were the main things and he said the Board will come to a resolution in the next few weeks on most of these them.
Demolition of old Town Garage
Davis Road – This is an ongoing issue.
Selectman Harmon congratulated David Anderson, our Deputy Town Clerk on passing his EMT class. She shared information about some programs he has taken and said he worked very hard for a long period of time to take the necessary courses and classes to get to this point.
E.O. 141509003 – An order to approve an abatement for real estate taxes for fiscal year 2014/15 in the amount of $127.00 for [Map 3, Lot 34-3-1]
Approved 5-0
E.O. 141509004 – An order to approve an Application for Veteran Exemption for [Map 2, Lot 9]
Approved 5-0
E.O. 141509005 – An order to approve an Application for Veteran Exemption for [Map 9, Lot 21-1]
Approved 5-0
E.O. 141509006 – An order to approve an Application for Widow of a Veteran Exemption for [Map 7, Lot 62-3]
Approved 5-0
E.O. 141509007 – An order to approve an Application for Veteran Exemption for [Map 11, Lot 33-2]
Approved 5-0
E.O. 141509008 – An order to approve 16 hours of vacation time for Greg Heffernan
Approved 5-0
E.O. 141509009 – An order to approve 8 hours of vacation time for Nathan Schools
Approved 5-0
- Executive Orders by Initiative
None
- Accounts Payable and Payroll Warrants
E.O. 141509001 – An order approving expenditures as documented in the Accounts Payable Warrant #022
Approved 5-0
E.O. 141509002 – An order approving expenditures as documented in Payroll Warrant #021
Approved 5-0
- Next Meeting of the Board
Twelve Town Group Meeting Monday, September 8, 2014 at 6:30 PM, at the Waterboro Fire Station
Board of Selectmen Meeting Wednesday, September 10, 2014 at 7:00 PM
The next Community Pot Luck Lunch is Tuesday, September 9, 2014 at 11:30 AM at Buxton Town Hall. All ages are welcome. Please bring something to share. Call Tashia Pinkham, Recreation Director at 929-8381 for more information.
- Public Comments and Questions
None
None
Motion made and seconded to adjourn the Meeting at 7:27 PM
Approved 5-0
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