Chichester Town Organization Committee
Meeting Minutes
Meeting Date: November 2, 2006
Minutes Prepared By: Bruce Dyke
In Attendance: Paul Adams, Lisa Drouse, Bruce Dyke, Norm Larachelle, Allen
Mayville & Paul Twomey
Not in Attendance: Lou Barker
Location: Selectmen’s Office Conference Room
Minutes Approved: TBD
- The meeting started at 7:20pm
- Draft minutes of the 10/19/06 meeting were reviewed and approved without revision.
- The status of potential, external resources that may be available to the Committee during their research process was reviewed:
- Local Government Center: Paul T. spoke with Judy Silva and she advised him of a presentation that had been done regarding statutes dealing with municipal sharing. She will be sending him that presentation.
- Fire Chief’s Association: Norm still attempting to contact them.
- Road Agent’s Association: Paul T. spoke with Richard Lee, who heads-up the group. Mr. Lee confirmed many of the same points which had been identified by David Kenneally during the Committee's initial meeting with him in October.
- Office of Energy and Planning: Awaiting update from Lou.
- Dept of Revenue Admin: Lisa will be looking for updated tax revenues statistics. Also will try and speak with someone at DRA regarding any knowledge they have of existing municipal sharing agreements.
- Southern NH Regional Planning: Lisa reviewed the material she had obtained from that web link with members of the Committee who were not at the last meeting.
- Municipal Resources: Paul Adams is still trying to contact them.
- US Census Data: Lisa is investigating this potential resource.
- Bruce indicated he was still going to try to contact the Chairperson of the Northwood Town Organization Committee to gain any possible additional insight into their process and final recommendations.
- Paul T. indicated that he had received school enrollment/growth projections from Ben Brown.
- Bruce circulated a copy of the letter received by the Chichester Selectmen from the Barnstead Select Board, indicating their interest in participating in our study. Barnstead requests that our Committee meet with them, rather than individually with department heads. Bruce will coordinate that meeting once the data collection process is well underway. In addition, Bruce will contact the Town Offices for the remaining towns from whom we have heard no response to determine if we can proceed with our data collection efforts. Calls will be made prior to the next meeting.
- Lisa reviewed her findings with respect to identifying three towns similar Chichester in population/households/budgets within Merrimack County that could be included in our comparison of baseline metrics for the four focus areas being reviewed. She recommended Andover, Dunbarton and Warner based on statistics she collected and reviewed with the Committee. The Committee members were in agreement to include these three towns in the metric gathering process. However, they will not be included in any cooperative agreement/efficiency discussions.
- Lisa indicated she was going to investigate the cooperative agreements that appear to exist between the towns of Brookfield and Wakefield.
- Paul A. noted that information regarding municipal agreements within NH may be available on the Internet and was going to investigate.
- Bruce provided updated copies of the Data Collection templates for Fire, Highway, Police and Library for the Committee's review. The Fire Dept. and Highway metrics were discussed in detail. All sub-groups will be working individually prior to the next meeting to further refine their templates in preparation for a final review by the Committee at the next meeting.
- The next meeting will be Thursday, Nobember 9, 2006 at 7:15pm. It will be held in the Selectmen's Office Conference Room.
- The meeting adjourned at 8:40pm.
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