Minutes
Town of Greenfield
Greenfield Town Offices, 7 Sawmill Road Greenfield, NH
Selectmen’s Meeting Minutes
Thursday, January 24, 2013 – 4:30 pm
Board of Selectmen: Chairman Rob Wimpory, Selectwoman Karen Day, and Selectwoman Debra Davidson
Staff: Town Administrator Patt,
Public: Ken Paulsen
The meeting was called to order at 4:30 PM by Chairman Wimpory.
Documents for Approval/Review/Signature
The Selectmen reviewed and signed the following items:
§ A/P Invoices
§ A/P Manifest
§ Greenfield State Park Police Detail
§ Communication from Elizabeth Robertson
4:30 PM: Review and Approval of Documents
At 4:30 PM Chairman Wimpory opened the meeting. The Board reviewed and signed the AP invoices, and the Greenfield State Park Police Detail grant application and voted 3-0 to approve the application. Chairman Wimpory announced that the Board would be holding a work session from 4:30 to approximately 5:45 when the Selectmen would walk to the Meeting House where they would meet with Selectmen from Antrim, Bennington, Francestown and Hancock to discuss the impact of ConVal’s budget on local services.
The Board of Selectmen reviewed the revised warrant articles from the January 22nd meeting. Selectwoman Davidson said that it would be her preference to move the Code Red contract of $4,211 into the Fire Department budget on the Emergency Management line item. That line item is currently $750 dollars. Selectwoman Davidson said that she remembered a time when the Board of Selectmen voted that items under $5000 should be included in the line items of departmental budgets and items that were $5000 or over became warrant articles. Selectwoman Davidson said that given the nature of the contract with Code Red, which renews each year; and the size of the contract, that she would prefer to see it in the budget, perhaps with a parenthetical statement indicating that Code Red had been added to that line. Selectwoman
Davidson went on to say that she felt that the Board could explain to the residents at Town Meeting that they had moved it and that the residents would understand. The Board discussed this approach and agreed to move the amount to the Emergency Management line item within the Fire Department budget. This reduced the number of warrant articles to six articles that have financial impact and three that currently do not have financial impact. The warrant article regarding the opening of the gravel pit was the only article that was pending finalization in terms of whether to add in an expenditure.
The Chair then reviewed the final agenda for the multi-town selectmen’s meeting, with the Board. The Administrator provided 15 copies of the agenda for handout at the 6PM meeting. The Chair indicated that his preference would be ask each of the towns to include a $3000 warrant article for a feasibility study to look at the possibility of withdrawing from the ConVal school district.
The Administrator then brought the Selectmen up to speed on recent activity with the estate of Steven Robertson. His sister Elizabeth Robertson had written a letter indicating that she held durable power of attorney and was asking the town to write a letter indicating that her brother’s properties were merged involuntarily under the meaning of RSA 80:90. The Administrator indicated that he had held several conversations, both with the lawyer for the Robertson family as well as the law firm associated with a potential buyer of two of Robertson’s properties. The lawyers had been asking the town to provide documentation, or sign off on documentation, that the Town had merged the properties and in each case this would have meant signing off on defining features of the property, such as the size of the parcel. The
Administrator has advised the parties that the Town would respond to a change in deed or to a letter from the owner (or their executor or power of attorney) asking that the properties be unmerged, as outlined in the RSA but would not be signing onto documentation referring to defining characteristics of the properties. Despite several conversations in which the Town’s responsibilities were communicated in specific detail, both law firms were continuing to request documentation that lay outside of the process outlined by the RSA. To confirm the matter, the Administrator had held a conversation with Upton and Hatfield in which Town Counsel had indicated that the parties were required to come before the governing body and request that the properties be unmerged before any activity could take place and that the requests by the parties did not sound like part of the normal process provided for in the RSA.
However, late in the day on Wednesday a deed from a sale for one of the parcels had been received and verified as filed with the registry. It was also noted that a survey had been filed with the registry and was now on file. With this information the Assessor had been able to generate tax cards for each of the four parcels, effectively unmerging the parcels, which should have the effect of ending the inquiries. The Board said it understood and wondered why two different law firms would be trying to circumvent the normal course of events and why was there such confusion about the role of the Town? To the Board it was clear that the deeds associated with the properties were the defining documents as to ownership, and the tax cards at the Town Office were the Town’s work product used for uniform billing.
Next it was brought to the Selectmen’s attention that Avitar had quoted a price of $1 per letter to notify residents of the upcoming statistical data verification that occurs during the month of February. The Selectmen discussed the cost of sending out notices (approximately $200) and agreed that a vote to accept the fee and send notices to those residents that are part of the data verification process would be supportive of the sentiment that was voiced at the 2012 Town Meeting. The Board accepted the quote and asked that the notices be sent.
At 5:30 PM Chairman Wimpory moved to close the Work Session and move the meeting to the Meeting House where they would receive selectmen from surrounding towns.
Adjournment
There being no further business, Selectman Wimpory moved to adjourn the meeting. Selectwoman Day seconded the motion. The motion carried 3-0.
The meeting adjourned at 5:30 PM
Respectfully Submitted:
Aaron Patt
Town Administrator
The minutes are final when approved and signed by the Board of Selectmen. A signed copy is on file in the Selectmen’s minutes.
_____________________ _____________________ _______________________
Rob Wimpory, Chairman Karen Day, Selectwoman Debra Davidson, Selectwoman
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