Minutes
Town of Greenfield
Greenfield Town Offices, 7 Sawmill Road Greenfield, NH
Selectmen’s Meeting Minutes
Thursday, February 14, 2013 – 4:30 pm
Board of Selectmen: Chairman Rob Wimpory, Selectwoman Karen Day, and Selectwoman Debra Davidson
Staff: Town Administrator Patt, Trustee of Trust Funds/Cemetery Trustee Bliss
Public:
The meeting was called to order at 4:30 PM by Selectwoman Day.
Documents for Approval/Review/Signature
The Selectmen reviewed and signed the following items:
§ Payroll Manifest
§ Payroll Checks
§ A/P Checks
§ A/P Invoices
§ Miner property gift to Town - Mylar
§ MS-6
§ Town Warrant
4:30 PM: Review and Approval of Documents
At 4:30 PM Selectwoman Day opened the meeting. Selectwoman Day and Selectwoman Davidson making a quorum; the Administrator said that the Chair had called and was running late.
The Board reviewed minutes of 2/07/13 and 2/12/13. The Board signed A/P invoices, Payroll Checks, Payroll Manifest, & the State of New Hampshire Retirement payment. Chairman Wimpory joined the meeting at 4:45 PM. The Administrator provided the Board of Selectmen with a purchasing-policy waiver to account for the limited time available for research and gathering of quotes needed to advance a warrant article for a new 10-wheel dump truck. The Board of Selectmen signed the waiver, which indicated their acceptance of the due diligence performed by the Executive Office and DPW and provides an exemption from the requirement of a public notice. The waiver form noted that the original specification was based on the State contract for plow trucks, amended to manual instead of automatic transmission, and also noting that the
final price for the recommended vehicle, after trade-in, was less than the quote from the company that holds the 2013 State contract.
The Board reviewed a memo from the accounting department indicating previous minutes where a Board member was recorded as having thought that the Tax Collector had not had a raise since her start date, were not correct. Records in the accounting department indicate that the Tax Collector has received four pay increases since she started working for the Town of Greenfield. The Board asked the Administrator to note this in the minutes.
Trustee Bliss joined the meeting and indicated that he had brought a concern to the Board regarding a recent conversation with LGC Legal and the Department of Justice. Mr. Bliss has put his name forward for the position of Moderator on the 2013 ballot. Subsequently he borrowed the LGC guide to Town Meeting for Moderators from the Town Office. On review of the statutes he found that Trustee of Trust Funds and Moderator are positions that present a conflict of interest under the NH RSAs. As a result Mr. Bliss indicated that he intends to step down as Trustee of Trust Funds before being sworn in as Moderator (he is running unopposed). Mr. Bliss decided to check with LGC Legal and discussed the issue of the conflict with Atty. Paul Sanderson. In the course of the conversation Mr. Bliss explained to Atty. Sanderson that
Greenfield Trustee of Trust Funds are also acting Cemetery Trustees. Atty Sanderson indicated that there is no statute or law that allows the election of the Trustee of Trust Funds to automatically be Cemetery Trustees; he further advised that as a result the positions of Cemetery Trustee had lapsed. Atty. Sanderson provided email follow-up indicating that the decisions by the acting Board were not illegal but that it would be better to run a warrant article to re-instate the Board of Cemetery Trustees so that in the future there would be a place on the ballot for the cemetery trustees as a separate entity from the trust fund trustees. Mr. Bliss provided the language of a warrant article to the Board of Selectmen. The Board of Selectmen asked several questions about the conversation and then reviewed Atty. Sanderson’s email. Mr. Bliss said that he called Terry Knowles at the Department of Justice (DOJ) and outlined the conversation that he had had with LGC Legal and he
reported to the Board that the DOJ was in agreement with the conclusions outlined by Atty. Sanderson. The Board of Selectmen directed the Administrator to include the warrant article as outlined by Atty. Sanderson regarding the cemetery trustees.
The conversation turned to the warrant article about the Meeting House cemetery fence, which the Board had removed from the warrant at the conclusion of the budget hearing on 2/7/2013. Trustee Bliss outlined the reasons for the warrant article and asked the Board of Selectmen to reconsider and to place the cemetery fence warrant article back on the warrant. There was some discussion among the Board of Selectmen and an interest in moving the warrant article to the front of the meeting so that it would be acted on quickly rather than left to last. The Administrator indicated that the DRA had reviewed the current version of the Town Warrant twice and counseled that if the Board were going to reinstate the article it should come last in order that the work with the DRA be preserved. The Board agreed to place the article last
and to move it to the front of the meeting on the floor of Town Meeting. The Board thanked Trustee Bliss for his dedication and his bringing forward the issue regarding the cemetery trustees.
5:00 PM: Patty Donovan
At 5:10 Patty Donovan approached the Board of Selectmen about executive sessions and her concern that there might be an instance when the subject of the conversation was herself. There was some discussion between Patty Donovan and the Board members about the RSAs that govern executive sessions and the Administrator clarified the application of the RSA for Ms. Donovan. Ms. Donovan indicated that she did not intend for the meeting to last very long as she knew the Board was busy but wanted to reiterate a request that the Board include her in conversations with other residents or people who talk about her in a meeting. The Chair explained to Ms. Donovan that in his personal feelings, he wasn’t interested in any conversations that were not specific to the running of the Town. He stated that he was not inclined to hold
meetings with people that did not have any bearing on the business of the Town and that he could not foresee an instance where the Board would have an interest in having a conversation with a person or persons where Ms. Donovan would be the object of the conversation. Ms. Donovan thanked the Board for their time.
5:30 PM: Janet Renaud
At 5:30 Janet Renaud approached the Board with a question about the noise ordinance. A discussion about the ordinance was held with Mrs. Renaud wondering if the ordinance allowed for an application if the Town did not have a noise meter. The Board took the ordinance under advisement and asked Mrs. Renaud to check back with the Administrator in a few weeks to allow them to determine if there were funds for the purchase of a meter.
Adjournment
Chairman Wimpory moved to adjourn the meeting at 6:02 PM. Selectwoman Day seconded the motion. The motion carried 3-0.
The meeting adjourned at 6:05 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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