Monterey Select Board
Minutes of the meeting of 11/13/06
Meeting Opened at: 8:30am
Select Board Members Present: Michael Storch, Chairperson, Jonathan Sylbert, and Wayne Burkhart
Also in attendance for the meeting: Laurily Epstein for the Monterey News
The board met with the Director of Highways, Maynard Forbes and reviewed the following items:
1. M. Forbes drafted a letter to be reviewed by the Select Board and sent to Smitty Pignatelli regarding the boat ramp on Lake Buel and keeping it maintained.
2. Work will be started on Fairview Rd. this week.
3. River Rd construction; all the concrete has been poured, they were unable to work on Thursday as it was under water.
4. M. Forbes has found one used backhoe for sale he is interested in and is going to research further.
5. Salt sheds were discussed and the types that are available. M. Forbes will bring in pictures of the different styles for the board to look at as well as a hand drawn site plan depicting where the salt shed would go.
6. Logging on the Haynes property on Mt Hunger Rd has just started, the board requested a copy of the Forest Cutting Plan provided to the Conservation Commission. M. Noe called C. Blair to inquire at the board’s request if forest cutting plans need to file when in the Scenic Mountain Act region. Chris stated that they are exempt if they have complied with the state’s Forest Cutting Act.
7. The board thanked the Highway Department on the work done with Tamarack and what a great job everyone did.
The board met with Building Inspector, Donald Torrico and reviewed the following items:
1. There have been a lot of letters requested of the Building Inspector for residents filing for ZBA special permits.
2. Gennari came and moved the heat in the meeting room so that the door can be moved to meet building codes.
3. Fred Finkle contacted D. Torrico to set up a meeting to go over a punch list at the Monterey School.
The board held a Classification Hearing with the Stanley Ross, Chairperson of the Board of Assessors at 10am and went over the following:
The Board of Assessors recommended to the Board of Selectman that we adopt one single tax rate for Commercial, Residential, Industrial and Personal Property for the FY ending June of 2007. The Select Board reviewed the options and discussed the possibilities at great length. S. Ross said that currently there are 1100 Forms of List that are mailed each year for personal property taxes. The Assessors believe there are 63 current businesses in Monterey. A motion was made to approve adopting a single tax rate and the Select Board voted unanimously. The hearing concluded at 10:37am.
The board met with Inter-Departmental Secretary, Melissa Noe to review the following items:
1. M. Noe asked permission to leave at 3:30 on Wednesday to bring the food and canned good donations for the Thanksgiving baskets to the Berkshire Community Action Council office in Gt. Barrington. The board approved this request.
2. M. Noe let the board know that the least expensive blinds she could find for the town hall meeting room was $24.99 each and requested permission to purchase 6 of them. The board approved the purchase of 2 sets of blinds.
The board met with Town Accountant, Barbara Gauthier to review the following items:
1. B. Gauthier came in to discuss another bill received from Andrus Power Solutions for the recent electrical work done on the generator. The board would like to speak with D. Andrus regarding some of the work that was done to find out why some things were upgraded when they had just been done when the Town Hall was being renovated. The indoor work for the ballpark light has been completed and the only thing that still needs to be done is digging the trenches outside.
2. B. Gauthier informed the board that her office would not be using Harris Computer Systems for the new accounting software. It came to her office’s attention that Monterey would have been the first municipal organization Harris would have done work with and that they weren’t all that familiar with Massachusetts General Laws or accounting practices. Her office will be looking into some other software packages used by surrounding towns.
3. B. Gauthier has been cleaning out her files and has discarded the items that she received permission from the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office. She mentioned that when she was in the Records Room that it was very difficult to get the large boxes out of the small spaces since the shelving units were so close.
4. J. Sylbert asked for an amortization schedule on all of the current town loans.
5. It came to B. Gauthier’s attention that the Town has been paying the electric bills for #3 and #9 New Marlboro Rd and the Town should’ve been paying for #15 (Bally Gally) until the new tenants moved in. B. Gauthier believes that #9 is actually Bally Gally and that National Grid has it listed incorrectly.
Miscellaneous Select Board Items Reviewed:
1. J. Sylbert reviewed the list of potential residents that DSL should be available to. Several people that should be able to get in fact have not been able to.
2. The Town Hall alarm open/close report was reviewed. The fact that the back door has been left unlocked several times was also discussed and will be put on the agenda to discuss with M. Forbes next week.
3. The mail was reviewed.
4. D. Mielke came in to ask if an invitation had been received from the school committee yet for the December meeting.
5. D. Mielke also wanted to discuss the Kinne’s Grove situation; nothing new has happened with the sale but she wanted to discuss the Ad-Hoc committee idea further with the board. The board would like to have an ad-hoc committee to work backwards to find out what the options and timeframes are the town has for purchasing property. If the process were to be written down and could be easily referred to, it would make the process easier in the future.
6. The 120-Day Waiver Certificate of Announcement regarding the acquisition of approximately 74 acres of land, or other property interest in Monterey by the Department of Conservation and Recreation was signed by Select Board Chairperson, Michael Storch and will be mailed today.
7. M. Storch publicly thanked Laurily Epstein for all the work she has done with her journalistic duties for the Monterey News. Laurily announced that her last meeting as the reporter for the Monterey New would be on December 18th.
8. The Berkshire Mediation Services interview was reviewed for M. Storch who was out of town when that took place. Two other companies were contacted to interview; one is no longer in the Mediation business and the other does not offer Mediation Services to municipalities. The board unanimously approved hiring Berkshire Mediation Services and will be in contact with them as soon as the scope of services the town is looking for is determined.
9. The Select Board reviewed the Valley Communications phone systems contract and it was signed by Michael Storch and will be returned to Chris of Valley Communications.
The meeting adjourned at: 12:10pm
Melissa Noe
Inter-Departmental Secretary
Town of Monterey
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