Monterey Select Board
Minutes of the meeting of 9/15/08
Meeting Opened at: 4:00pm
Select Board Members Present: Wayne Burkhart, Chairperson, Scott Jenssen and Jon Sylbert
Also in attendance for parts of the meeting: Sue Protheroe for the Monterey News and Richard Tryon
The board met with the Director of Highways, Maynard Forbes and reviewed the following items:
1. Lake Garfield drawdown Order of Conditions questions (M. Forbes and S. Jenssen are going to meet later in the week to discuss these items further):
a. Date to open the dam? Is it still October 15th? The OOC is specific for the starting date of October 15th with a completion date of December 1st.
b. Date of closing to be February 1st to the 20th or March or April? The OOC states that the latest that the closing of the dam can begin is February 20th.
c. Depth of drawdown 3’ or 6’, who decides and when? Rate of Flow? Depth? There isn’t an accurate monitoring device, how often or where is this measured? Number of days at 32 degrees or less?
d. Data? Who is going to record all of the required date and what or where will it be stored and accessed?
e. Settings of the gates; there aren’t any settings on the valves.
2. 3 weeks of weekly reports were provided and reviewed.
3. An estimated cost for repairing Fairview Rd which was requested by the Board was submitted and reviewed; M. Forbes estimates that it will cost $173,000 to repair the existing oil & stone road (approximately 1 mile from Route 23 to the top). Current oil prices were used but future prices are unknown so this estimate may change. This is not currently in the Town’s capital plan and it was emphasized that this is just an estimate for the Town to consider.
4. A cost summary for the Curtis Rd paving project was provided; this project cost $244,017 (this does not include work done by Town Highway employees).
5. The District 1 Highway Office was called about the $300,000 earmark for a salt shed but M. Forbes has not heard back from them as of today. He will continue to call.
6. Blacktop aprons were put on Sandisfield Rd and Cronk Rd. The intersection at Mt Hunger and Rt 23 was repaved as was the intersection at Bidwell Rd. The crew has also been working on cleaning out the ditches around Town. When asked if the highway trucks were all ready for the upcoming winter, M. Forbes stated that most of the trucks are. The Kenworth should be ready by the end of November.
7. The price of treated salt is currently at $89/ton (it was $68/ton last year). There will be a seminar put on by UMASS at the Red Lion Inn on sand and salt and M. Forbes invited the Select Board to attend. S. Jenssen was very interested in attending.
8. The Board would like to discuss a salt/sand usage policy/procedure before winter. M. Forbes reminded the Board that a “Clear Road Policy” that was adopted in Town back in 2000. J. Sylbert stated that if the Town were to decide to not have a “Clear Roads” policy they would need to decide what exactly the new policy would be. The alternative(s) would need to be clearly defined; i.e. during a heavy snow storm you might be driving on heavily snow packed roads for XX amount of time to reduce the amount of salt used, which could create a more dangerous road to travel. M. Forbes stated that the amount of
salt used is dependant on a lot of variables; the type of storm, the current temperatures, the type of road (pavement or dirt), etc. It was determined that if the policy was to be changed it would affect a lot of things such as the school bus routes, commuters used to the existing “Clear Roads” policy, etc. Sand is not used on paved roads because it only provides a small amount of traction for a short period of time and it creates a large amount of clean up in the spring, a small amount of salt on a paved road has a better and safer effect. Richard Tryon was acknowledged and stated that during every storm there is salt coming out of the back of the plow trucks on his road (New Marlboro Rd), he states that he watches during every storm and goes out and measures the width of salt applied. He would be very satisfied with a 50% reduction of salt usage on his road. W. Burkhart stated that one application of salt on New Marlboro Rd doesn’t
last all winter so Mr. Tryon has to trust that the people that are managing the salt know what they are doing. W. Burkhart also noted that Mr. Tryon isn’t the only person that lives on New Marlboro Rd and his views might not be those of everyone else on New Marlboro Rd.
The board met with Police Chief, Gareth Backhaus to review the following items:
1. Domestic call on Chestnut Hill.
2. Suspicious activity on Main Rd; the officer on duty found the house to be secure.
3. Assisted the Fire Dept with a medical call on Chestnut Hill.
4. Continuing restraining order on Pixley Rd.
5. Reported break in on Gould Rd; this is being investigated.
6. False alarm on North Cove Rd set off by the exterminator.
7. Lockout on Mt Hunger Estates.
8. False Alarm on Mt Hunger Estates.
9. Abandoned 911 call on Wellman Rd; phone issues.
10. Brook Lane; dispute with a resident and another party involved with the roads.
11. Assisted G.B.P.D. with the Josh Billings as is done every year.
12. Bob Heath spoke briefly with the Chief this morning about a car that hydroplaned and cut up the grass in his yard earlier today.
The board met with Inter-Departmental Secretary, Melissa Noe to review the following items:
1. Weekly report was reviewed.
2. M. Noe submitted a disclosure to the Board under M.G.L. 268A §23(b)(3) a copy will be given to the Town Clerk.
The board met with Town Accountant, Barbara Gauthier to review the following items:
1. Funding for the Lake Garfield plant study ($2500) which has to be done according to the Order of Conditions issued by the Conservation Commission. The Board wanted to know where the money would come from since it wasn’t listed as a warrant item at the Town Meeting. B. Gauthier stated that it can come out of a line item that has to do with the Lake or we can do a reserve fund transfer to replace it and then the Town would also be able to approve the funds or we can have a Special Town Meeting in the spring if we’re going to run out of money to replace it. M. Forbes stated that the Friends of Lake Garfield is a good committee but
there should be a governmental structure involved with the things that need to be done on Lake Garfield so that things that need to get done don’t fall through the cracks.
2. Warrants were signed.
Miscellaneous Select Board Items Reviewed:
1. The Board discussed Town Counsel’s responses regarding appointing employees to the Employee Compensation Committee. M. Forbes didn’t agree with Town Counsel’s recommendation so he called the Ethics Board today and they stated that there are 2 things that would make this a conflict of interest: 1. M.G.L. 268A Section 20, there is a paragraph in section 20 that refers to the “tiny towns” and allows for special municipal employee designations and 2. Section 19 of the same chapter; under paragraph “b” if a full disclosure is admitted (a form is submitted to the Select Board and Town Clerk) then the employees can be
on the committee. Town Counsel also stated that these were options but not ones he recommended; the Select Board is asking for more clarification on the matter from Town Counsel.
2. The minutes from 9.8.08 was approved as amended.
3. Mail was reviewed.
4. Richard Tryon came in to discuss the following with the Board:
a. He had heard that the Board was discussing paving Fairview Rd. (The Board has not made any decisions; this would need to go to a Town Meeting vote.) He decided to do a survey himself and stated that he went over all of the hard roads and got the mileage down to a 10th of a mile and he’s determined that there are 22.5 miles of paved roads. He then determined that if a ½ mile a year was paved it would take 44 years to pave all of the roads. He states that one mile of road can be repaved every year and it would be completed in 22 years. He questioned if the Town can really afford to pave and maintain the roads in
Monterey when you take into account all of the equipment and men involved. W. Burkhart questioned the control that Mr. Tryon was using. Mr. Tryon questioned the life expectancy of a paved road. He doesn’t feel that anymore dirt roads should be paved. W. Burkhart stated that Mr. Tryon didn’t account for the amounts of gravel that need to be brought in to maintain the dirt roads and the costs involved (equipment and men). J. Sylbert stated that Fairview Rd is an exception as there have been several tons of gravel brought in this year alone that just washes away with every storm.
b. Mr. Tryon states that the worst road in town is between the dam on Beartown Mtn Rd and Tyringham Rd. and he wanted to know why the Board wasn’t pushing to fix that. The Board stated that they received an estimate of $390,000 and the road is on the schedule for repaving beginning next year.
c. On another general matter Mr. Tryon stated that he feels that the highway department doesn’t make their ditches deep enough. He stated that he wasn’t complaining, just making an observation.
5. An email complaint from a resident about the Transfer Station Attendant’s rude comments/behavior while running the transfer station was passed along to the Board and cc’d to Maynard Forbes.
6. The Board reviewed the letter from the Board of Health to KSA-MASS informing the camp that they voted unanimously to keep the fine at $5000.
7. W. Burkhart informed the Board that he has spoken with the Town Clerk about getting the Town Bylaws online which has been requested by several residents and local attorneys. Barbara Swann told Wayne that she was unable to do this as there was a problem because of the domain name being changed from .org to .gov (M. Noe who is responsible for managing the Town’s website stated this shouldn’t have caused a problem as she is able to still perform document uploads for other departments but she will look into it in the morning). When the Board asked what is needed to get the bylaws online, M. Noe stated that she only needs a pdf
copy of the bylaws emailed to her to upload on the website. W. Burkhart is going to ask Barbara Swann to email a pdf copy of the bylaws to Bill Letsky of Virtual Town Hall (our website host) who also has the capability of posting them online.
8. A letter from the ZBA was read that informed the Board of the 4 available alternates which have shown an interest in becoming an alternate. The Board stated that the ZBA’s letter did not state that Susan’s vacancy was causing a scheduling issue (which is what Town Counsel stated would need to be done in order for an appointment to be made replacing Susan Cooper); this will be discussed at length at next week’s meeting.
9. A letter was sent to Gige O’Connell asking for a copy of the inventory list of the gifts given to the Town by Edith Wilson as well as a copy of the appraisal that had been done. The Board also requested that Gige provide the Board with the location of the entire inventory not currently located at the Town Hall. This is being done for insurance purposes.
A motion was made and unanimously approved to adjourn the meeting at: 6:13pm
Submitted by:
Melissa Noe, Inter-Departmental Secretary
Approved by:
Monterey Select Board
Select Board Members
Minutes Book
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