Monterey Select Board
Minutes of the meeting of 5/4/09
Meeting Opened at: 4:00pm
Select Board Members Present: Scott Jenssen, Chairperson, Jon Sylbert and Wayne Burkhart
Also in attendance for parts of the meeting: Sue Protheroe for the Monterey News, Linda Thorpe (Town Clerk), Michael Storch (Finance Committee), Stephen Enoch (Board of Health), John Makuc (Board of Health), Robert Annelli (Board of Health), Peter Kolodziej (Health Agent), Chief Backhaus and Nora Hayes (Animal Control Officer)
The board met with the Director of Highways, Maynard Forbes and reviewed the following items:
1. The highway crew has been focusing on grading the roads and chipping brush. A list of the roads that have been completed and that are left to be done was provided to the Board. About 1,012 cubic yards has been done to date.
2. The Board made M. Forbes aware of a large root ball/trunk that was removed from a property on Griswold Road and dragged across the street and left at the make-shift turn around. The Board was not sure if this would affect the highway trucks maneuverability; M. Forbes will take a ride up there.
The board met with Inter-Departmental Secretary, Melissa Noe to review the following items:
1. Weekly report was reviewed.
Miscellaneous Select Board Items Reviewed:
1. A motion was made to appoint Scott Jenssen as the Chair for the Board; the motion was seconded and unanimously approved.
2. The Board briefly discussed the town meeting held on Saturday. The Board was complimented on a job well done.
a. M. Noe gave the board the following numbers with regards to inquiries she’s had for fishing and hunting licenses and dog licenses since starting to keep track in April of 2006: There have been 35 requests made to M. Noe for dog licenses and 47 requests for fishing and hunting licenses. The Board agreed to speak with L. Thorpe about getting M. Noe set up to sell hunting and fishing licenses through her office in addition to the Town Clerk’s office which is a part time office.
3. Warrants were signed.
4. Mail was reviewed.
5. The minutes from 4.27.09 were approved as written.
6. Members of the Board of Health, the Police Chief and Animal Control Officer met to discuss the following:
a. How to make sure that the ACO and Police Department continue to work together in the collection of stray dogs. Nora asked if the base of this discussion was to determine if the Police Department was going to take over the ACO job responsibilities since they feel they are doing the job now or if Monterey will continue to employ a separate ACO.
b. Nora and the Chief were asked how many stray/loose dog calls there are; Chief Backhaus stated that since the July 1, 2009 he’s picked up 10 stray dogs, Nora referred to her town report which was from January 1, 2008 – December 31, 2008; it stated she has had 9 calls for loose dogs but confirmed that she doesn’t always pick them up.
c. The Select Board asked if Nora was getting the calls from dispatch and she stated yes. Chief Backhaus disagreed and stated that Nora is not acknowledging the pages and this is why the Police end up picking up the dogs. Dispatch doesn’t document the pages made to Nora so there isn’t an official report. The protocol set up by the Board of Health in May of 2006 states that the ACO and Chief are called together and are supposed to respond to the call together. Nora stated that there haven’t been a lot of critical calls this year. She feels that she has been dealing very well with the issues that she’s made aware of. The Select Board asked if the dispatch could be “re-notified” of the procedure of how to contact the ACO.
The Board asked the Chief for his recommendation: he stated he’s gotten to the point of not calling Nora anymore as she’s unreachable or when she has answered she’s stated that she was with a client and couldn’t come to Monterey.
d. The Chief reported a compliant he received from someone that called the ACO about a lost dog on Mt Hunger Rd.; this person said that when they called the ACO to pick it up Nora told them that unless they can catch it themselves it’s not cost effective for her to come out; Nora denied making this comment and said that what she does tell people is if they can contain the dog that’s preferable vs. having her go on a “wild goose chase when told “there’s a stray dog walking near the bend somewhere”.
e. Nora asked to make it clear that she is a very, very part time ACO and is compensated as such while the Police Department is full time. She stated that she’s in Sheffield during the day at her full time job. Nora felt that it wasn’t practical to have people wait for her when the Police are full time and can respond immediately. The Board felt it was important to determine if this is this the Police Department’s job and if so should they be compensated to do it versus the ACO.
f. Chief Backhaus reminded everyone that when the Board of Health was originally looking for an ACO he had expressed that the Police should only be involved when necessary. Since then he feels that the Police are responding more than the ACO.
g. Nora felt that the problem here was a lack of communication between the ACO and Police Department and a lack of understanding about what each department is doing. Nora listed the work she’s doing with animal control, public safety and prevention.
h. The Board of Health felt that Nora does well at the ACO job and agreed that the problem seems to be a lack of communication. According to the protocol set up the Select Board felt the needs were being met and Chief Backhaus agreed except that he feels that the Police are handling all aspects of the call and the ACO isn’t involved to the extent she should be since she’s the person being paid for the position.
i. Nora suggested that every time the Police are contacted about an animal, no matter the outcome they should call Nora to make her aware and vice versa. Chief Backhaus felt that the call from dispatch was enough and that calling her at work, home, etc was not his job to do. W. Burkhart stated that if Nora is getting paged she should be responding directly to dispatch. John Makuc stated that there needs to be a backup communication in case the pages aren’t being received. Nora gave her work number which is checked daily.
j. The Select Board suggested that the Police put something in the ACO’s box when they’ve dealt with an issue and that she should check her mailbox at the Town Hall at least weekly; she agreed. During the meeting a call was made to dispatch to report a loose dog at the town hall to see how dispatch was handling the call; dispatch stated that they would try to contact the ACO. No page was received during the meeting so Chief Backhaus called dispatch to find out what happened and they stated that their protocol was modified in November by someone that called in. The Modification made was that dispatch should not contact the ACO for loose dogs. This amendment was not made by the Police Department and he will follow up with dispatch to investigate who made the
change.
k. Nora asked again for a location in town to house stray dogs instead of bringing them to the vet in Gt. Barrington. She stated that she talked to M. Forbes the other day and when she asked why he was opposed to the idea of a kennel on town property, he told her he wasn’t opposed to it and that no one had talked to him about it.
l. The Board brought up a series of complaints made to the Cemetery Committee and provided to the Select Board that they’ve received from Rick Mielke who takes care of the cemetery on Chestnut Hill regarding the large amount of dog excretement he’s had to clean up there. When he checked with the Town Clerk about the licensed dogs on Chestnut Hill; he was told that Nora Hayes was the only dog owner there. Nora stated she could not say definitively if it was her dogs that were defecating there but did confirm she lives next door to the cemetery and there isn’t a fence between the properties; she said she would keep a closer watch on her dogs and make sure they weren’t going there to do their business.
7. Eric Montgomery was scheduled to come in at 5:00pm to give the Select Board an update on Fairview Rd but was a no-show.
8. M. Noe passed along an anonymous complaint to the Board about the number of trucks and amount of gravel being removed from the property at the top of West Rd. The Board wrote a letter to the property owner informing them of the need of an earth removal permit if the amount being removed currently or to be removed in a calendar year is more than 500 cubic yards.
9. M. Storch complimented the town report committee on a job well done on the town report; it looked very professional.
10. M. Storch also complimented W. Burkhart on a job well done as the previous Select Board Chair.
11. The Board discussed the opinion received from Town Counsel regarding having a food pantry in the basement of the Town Hall. The Board will be meeting with Donald Torrico, Gareth Backhaus, Maynard Forbes and Melissa Noe regarding the proposed space changes next week.
A motion was made and unanimously approved to adjourn the meeting at: 5:50pm
Submitted by:
Melissa Noe, Inter-Departmental Secretary
Approved by:
Monterey Select Board
Select Board Members
Minutes Book
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