Monterey Select Board
Minutes of the meeting of 7/8/13
Meeting Opened at: 9am
Select Board Members Present: Muriel Lazzarini, Chairperson, Wayne Burkhart and Scott Jenssen
Also in attendance for parts of the meeting: Susan Gallant for the Monterey News, Emily Johnson, Chief Backhaus, Donald Hopkins, Maggie Leonard and Larry Klein
The board met with Police Chief, Gareth Backhaus to review the following:
1. At the Chief’s request the Board appointed Donald Hopkins as a Part-Time Officer for a 6 month probationary period. Don is going to start off just doing traffic in the center of town on Sundays until he finishes his part time training. (Scott was not present for this appointment).
The board met with Town Clerk, Emily Johnson to review the following items:
1. Have the Board sign the letters to the Democratic and Republican parties regarding potential poll workers. It was brought to Emily’s attention that this has not been done in the past and should be each April.
2. Emily also swore each member in for the various positions they were appointed/reappointed to last week.
Miscellaneous Select Board Items Reviewed:
1. The minutes from 7.1.13 were approved as amended.
2. Reviewing the warrant for the Special Town Meeting:
a. Muriel is going to get the exact figure on the septic loan fund from Maryellen. Muriel also spoke with Barbara Gauthier on the program to get a little background on how the loans had worked.
b. Scott will not be at the special town meeting but Wayne & Muriel will.
c. Muriel will check with the Clerk’s office to be sure the figures on the warrant are correct and to get any supporting data for the requests.
d. The last best levy limit estimate figures were reviewed which was approximately $175,000.
3. Accountant resumes – we have received one resume that is new from the last round of applicants. M. Noe will schedule interviews with all the applicants as requested by the Board.
4. The Board discussed the current schedules for the 2 warrants being prepared and signed. It was noted by Maryellen that the payroll warrant process needs to be refined. It needs to be done on Sunday night or Monday morning and ready for the Board to sign during their Monday meeting or they need to be done Monday night and the Board needs to sign them 1st thing Tuesday morning. The vendor warrants do not have the issue. Muriel is going to speak with Bethany regarding this and her availability to come in earlier in the week. If this cannot be fixed prior to Friday’s special town meeting the article to transfer $1,000 for the reassignment of payroll responsibilities will be tabled.
5. Employee Handbook: The Board approved accepting/adopting the manual as is with the agreement that it can always be amended at a later date. M. Noe will distribute copies to everyone to which it applies and request that the receipt page be signed and returned to her to file.
6. Muriel inquired as to why some employees are appointed even though they are hired as full time employees and some are not, for instance M. Noe as the Executive Secretary was hired for this position but is also appointed but the highway members who are hired are not appointed (with the exception of the Director of Operations position).
7. Muriel asked M. Noe to inquire of the Fire Department if probationary members and junior members receive any compensation.
8. Muriel read the latest communications from Christine Goldfinger regarding the yellow lines on Beartown Mtn Rd, commending the Highway Department for the job they do keeping the roads passable however they are still unhappy about the yellow lines.
9. Muriel commented that she was very pleased that the Select Board was carbon copied on the Town Clerk’s request to Barbara Swann and Linda Thorpe requesting that they return any town items as well as information about where town meeting minutes and election documents from 2011-2013 could be found.
10. Follow up on the insurance issues:
a. M. Noe has spoken with MIIA regarding who should have bonds for the Town. They still had Linda Thorpe and Deb Mielke as active and had Pat Mielke still as the Treasurer. Bethany and Mari’s bond were correct and active. M. Noe has asked MIIA to cancel the bonds for Deb Mielke and Linda Thorpe effective 4/1/13 and 5/4/13 respectively and resend the paperwork for Emily Johnson.
b. M. Noe was asked what transpired for D. Amstead to request that his retiree health plan be cancelled and premium returned. She stated that he told her that he had difficulties reaching the Treasurer and whenever he called BCBS he was told he did not have an active plan even though the Treasurer had told him he did. He felt it was too much of a hassle and did not want to be part of it.
11. Maggie Leonard, Co-Chair of the Planning Board came in to inform the Board that a family emergency has come up preventing her from attending the Special Town Meeting and being the spokesperson for the Planning Board article. Larry Klein stated he can be there to answer any questions.
12. Larry gave an update on the tower on Main Rd (as relayed to him by the landowner, Eugene Bounous) that spots have been sold for antennas to Verizon and T-Mobile in addition to AT&T and that it should be live this month. This information has not been confirmed by the town.
13. A motion was made to appoint Chris Tryon to the ECAC. The motion was seconded and approved unanimously for a one year term.
14. Warrants were signed.
15. Inter-Departmental Secretary’s weekly report reviewed.
A motion was made and unanimously approved to adjourn the meeting at: 10:04am
Submitted by:
Melissa Noe, Executive Secretary
Approved by:
Monterey Select Board
Select Board Members
Minutes Book
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