Monterey Select Board
Minutes of the meeting of 9/8/14
Meeting Opened at: 9am
Select Board Members Present: Wayne Burkhart, Chairperson, Scott Jenssen and Kenn Basler
Also in attendance for parts of the meeting: David Riland for the Monterey News, Karen Allen, Shawn Tryon, Anthony Corsi from National Grid, Sergeant Johnson and Stanley Ross
The board reopened the continued pole hearing from August 11th. Anthony Corsi of National Grid will be submitting a new package which will need to be reposted and the abutters affected will need to be notified of. The new proposal would have poles coming down Cronk Rd. instead of Sandisfield Rd as was originally proposed. Karen Allen stated that she will fight the new proposal with everything she has as she is opposed vehemently to the project. Karen did inquire why the wires couldn’t be buried on Cronk; Tony stated that it isn’t an option that National Grid will entertain. Karen is also going to try to reach out to the new homeowner that the poles are being installed for. Scott and Kenn were more in favor of the initial proposal as Sandisfield Rd is more of a
major road and has the potential for future development whereas Cronk does not. There are white stakes in the ground for where new poles will be placed for the current proposal and the upcoming proposal. The Board will make a site visit before the new proposal is made to make a better informed decision on the request.
The board met with Town Treasurer, Bethany Mielke to review the following:
1. The Board received a request from the Treasurer to add an additional $1,000 to her salary which she had been promised in FY14 for taking on the payroll responsibilities however when the FY15 budget was created the $1,000 wasn’t included in the budget as it had never been approved at a town meeting. The Board agreed to put the $1,000 request on the next special town meeting agenda. The Board informed Bethany that a suggestion was made to them to switch to a payroll vendor and wanted to know what she thought of that. Bethany said that she’s open to the idea but noted that she is very comfortable with processing the payroll. Bethany would be interested in sitting in on any proposals made.
2. Bethany and Brendan are actively working on the closing of the FY14 books.
3. Bethany is going to plan on attending the Select Board’s Monday evening meetings to keep the Board up to date.
The board met with Director of Operations, Shawn Tryon to review the following:
1. Two trees are going to be taken down this week. One in front of the Sawyer home and the other one in front of the DeRis home. That section of road will be shut down while the work is being performed.
2. The crew is almost finished with putting gravel down on Beartown Mtn Rd. The pothole money the state gave will be used for this project.
3. Work on the Jamie’s Court will start soon.
4. Shawn is going to make a site visit to West Rd and will provide his opinion on the condition of the road in writing to the Board.
Miscellaneous Select Board Items Reviewed:
1. Julie from the Berkshire Record came in to discuss the recent community school meetings that have been held. The most recent meeting held in New Marlborough was not attended by any Monterey Board members and according to Julie the meeting focused around answering the question Monterey had posed at the first meeting which was if the district wanted to save money why not close the New Marlborough campus. The Board stated that their position is clear that they feel the community schools are significant and they do not feel that there are substantial savings to be had by closing any of them. Wayne felt that the concept as it was put out by the school board and superintendent has not been clear. These meeting were set up to be a series of findings meetings with the individual towns, open to the
public and it was not incumbent upon any of the towns to attend another towns meeting.
2. Sergeant Johnson came in at the request of the Chief to make them aware of a hunting incident that happened in Beartown State Forest (near the closed section of Brett Rd). The section of the forest that this happened in is an approved section for hunting. The discharge of the primitive black powder firearm was reported to the police by a couple that was hiking there and heard the shot and were not aware it was hunting season. The couple stated that they were going to be coming in to speak to the Board about the incident.
3. The Town Clerk requested that the following people be appointed as election workers for tomorrow’s election: Brendan Fletcher, Linda Thorpe and Deborah Mielke. The Board noted that the current list of election workers appointments ran out so the Board is going to renew their appointments as well which includes Denise Andrus, Maryellen Brown, Ruth Champigny, Norma Champigny, Gail Heath, Fran Huberman, Pat Mielke, Kathleen Purcell and Cynthia Weber. The appointments were made for 9 months to expire June 30, 2015. The motion was seconded and unanimously approved.
4. Stanley Ross, Assessor came in to notify the Board that the Assessors need to spend $200 – 300 on a part for their printer that will allow them to print 2 sided copies. He doesn’t expect that this will put their budget over but wanted them to be aware.
5. A motion was made to approve the special event permit requested for an event at KSA in September. The motion was seconded and approved unanimously.
6. Shawn Tryon has requested to be appointed to the ECAC as a representative for the highway department.
7. The Board signed the addendum to the Administrative Assistant’s job description which was approved at the last meeting.
8. Kenn feels that the current situation at the Transfer Station isn’t working and would like to schedule an upcoming meeting devoted entirely to discussing the current system at the dump including but not limited to accepting construction debris, redesigning the current configuration, the attendant and whether or not it should be contracted out or a town employee. The Director of Operations will be asked to attend this meeting.
9. The Board reviewed a suggestion made by M. Noe to create a survey that reaches all Monterey residents to determine if Saturday hours are something the residents feel is needed and for what kind of services the residents would take advantage of. M. Noe will start working on a draft of questions.
10. Kenn also feels that the Select Board should have a discussion with the Director of Operations regarding our salt use policy. Shawn is attending a conference in Pittsfield regarding the usage of salt and the Board hopes he will make a presentation and suggestion to the Board on the current policy.
11. Mail was reviewed which included:
a. Letter of commendation from Nancy Kalodner regarding Officer Hopkins and the professional manner in which he handled a recent situation.
b. Invitation to the MMA fall legislative breakfast meetings.
c. Letter from MassDOT stating that they have not yet received any invoices for projects through the Winter Rapid Recovery Road Program and that there will be no exceptions to the “use it or lose it” provisions of the original agreement. Invoices must be received by October 30th.
d. Wayne signed the City/Town 110% Agreement and the Contractor Signatory Listing Form for the RT 23 project as requested by MassDOT and this will be mailed out tomorrow.
12. The minutes from 8/25/14 were approved as written.
13. Administrative Assistant’s weekly report was reviewed.
14. Warrants were signed.
A motion was made and unanimously approved to adjourn the meeting at: 6pm
Submitted by:
Melissa Noe, Administrative Assistant
Approved by:
Monterey Select Board
Select Board Members
Minutes Book
Town Clerk
| 
