Monterey Select Board
Minutes of the meeting of 1/21/15
Meeting Opened at: 4pm
Select Board Members Present: Wayne Burkhart, Chairperson, Scott Jenssen (arrived at 4:30) and Kenn Basler
Also in attendance for parts of the meeting: Maria Rundle and Shawn Tryon
Miscellaneous Select Board Items Reviewed:
1. Wayne updated the Board on last night’s special school committee meeting where it was discussed that some of the member towns were upset that the process was changed to vote on the bond from a special town meeting vote to a 5 town election. It was also suggested that the bond should be for 20 years instead of 10. The Board will need to decide if they want to have a debt exclusion for the bond. Maria is going to plan an informational town meeting in Monterey sometime in February at the library. The town has the choice to not put this item on the special town meeting warrant and just accept the bond proposal through the Select Board. It was unanimously agreed that this should be placed on the special town meeting warrant. The Board will continue the discussion on whether or
not it should be a debt exclusion.
2. The Board discussed possible dates for a special town meeting. It was decided to have the special town meeting on Thursday, February 26th at 7pm. M. Noe will confirm the Town Clerk and Moderator’s availability.
3. Mail was reviewed which included:
a. Letter from New Marlborough to the chair of the school committee requesting that their FY16 assessment be level funded.
b. Letter from New Marlborough following up on the recent sharing services discussions and requesting that one member of the Board meet with Nathaniel Yohalem and Dave Smith to continue the discussions.
c. Letter from the Planning Board explaining their current situation of not having enough Board members to make a quorum. Scott volunteered to temporarily be appointed to fill one of the vacant seats to allow the Planning Board a quorum at their upcoming meetings until the annual elections. M. Noe will confirm with Maggie the next scheduled meeting so that the Planning Board and Select Board can make the appointment.
d. Email from Michael Germain requesting that the Board put an article on the town meeting warrant to accept the provisions of the Community Preservation Act. The Board will discuss this at a later date.
e. Letter from the MMA inviting the Board to the MSA Business Meeting.
f. Letter from the MMA outlining the voting procedures at the Annual Business Meeting.
4. Warrants were signed.
5. The Board began preliminary discussions on the FY16 budget.
6. The Board appointed Ruth Champigny to the Council on Aging.
The board met with Director of Operations, Shawn Tryon to review the following:
1. The new truck should be delivered by the 3rd week of February.
2. The Board discussed with Shawn the correspondence received from New Marlborough and Sheffield regarding the continued discussions on sharing services. Shawn reported that at the last meeting he attended it was agreed that it was now up to the Select Board to decide if they wanted to move forward with sharing a mower and/or an Administrative Assistant. Kenn feels that the future of all these small towns requires discussing sharing equipment and he feels that sharing a mower would be a good first step to see if larger items would also work. Kenn is willing to attend a meeting to convey Monterey’s feelings that sharing a mower would be a good start to seeing if sharing services would work (unanimous decision by the Board).
3. Transfer Station: rough numbers are just under $300,000 without the steel roof. The board discussed the current survey results for the January question of the month which asked if the voters would support a redesign of the transfer station. Currently over 70% are not in favor (34 respondents) and Scott feels we should wait a year but Kenn feels that people do not have enough information on why this project is being proposed and once they do they may change their minds. Kenn is going to work on something to put in the Monterey News regarding the specifics of the project.
4. RT23 update: Palmer Paving the company that won the bid and will be doing the work is working with Shawn and the plans and some modifications that may need to be made. Kenn has had a few meetings with Representative Pignatelli and he is working on finding monies to help with the culvert issue that needs to be addressed. M. Noe has also contacted Senator Downing’s office and they are also working on helping us to find the funds.
5. Beaver issues at the dam: The Board discussed Mike Callahan’s beaver solution proposal. Shawn is not in favor of this solution and felt that if it was 100% guaranteed as the proposal states why would an annual contract be necessary for maintenance. Shawn has also spoken with the Town of Sandisfield which has this solution in their town and reported that the beavers are just moving further upstream causing road damage in another area. Shawn also stated that over the last few years there has only been one beaver and currently there aren’t any traps set in this location. Shawn also felt that by doing this at the dam it would set a precedent for residents to request similar solutions instead of trapping for the other areas in town where there are beavers (which are
abundant). Since there are currently no issues with beavers at the dam right now there isn’t a reason to go forward with this project at this moment but the Board will hold this information to reconsider should the beavers return. A motion was made to accept Shawn’s recommendation and hold off for now and reconsider this alternative should a beaver issue occur in the future. The motion was seconded and unanimously approved.
6. Shawn recommended accepting the maintenance contract from Andrus Power Solutions for the generator at town hall. A motion was made to accept the contract which was seconded and unanimously approved.
A motion was made and unanimously approved to adjourn the meeting at: 5:52pm
Submitted by:
Melissa Noe, Administrative Assistant
Approved by:
Monterey Select Board
Select Board Members
Minutes Book
Town Clerk
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