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Select Board
Minutes of the meeting of 8/29/18
Meeting Opened at: 3:30pm
Select Board Members Present: Carol Edelman, Chairperson, Kenneth Basler and Donald Coburn
Also in attendance: Cliff Weiss, Larry Klein, Stephen Moore, Peter Chait, Alan Salamon, Stan Ross, George Cain
Miscellaneous Items Reviewed:
- The Board discussed a letter received from the New Marlborough Select Board requesting to resurrect the 5 town committee to address RT57. The Board also reviewed a draft letter to send to the towns of New Marlborough, Sandisfield, Tolland and Granville to approach the state with regard to assisting with repairs seeing as RT57 is a pass through road; the letter was signed and will be sent tomorrow to New Marlborough, Tolland, Granville and Sandisfield.
- Kenn agreed to attend the start-up session that the Department of Housing and Community Development is holding in September for the Community Development Block Grant.
- The Board approved the Town Clerk’s request to change her posted office hours to Mondays 9-12, Tuesdays 5-9, Wednesdays 10-12 and Saturdays 8-2, if a regular office hour day falls on a holiday the hours will be made up on Friday 9-12 beginning September 10th.
- The Board approved the Building Inspector’s time off request. Don will have the necessary coverage while away.
- The Board reviewed the recommendation from the Friends of Wilson McLaughlin House to hire Mary Makuc as the part time Community Center Coordinator for up to 5 hours a week at $15/hour with no benefits.
- The Board discussed the letter received from BMA and request for a meeting next Wed to discuss the lack of a contract for FY19, as well as their request for additional funds for the extensive forensic work done to correct issues from FY17. The previous opinion from counsel was reviewed that allows us to increase compensation if it is understood and agreed that there was a material change in the scope of work, which is a question of fact. More specifically, were there bookkeeping issues creating more work than was contemplated by the agreement because BMA ended up correcting mistakes on top of delivering the services. Kenn and Carol, Board members during this time, concurred that there was a considerable amount of extra work performed to clean up the books, get us a clean audit and excellent rating from the bank for the
library bond. Kenn proposed he and Melissa have an initial conversation with Justin to find a middle ground prior to the meeting next week. Carol agreed , Don did not, so the proposal passed 2 to 1. The Board as a whole did agree to have Don contact counsel for additional clarification he was seeking on counsel’s opinion noted above.
- Carol reminded everyone of the policy with regard to contacting town counsel: that only the chairpersons of each board should be contacting counsel, only after an entire board has discussed the issue and approved the topic being raised before a board at a public meeting. Don did not interpret the policy the same and wanted more time to review it.
- Warrants were signed.
- School sub-committee: Carol provided spreadsheets of the possible scenarios to make changes to the current assessment methods to review for next week. The sub-committee would like to have a recommendation from each town for their Sept 11 meeting.
At 4:01pm Carol recused herself and turned the Chairperson duties over to Kenn to run the meeting with the Broadband Committee. The purpose of today’s meeting is to determine if there is a role for the Broadband Committee going forward. At this point the meeting was turned over to Cliff Weiss, chair of the Broadband Committee.
Don asked that the first order of business be to review counsel’s opinion on the project as a whole; counsel has stated that the project due to the cost has to be bid out which would eliminate the need to enter into negotiations with Fiber Connect prior to knowing who will bid. Discussion ensued and all present had different interpretations of what the town could or could not do. The question will be reframed and posed to Town Counsel again directly from the Broadband Committee.
A motion was made to reinstate the Broadband Committee but failed after discussion ensued.
George Cain noted the recent connection that Cliff Weiss has to Fiber Connect and suggested that it is necessary to determine if he has a conflict of interest and can continue work on the Broadband Committee. Cliff admitted that his company was doing business with Fiber Connect and will get a legal opinion from the Ethics Division.
Don Coburn suggested that at this point (4:45pm) the meeting should go into executive session as per #10 of the Open Meeting Law executive session exemptions to discuss trade secrets or confidential, competitively-sensitive or other proprietary information provided in the course of activities conducted by a governmental body as an energy supplier under a license granted by the department of public utilities pursuant to section 1F of chapter 164. The motion was seconded and approved. Present were Donald Coburn, Kenneth Basler and Larry Klein. It was agreed that the Board would return to open session.
Submitted by:
Melissa Noe, Administrative Assistant
Approved by:
Monterey Select Board
Select Board Members
Minutes Book
Town Clerk
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