Select Board
Minutes of the meeting of 12/10/18
Meeting Opened at: 4:30pm
Select Board Members Present: Carol Edelman, Chairperson, Kenneth Basler and Donald Coburn
Also in attendance: Chris Regan, Jon Sylbert, George Cain, Rebecca Wolin, Dan Palotta
The Board signed the 3rd Chapter 90 reimbursement request for the BETA mapping service/program.
Carol reviewed the SBRSD Roundtable meeting she attended last week where the request from Egremont to open their building January 2nd was discussed. Egremont intends to remediate the interior lead problems but cannot address the outside lead issues until spring. Members of the roundtable asked that letters from the 4 other communities in the district be sent requesting that the district not permit students and staff in the building until the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Massachusetts Department of Labor Standards guidelines for decontamination can be thoroughly satisfied and confirmed by independent testing. The possible legal ramifications of allowing the students in the building in January were discussed. A motion was made to send a letter as requested to
the district to not open the Egremont School in Jan for the reasons stated. The motion was seconded and unanimously approved.
The Board discussed the Lake Garfield milfoil remediation invoice and lack of a contract. In researching the question, the bid that was accepted was for a total of $22k. Since accepting the bid we have received and paid a bill for $14,712.50 and have now received an additional bill for $18,922.75 which is more than the total bid that was approved. This will be sent to counsel for his opinion on how we legally are allowed to proceed.
Kenn provided a brief update on the library loan and the new information received from Unibank.
Chris Regan, Business Administrator for the school district came in to review the proposed changes to the assessment method that the regional assessment committee has been working on with the member towns’ Select Boards and Finance Committee. The Board and Finance Committee agreed to send a letter to the surrounding towns and the school committee conveying that they both support moving forward with the process of determining the assessment method that is best for the school district, and using some form of averaging in order to smooth out year-to-year fluctuations in assessments. Should the district agreement come up for revision, the Board and Fin Comm support adding language that will allow annual assessments voted on at town meetings to stand even when the state subsequently recalculates their formula.
Dan Palotta, the project manager for the library stopped in on his way to a meeting and briefly reviewed the procedure for change orders and their approval.
A motion was made and unanimously approved to adjourn the meeting at: 6:30pm
Submitted by:
Melissa Noe, Administrative Assistant
Full audio recording available at town hall
Approved by:
Monterey Select Board
Select Board Members
Minutes Book
Town Clerk
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