Norwell Board of Selectmen’s Meeting
April 24, 2001
Mr. Merritt welcomed everyone to the meeting, introducing the Board and James Boudreau.
Mr. Mariano requested the Board amend the agenda to add South Shore Elders Services information.
MOTION: Mr. Mariano moved the Board approve the agenda as amended. Second by Mr. Gaynor.
Unanimously Voted.
Joanne Dirk from the Recycling Committee was in to update the Board. The committee is having a contest starting sometime in May. Every household will receive information on the contest along with a sticker to put on the recycling bins. It’s part of a grant the committee wrote and was awarded $8,000 by the DEP. As part of the contest, there will be recycling members checking bins in hopes that we can give citizens more incentive to participate. The grand prize of $1,000 will be awarded in June at a Selectmen’s meeting.
The appointment of two Fire Captains then took place. The need for supervision on all shifts is what precipitated this decision.
Fire Chief Paul Rosebach spoke on the process of how Jeffrey Simpson and Stephen Sweeney were tested, assessed and finally appointed.
Mr. Merritt congratulated them on behalf of the town and wished them the best in their careers.
Advisory Board appointments were made.
MOTION: Mr. Mariano moved the Board appoint Charles Dirk to fill the unexpired term of Paul Gaynor to June 30, 2002, to the Advisory Board. Second by Mr. Gaynor.
Unanimously Voted.
Next on the agenda was the signing of a Proclamation declaring April 20th through the 27th as National Volunteer Week. This includes schools, government, churches and other community services.
MOTION: Mr. Mariano moved the Board sign the proclamation declaring April 20th through the 27th National Volunteer Week. Second by Mr. Gaynor.
Unanimously Voted.
MOTION: Mr. Mariano moved the Board approve a request from North River Theatre for a license to serve all-alcoholic beverages on their premises during productions to be held on Friday and Saturday evenings, May 11, 12, 17, 18, 25 and 26, 2001 between the hours of 7:30 PM and 10:00 PM. Second by Mr. Gaynor.
Unanimously Voted.
Planning Board members Bruce Graham and Sally Turner were present to discuss several issues, especially their board’s town hall public hours.
Sally Turner said they have a tremendous back-log of work right now, plus the Master Plan getting under way. The Planning Administrator is about to take several days vacation time. We decided it would be advantageous to us if we could close the door of our office a few more hours a week, just to allow the staff to keep up with this—the staff being the Planning Administrator, who is a full-time employee and a twenty hour a week floater which we have through the selectmen’s office. That does not mean the Administrator is going to be working less hours, but it was an attempt to give more effective working time to her while she was there. Unfortunately, this caused some problems just after I left and I now find out this has been sort of stewing now for four weeks. Bruce can probably shed more light
on it. It was not the intent of the Planning Board to upset the applecart as far as the hours are concerned. We certainly are sorry to hear this. Some of the days Mary was out for compensation days, which means the floater who works from 9 to 2, and there would be no one in the office anyway.
Mr. Merritt said the Board realizes there will be times like that during vacations and time off and extraordinary circumstances.
Sally continued to say she feels the Planning Board thought they were on solid ground in doing this, but in the spirit of cooperation her feeling is they should go back to the prior hours of 8 to 4 Monday through Thursday and while the staff of the Planning Administrator is in the office, the door will be closed on Fridays.
Bruce Graham believes they have the authority to set his hours, contrary to the position the Board of Selectmen have taken, in spirit of cooperation we want to go back to the old hours, just to move ahead and put this behind us. We might choose in the future to explore that position more fully and come to an agreement with the Selectmen as to what our authority is, but I think the short term issue is what the hours should be in that office. We have only been trying to do the best possible job for the town. Just as an example the Board and Mary are under, we met last night at 7:30 and were forced from the building at 11:00 before we even completed our agenda, let alone this issue. The analogy I made to the Board was students of management will remember with Japanese factory workers often going on strike and they
would remain on the job working, but with an armband to show their dissatisfaction with their conditions. But they realized it was counter productive to actually stop working. They would continue their work agreeing to disagree. That’s where we’re at in terms of our authority. We would like to pursue that and will probably continue to do that, but in the short run we want to get this office hour issue behind us and move ahead. We’d also like in the spirit of cooperation to ask the Selectmen and the Town Administrator to work with us to help us solve many of the paperwork backlog problems that we have. We’ve identified a number of accounting problems that are going to take tremendous resources for us as a Board and for Mary as the Administrator to resolve in a way that’s fair to developers, applicants and the town as well as consulting engineers that we use to make sure that our work is done properly.
That’s just one example of something where there could be hundreds of hours involved.
John Mariano said there certainly is a lot of work that has to be done. It indicates in the job description that they work under the administrative guidance of the Town Administrator. Along the lines of what we do in the future, John said he feels comfortable after talking to both labor counsel and town counsel that under our union collective bargaining agreement that it is under the jurisdiction of the Board of Selectmen to set the hours of town hall. The hours are set in the interest of the public.
Sally Turner said she wanted to raise the level of the discussion because what it really is about is the workload in the Planning office. We were without any staff for over a year. We had a floater 15 hours a week, however, there was a backlog of tasks that had to be taken care of. The Administrator started her work around the first of November. Two or three weeks later we realized there were four months of salary that had been appropriated for that position that were in essence not going to be used and we came up with the idea of why couldn’t we use those monies to fund a temporary clerk’s position. We actually have on the books a Grade 4 Planning Board clerk position. It happens to be unfilled. We wanted to use those monies to fill that position. We made a request of the
Selectmen’s office and we were turned down on that. I don’t think there’s any question the Planning Board needs clerical backup. Everything we do generates paper. We have time lines, time frames, etc. We have a full time need for clerical support and we don’t understand why the Planning Board can’t seek and hire a clerical person in our office that would report to us and be our employee just as almost every other department in the town does. This need is being filled by a floater, as a matter of fact a third floater was hired specifically to fill this position in the Planning Board office. This whole idea is mystifying to me. We have a need, it’s a full time need. A floater by definition is a person who is available for basic needs, filling in for vacation time or special extra activity time. Why? We also went to the Advisory Board this year to request for the coming year money to
fill a clerk’s position in the Planning Board office. We have been denied, they are not recommending. The Planning Board is unanimous is our feeling that the work in the office requires clerical support. We should be allowed to seek and hire our own clerk and not have that function being fulfilled by a floater.
Mr. Merritt asked if from a standpoint of 20 hours, many of the offices have a senior person, or an agent like they do in Conservation, or your Planning Administrator, but the clerical support is not full time, it’s part time. Mr. Merritt asked if it was more important to have the piece of mind of an employee that is a permanent employee of that office for 20 hours a week, or is the issue that you need more than 20 hours a week from a clerical standpoint?
Sally responded by saying they presented a request to the Advisory Board this year for a full time employee. They have a grade 4 on the books, in conjunction with all of this they want the 4 upgraded to a 6. They have rewritten the job description and submitted it. They share an office with Conservation, who has a clerical position, 15 hours. That was a grade 4 and is now a grade 6. In essence, a person the Planning Board would hire in a clerical function would be doing exactly the same things. The floater doing them now is a grade 5. She is not our employee and is not fully trained. A fully trained person who would do the things we need to have done would be at a grade 6 level job description. Less than a year ago, we asked to fill the grade 4 position.
John Mariano said they had a request for additional personnel at Town Meeting which got turned down and asked if it wouldn’t be circumventing the wishes of Town Meeting if all of a sudden….
Sally replied it would not because they were told the money they needed to fill it exceeded our request. Now we actually have a request.
John Mariano feels the request was brought up, they made their case at Town Meeting and it was not approved. The Planning Board has gone from 30 hours to 57 ½ hours.
Bruce said they are still drowning in paper. He feels the presentation at Town Meeting could have been more effective. We can keep the door open, but start missing deadlines due to a failure to act on a timely basis despite everybody’s best efforts.
Paul Gaynor said he’s been involved for the last couple of weeks in the Master Planning process and he knows the Board really appreciates the work that comes out of that department. It’s critical work. Secondly, the spirit of cooperation involves communication. Sending a memo post fact on how hours are going to be met in town is contrary to that. We have asked repeatedly in the past month to talk to you about it. This is the first time in a month you have come forward. The spirit of cooperation needs to come on both sides. The other thing is we need to meet the needs of the town. Let’s get it straightened out. We all have to agree on how it’s going to be done. Control issues are counterproductive to where we are right now. Let’s go ahead and
get this stuff straightened out.
Mr. Merritt asked if it’s a lump in the snake, or is it a permanent issue?
Sally said it’s an ongoing thing. Everything generates decisions, legal questions….it’s important people who do come in are given the proper information so that they don’t go off in directions that could lead to litigation. Mary needs to do that. Time is taken away from the Administrator’s function so she can do clerical tasks. It is not an efficient use of her time or the town’s money. Mark Bailey had asked people in there to keep a time line and it’s quite impressive.
Again Sally said she had requested a full time grade 6. She would have been willing to listen to suggestions, but as far as she knows, the Advisory Board is not recommending anything.
Mr. Merritt asked if that came to pass, would they still have the need for the floater.
Sally responded possibly, especially during this Master Planning process.
Bruce would like to see a part time person permanently assigned to the Planning Board office so they can develop that person’s skills and know they are making an investment in the future.
Mr. Merritt suggested the Board take a look at the circumstances based on the information they provided them tonight.
There was further discussion about the Planning Board’s options regarding the grade 4 position, the floater, a temp, etc.
Paul Gaynor said he would like to see the time log, that it would be helpful to the Board in the decision making process.
Jim Boudreau said that he didn’t want to leave the public with the impression the Board of Selectmen and the Planning Board offices are not getting along. The point was made there have been two new computers put in there, they’ve wired everything up, they’ve established a supervisory training session, they’ve gone from 30 hours to 37 hours, the upgrade from grade 8 to a grade 11, the 15 hour floater to a 20 hour floater, etc. With the exception of the staffing, we have had no issues.
John Mariano said every single department head advocates for their own, but at the end of the day when the budget gets put to bed, we all have to do what’s in the best interest for the entire town. We try to give each department a slice of the pie.
The Planning Board had voted to go back to the hours before the new directive.
Mr. Merritt thanked them for coming in and said they will meet again in a few weeks.
Paul Gaynor has been a diligent attendee of the Master Plan meetings and Mr. Merritt asked him to fill us in. Paul said public participation is very important. There will be some kind of discussion about this at Town Meeting and he urged people to attend. Also, on the morning of June 9th there will be a town wide meeting at the Goldman School. The participants are going to be divided into small groups and work with maps and photos and analyze the town’s assets and liabilities and opportunities and strengths and constraints to take a look at the town from an overall perspective of where we would like to be in 20 years. They are asking people to come with pictures of the town, what they like, what they don’t like. They would like business owners to attend as well. There will also be a
meeting on June 12th for Precinct 1, June 13th for Precinct 2 and the 14th for Precinct 3. The Town Fair is planning on having a booth to discuss and share some of the results. This will have a direct impact on how the town will be changing.
MOTION: Mr. Mariano moved the Board accept with regret the resignation of G. Bernard Gardner from the Zoning Board of Appeals effective June 1, 2001. Second by Mr. Mariano.
Unanimously Voted.
The Mileage Reimbursement policy was discussed.
MOTION: Mr. Mariano moved the Board approve an increase in the current mileage reimbursement from 25 cents to 30 cents effective July 1, 2001 for all municipal government departments. Second by Mr. Gaynor.
Unanimously Voted.
The Board mentioned the Dig Safe law and safe excavating. The toll free number is 1-888-DIG-SAFE for anyone considering any excavation.
Also, the South Shore Elder Services, Inc. is holding a community focus group meeting to discuss the needs of the elderly in Norwell on Tuesday, May 1, 2001 from 5:30 to 7:30 PM at the Cushing Center. It is opened to the public. RSVP 659-7878.
MOTION: Mr. Mariano moved the Board adjourn into Executive Session for the purpose of discussing contracts, not to resume to open session.
Mr. Merritt polled the Board: Mr. Mariano, yes; Mr. Gaynor, yes; Mr. Merritt, yes.
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James M. Boudreau, Town Administrator
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