SUNAPEE BOARD OF SELECTMEN
MEETING
7:00 PM Town Office Meeting Room
Monday
February 23, 2009
Present: Richard Leone Chairman, Stephen White Vice-Chairman, William Roach, Emma Smith, Donna Nashawaty Town Manager, Tony Bergeron, Road Agent.
Absent: Fred Gallup
Also Present: Katie Richardson Intertown Record, Nancy Kell, Ann Nilsen, Pat & Eugene Hall, Charlotte Brown, Donna Gazelle, Sue Gottling.
The meeting was called to order by Chairman Richard Leone at 7:00PM
Selectmen’s Action
Motion by Stephen White to sign authority for Tony Bergeron, Road Agent to post roads, seconded by William Roach. All in favor. Unanimous.
Public Hearing opened at 7:10PM
Motion by Stephen White to accept layout of Class VI road to Class V road, seconded by Emma Smith. All in Favor. Unanimous. Public Hearing closed at 7:14PM.
Motion by Stephen White to accept Edward Frothingham’s appointment to the Zoning Board, seconded by William Roach. All in Favor. Unanimous.
Tony Bergeron-Green-up Clean-up Day.
Tony met with a group of people who would like to have a green-up clean-up day on Saturday, May 2nd. The group are looking for sponsers and Tony wanted the Highway Department to be one of the sponsers. Motion by Stephen White to support Tony Bergeron with the sponsership of a green-up clean-up day on May 2nd, seconded by William Roach. All in Favor. Unanimous.
Town Manager’s Report
NHMA – Part 2 of membership meeting Monday, March 2nd. The meeting will discuss the Governor’s budget. Someone needs to be the Town’s delegate and vote in the room and maybe send some messages forward. Motion made by Stephen White to select Donna Nashawaty to be the Town’s delegate at this meeting. Seconded by William Roach.
The Governor has come out and stated that they are going to take the Revenue Sharing for the next 2 years, the Meals and Rooms Tax for the next 2 years, and cut the State Retirement contribution from 35% to 30%. The town will need to make up the difference, which is a huge amount of money $170,000 plus an additional payable of a couple thousand. Maura Carroll, General Counsel wanted to be able to trade off some of those, don’t touch our Meals and Rooms Tax, but lets look at block grants, gambling or what a 1% increase in other taxes might gain. At this point they don’t know what the Federal stimulus money for the schools will be. They say they will take this money from the Towns, but will replace extra with the Federal aid to schools. What the Governor has said if he takes our revenue sharing and
meals and rooms tax money the municipal side of the budget actually loses that for revenue, but he will replace that more dollar for dollar with school aid.
No one has seen a table for the state aid, they’re working on that right now. We don’t know if the Federal Stimulus money is earmarked or must be used for certain projects. The premiss on what the Governor has said is what the Town’s tax rate ends up growing to be from the loss of revenue, the school’s tax rate will then go lower, making a net zero change to the Town. Donna explained that we would not be able to regulate this because the school does not report to the Town. The Governor’s office has not heard from enough people to believe this is an issue. Board of Selectmen should attend public hearing on state budget to be held in Claremont.
Selectmen’s vote on State Budget revenue raising measures:
Meals and Rooms Tax-Keep the way it is, no changes.
Communications Services Tax Increase- This tax was assessed upon two-way communications services. No opposition to the increase of 1% which would raise approximately $11M.
Legacy and Successions Tax- The tax rate of 18% was assessed upon property passing to collaterals or “strangers of the blood”. It was repealed in 2001. No opposition.
Retirement System changes to reduce costs of benefits-Keep the way it is, no changes.
Gambling-Against it.
Regionalization efforts: create economies of scale-The Town of Sunapee was used as an example because of our assessors. Maybe combining fire departments, police dispatch, anything that would be better covering a bigger area with ecomony to scale.
Oppose any changes in current tax structure that would decrease revenues.-No opposition.
Ann Nilsen took a college of life-long learning course in Lebanon on County Government and shared what she learned from the course with Donna Nashawaty.
Miscellaneous
Scenic Byway meeting is in New London. Donna will email the Board with the date and time.
Hazard Mitigation-Howard Sargent will present the plan on March 23rd.
Received quote from Maurer Signworks that fixes the price of the sign. The DOT will not come out while the snow is on the ground. We are going to add contigent on the DOT site approval to this quote.
Motion to adjourn: Unanimous Meeting adjourned at 8:39PM.
Submitted by,
Barbara Vaughn
Administrative Assistant Approved:
Richard Leone, Chairman Stephen White, Vice-Chairman
William Roach Frederick Gallup
Emma Smith
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