TOWN OF WILLIAMSTOWN
Board of Selectmen
Williamstown Middle/High School Library
January 18, 2010

MINUTES

PRESENT: Larry Hebert - Vice Chair, Chris Peloquin, Rodney Graham, Art Stone, Bill Ashe

Town Manager: Garrett Earls

VISITORS: Kathleen Lott - Northfield News, Mike Sprano, Al Day, Vincent Deleone, Stanley Wood, Robert Boule, Frieda Hollyer, Theresa Knight, Barbara Graham –Assist. Clerk, Deborah Palmer – Town Clerk, John Taylor, Allen Chouinard – Simons Operations

SELECTBOARD MEETING

Larry Hebert, Selectboard Vice-Chair opened the January 18, 2010 meeting of the Williamstown Selectboard at 7:00 p.m. Larry asked to change the Agenda around with under Unfinished Business – Rock of Ages Appeal moved to Executive Session. Under New Business – Selectboard Vacancy moved so we can seat another Board Member. Only one name was submitted, Bill Ashe. Chris moved to appoint Bill Ashe to fill the unexpired term that was just recently created. Second by Rodney. Motion passed by voice vote of 4-0. Barbara administer the oath of office and Bill joined the Selectboard.

Announcements:
Chris explained he needed to leave the meeting by 9:55. p.m.

Visitor’s Comments:
None at this time

Review and Approval of Warrants:
Larry wanted to speak of something that the Town Clerk brought to him and the Manager’s attention that is on the check warrant for the Department of Fish and Wildlife for payment of $279.00. Deborah explained the beginning of every December we receive a packet of the following year’s licenses. An inventory is done and then we sign off that we received them. There were two pages of tags missing. It’s clear we never received them as they had no staples marks to indicate they were included as times before. She called the State and they said you signed off on them so you owe the money. Rodney made the motion to approve check warrant SB30. Chris second. A discussion followed and motion passed by voice vote 5-0.

Approval of Minutes:
Chris made the motion to approve the December 30th Finance Committee minutes. Second by Rodney. No further discussion and the motion passed by voice vote 5-0.
Chris motion to approve the January 4th Selectboard minutes. Second by Rodney and passed by voice vote 5-0.
Rodney moved to accept the January 6th Finance Committee minutes. Art second. A correction was made and the motion passed by voice vote 5-0.

Manager’s Report:
Garrett reported that Liesl Wulff volunteered to be the Town Coordinator for Green Up Day.
The Town is in need of a Health Officer as of March 1st. Martha Martin has resigned and will finish through the month of February.
Garrett was asked to have an estimate for a survey of Young Road. It is between $2,000 and $2,500 from American Engineering depending on time researching in the vault. Chris asked the cost to extend the survey up to Baptist St. Garrett will check the difference in cost. Chris asked if this should wait till after Town Meeting when funds for Class 4 roads will be available, it would.
Garrett reported the sheriff’s office has a name and issued a ticket for the garbage that was dumped on Ferno Rd.
Rodney asked about Article 8 on the Town Report. What date do you use for delinquent names to be put in the book, it should say that. Garrett will check with Deb. Also the special appropriations, someone should be sure they service Williamstown in some way. In the latest Opinions from the Secretary of State, the general rule is the Town may only spend taxpayer’s dollars for social services and agencies that serve the community. He has heard there is one or two that do nothing for the Town of Williamstown. Garrett will ask Deb.

Unfinished Business:
High Street – Approval of Work Plan
Larry said Art Stone, Garrett Earls and himself met with Wayne Emmons, Vincent Deleone, Robert Boule and Stanley Wood at the end of High Street to go over the situation there. Everyone agreed the right of way on the map is where the Town’s right of way should be. They spent time looking at the survey and land then came up with a plan. The Town would at their expense realign this section of High Street and the Town would only maintain this section of roadway only. The estimate cost to the Town would be $10,000 without paving, $16,000 with paving. Larry read the plan to everyone. It explained Mr. Boule’s responsibilities of putting in a driveway at his expense. Art asked if everyone was still in agreement with what was discussed. Mr. Boule and Mr. Wood said some wording has changed. A discussion about a tree being taken down and it would come down when GMP said it had to come down. Mr. Wood thought the road was supposed to go to the Boule’s property. Larry said if you want to build a house there, fine but you will have to pay to build from where we stop, if we decide to do this, to your property line. If you want the Town to take it over you will have to build it to the Town standards and put a turnaround at the end so the Town trucks can turn around. Rodney said to allow Mr. Boule to put his driveway on one side of the center line in his mind is going to allow issues down the road when people start wanting to widen the road. Larry said in the plan it states he would have to do it all on the east side. Vincent was fine with the driveway moving to the west. The discussion continued and the Board decided the town road should be completed first and Mr. Boule should not start his driveway till then. Larry said the Board made a mistake issuing a driveway permit to Robert Boule now that we know the existing road is not in the Town’s Rt-Of-Way. Chris made the motion that we move on the presentation with the exception of the paving. Rodney second. Chris said the paving may fit well into what Garrett has in mind but that should be left up to him. The discussion continued and Larry was concern with the driveway permit that was issued to Mr. Boule. Now that we know the road is not in the town’s right-of-way he would like to see the driveway permit held until the town gets their work done. Then get a clear time frame when you will do your work. Chris said to work on specific roadways there needs to be a specific plan. Larry would like the driveway permit revoked till the Town has its work completed. Rodney wanted to amend to the motion to add that we will revoke the driveway permit till Mr. Boule comes in with an acceptable plan of work on a Class4 Road. Larry again reminded Mr. Boule not to do any work on that road till a new permit is issued. Chris restated the motion to approve the plan as presented with the exception of paving and we revoke the current driveway permit to be issued at a later date at no charge. Second by Rodney. Motion passed by voice vote of 5-0.

Al Day – Veterinarian Bill
Garrett updated the issue. He was instructed to have the Animal Control Officer reinvestigate the incident in front of the fire station concerning Mr. Day’s dog and another dog. The ACO did and the owner of the other dog agreed his dog was at large and accepted the ticket. Al Day asked the Board to have a second ticket issued for Mr. Wood’s dog biting his dog so he could get the vet bill paid. Larry read from the Selectboard previous meeting and Al asked for a ticket for a dog at large. Larry said the ACO did his job and issued a ticket. Rodney said the ticket that was issued should have been for the dog at large and biting as well in order to pay the vet bill. The ACO should send the bill and tell the dog owner he needs to pay the bill. Garrett said the ACO has talked to him and will have the ACO give him the bill with a copy of the Dog & Pet Ordinance. The Board was in agreement.

Rock of Ages Appeal
Moved to Executive session

New Business:
Selectboard Vacancy
Voted on at the beginning of meeting.

Homeshare Consortium Agreement
Garrett said the City of Montpelier is lead grantee and participating grantees are required to adopt a resolution to accept the grant agreement. This is about the third one the Board needs to sign. The form to be signed states the acceptance and responsibility of the terms and conditions of the Grant Agreement. It was the consensus of the Board to sign the agreement.

Around the Table:
Chris:
Chris asked Garrett for an update of the delinquent taxes. He reported the tax sales have been turned over to the attorney. The delinquent notices will be going out tomorrow. Asked how many tax sales and it is about 6-8.
Chris asked at the last meeting we were going to do something for Stan, has any thing been done. Larry said he is working on it and did not get if finished. He will try to get it for Wednesday’s night Finance Committee meeting.

Bill:
He has almost found his way through the paperwork. Rodney wanted to welcome Bill to the Board and Larry thought he would be a good asset to the Board.

Art:
Nothing at this time.

Rodney:
Nothing at this time.

Larry:
Nothing at this time.

Visitor’s Comments:
Allen Chouinard – Simons Operations said at the last meeting on the water meters, he had some clarifications of errors and issues. He wanted everyone to be aware of Simon’s Operations the meters were read and finished up on Nov 18th. The hand held unit was brought to Barre at 11:30 a.m. on the 18th. The readings were return to Allen 2:30 p.m. that afternoon. There were some errors but none in the hand held unit. There were errors from the hand held unit back to Bob’s computer, the NEMRC system we use for billing. Just so everyone is aware it was Allen who made the corrections November 24th and went through the whole list, about 80 mistakes and a good 20 of those were meter ID’s errors that he has been fixing over the last 5-6 years that still are not corrected. As of right now the new sheet he received in January those meters ID’s are still not corrected. If he reread tomorrow all those would get kicked out of the system. He wanted to let the Board know that Simon’s part was done in four days compared to two weeks. It went very well. The corrections that were done on the manual sheet he had done by December 1st. He made all the corrections and every reading that got kicked out he put in manually. He also gave Bob the old way we did it, hand held written sheets. Chris said he didn’t get the impression that blame was being placed on Simon’s. Allen said the error thing really bothers him because he corrected them not someone else. He said when you talk about going to an automatic system if the meter ID’s are not right it kicks it out. No one at the office has entered them. He corrected them again in November and has a print out from January 5th and the ID’s are still wrong. Art asked so you change your part but the office has not changed them. Allen said they have not. Larry asked which office did you turn them into and it was the Treasurer. Larry said it’s unfortunate we have little control over the Treasurer’s officer but can bring it to light.

Al Day said a while back he gave Chris a booklet he gotten at the Central Planning Commission, Revolving Loan Bank. The Planning Commission used to have a grant investigator and now we don’t have one. Larry asked if Chris Walsh was still working with them on updating the Town Plan. Larry suggested he ask him but has heard the Planning Grants have been put on hold.

Mike Spano asked if Allen gave his correct list to the Treasurer or the Town Manager. Whose job is it. Larry said the Town’s Treasurer does the billing. Rodney clarifies this, it is not the elected duty of the Treasurer to do water billing, but Bob Cleaves has done the water billing for the Town of Williamstown for several years.

Rodney made a motion to go into Executive Session for legal issues. Second by Chris. Motion passed by voice vote 5-0.

Entered Executive Session at 8:50 p.m. and came out at 9:40 p.m.

Chris motioned for Rock of Ages to apply CLA to $3,066,700. and write up a stipulation agreement. Second by Bill. Motion passed by voice vote 5-0.

Motion made by Rodney and second by Chris to adjourn the Selectboard meeting at 9:43 p.m. Motion passed by voice vote 5-0.

Approved 2/1/2010