WILLIAMSTOWN SELECTBOARD MEETING

January 3, 2011 - Monday 7pm

Williamstown Middle/High School Library

MINUTES

PRESENT: Larry Hebert - Chair, Francis Covey, Art Stone, Bill Ashe

Absent: Rodney Graham

Town Manager: Garrett Earls

VISITORS: Horace Duke Jr., Mike Sprano, Attorney Paul Gillies

At 7 p.m. Larry welcomed everyone to the January 3, 2011 Williamstown Selectboard meeting.

SELECTBOARD MEETING

Announcements: Larry asked for a brief Executive Session for personnel.

Francis reported the committee members for the Veterans Memorial are Becky Watson, Ed McGlynn, Paul Zeller, Phil Piro and Francis. They met and would like to have an Article for Town Meeting asking the voters to negotiate to acquire that property off Route 64. The veteran's memorial would be fairly large so the area would fit the criteria. The bridge project is coming up for finalization, the state offers it to every department and then if no one wants it then it's offered to the town.

Visitor's Comments:

Nothing at this time.

Review and Approval of Warrants:

Bill moved to approve SB78 and seconded by Francis. No discussion and the motion passed by voice vote 4-0.

Francis moved to approve payroll warrant of week 12/5 to 12/18/2010 and seconded by Bill. After a short discussion the motion passed by voice vote 4-0.

Approval of Minutes:

Francis moved the minutes of December 20, 2010 Selectboard meeting. Seconded by Art. After a correction the motion passed by voice vote 4-0.

Bill moved the approval of the December 21, Selectboard/Finance Committee meeting. Seconded by Francis and the motion passed by voice vote 4-0.

Manager's Report:

Garrett presented the Board a schedule for brush cutting and thinning/trimming.

Garrett asked if the Board could next week stop in to sign a warrant for VEMERS because it did not make the current warrant. The Board will sign the warrant for payment.

Lastly he wanted to put out there would the Board consider 2 plaques one for Rachel's' Garden to Bernie and Rachel Duff and the other to Stan Corneille for his work on the project. Art mentioned that Becky Watson is asking about a cover for the bridge. She has someone to make a plan for it. Dubois & King would have to review that during the warranty period.

Art said on Pleasant Street there is a telephone pole leaning over the road and one of the lines laying on the ground. Garrett will call FairPoint.

Unfinished Business:

Articles for Town meeting

The Board reviewed the articles:

Shall the voters authorize returning $96,275 borrowed in 2008 to purchase an ambulance to the Town's Fire Truck Reserve Fund and authorize the water fund to borrow $17,000 from the Town's fire truck reserve fund for a term of for a term of eight years at 3% annual interest for the purpose of repaying outstanding obligations arising from the Graniteville Road waterline reconstruction project?

Everyone was in agreement with this article of getting the accounts back in order.

Shall the Town vote to appropriate any surplus from the General Fund with $42,000 to the Public Building Safety Reserve and the balance to reduce taxes in the General Fund?

This article is for last year when the Town voted to use some of the Surplus Fund to fund the Public Safety building it was called general fund surplus and it was not. There was no surplus in general fund. The surplus was actually in the highway fund. It was all combined together so it looked like it was surplus. That is why we are doing some of stuff to get rid of that water line loan so we won't have that happen again. Another thing based on the accountant's recommendation is to vote on the general and highway fund separately.

Shall the Town vote to appropriate any surplus from the Highway Fund with $100,000 to the Equipment Reserve and the Balance to Paving Reserve?

The reason behind this is years past money was not put in to match the replacement equipment schedule before our time.

Shall the Town vote to appropriate the sum of $20,000 to Fund a part-time deputy from the Orange County Sheriff's Department?

Instead of putting this request into our budget the Board decided to let the people decide if they thought there is a need for that.

All the Articles were approved by consensuses.

Attorney Paul Gillies attended to speak about the Town's Charter Change the Board is proposing. He said the last time he was here the topic was how the Board didn't have the authority to ask the Treasurer for reports and you just had to live with what you had. We talked about how we could supplement that or over come that. One certain way was to adopt a Town Charter. Paul presented the Board with a draft that has three purposes: eliminates some unnecessary offices which are no longer important, it institutionalize your conflict of interest policy into something serious, but principally it converts the Treasurer from an elective to an appointed position and gives this Selectboard the authority to ask for records and receive them on a monthly bases as suggested, as well as to adopt policies of keeping of the finances by your actions and the Treasurer would be bound to follow them.

Larry explained the reason behind this is the Board has worked with the Treasurer to try to get timely reports, asked for monthly reports where the town stood financially with expenditures, revenues and balances in funds. The Treasurer also worked on the Policy Committee to help write these policies. We were suppose to have monthly reports starting July 1st, the first meeting in December we received the first report, five months after the fact. That's why, very obvious, to the Board this is not going to work. We need to have something for this Treasurer and future Selectboard's. The Manager needs to know where he is at, Listers need to know where money is at, no one can run a business not knowing where you are. We are in charge of running the Town and you just can't do it without the numbers to do it. Hopefully people will understand the position we are in and correct this for the future. Williamstown is not the first town to have this happen or other towns would not have done it. Bill spoke it is relevant to note and included in the packet tonight the Treasurer's report from fiscal 2005, also states an opinion of the Treasurer that the treasurer's position should be hired and not elected. All the Board members are in agreement and will sign the Warning and Notice and the Proposed Williamstown Governance Charter. Bill moved we go forward with the proposed public hearings for a charter change that would change the treasurer's position from an elected position to an appointed position by the Selectboard. Francis seconded, no discussion and the motion passed by voice vote 4-0.

Budget Approval for Town Meeting:

Larry thanked the budget committee of Kamala Chouinard, Charles Kunkle, Mike Sprano, not on the committee, for his comments, Garrett Earls -Town Manager, along with the Selectboard members. After the work of the budget committee the general fund budget will be not only level funded the last three years but this year will be reduced by $5, 091.50. The highway budget the same, level funded for the third year but reduced $7,457.00 from the previous year. If the town articles go as we plan at town meeting water & sewer budgets will be reduced by a combined total of $14,848. Changes were done with insurance companies to change the cost; departments did a good job of keeping things in line. Only one thing Rodney thought was out of line in the cemetery budget was the use of fertilizer. That amount of fertilizer was unnecessary. The committee is elected so the Board does not have much say in the way they spend the money. In fiscal 10 they were within of $50.00 of spending the entire budget. Bill motioned we have been through the budget line by line twice and he was inclined to vote it's approval to go to the voters, seconded by Francis. No discussion and the motion passed by voice vote 4-0.

Salvage Yard - Hebert Road:

Larry did meet with the resident and she told him that they have been back and forth with Community Action helping them out with the salvage yard thing. She wasn't sure but they pretty much have given up on it and have started to remove some cars out of there. Larry asked them to come to the next meeting to explain it.

New business:

Terry Knight - Petition for a Re determination:

Garrett explained she is asking the Board to approve having this property taken off the list they use to compile the CLA to the state. She feels it is throwing the CLA off. Francis motion we take Terry's suggestion and ask the state to remove the sale of this property from the study for the CLA. Seconded by Bill and the motion passed by voice vote 4-0.

Purchase of FairPoint Bankruptcy Claim:

Garrett said he received this from a company that was looking to buy bankruptcy claims and after looking it over he thought it should be tabled. By consensus the Board agreed.

Visitor's Comments:

None at this time.

Around the Table:

Francis: Just wanted to say again that the Veterans Memorial will be a great thing for Williamstown and would like to see a lot of people involved in it. We have folks involved in current conflicts going on so this is something I think most people in town would hold dear to their heart. He thought as a town we should be more proud of our military because he didn't think we could be proud enough of what they have done for us and in the past.

Bill: He followed up on what Francis said and he ran into Ryan Pelky a young fellow from Williamstown who Bill knew from the fire department. He has been on one tour in Afghanistan and is being reassigned to Afghanistan in April for his seconded tour. Bill couldn't agree more with Francis.

It has occurred to Bill about the crosswalk being put down by Pump & Pantry, a crosswalk primarily for the use of elderly persons in a forty mile speed zone is concerning. He wanted to know what we could do. Francis said it being a state highway we would need to petition the state. Garrett will look into it for the next meeting.

Art: He thought a memorial would be nice in town and he didn't think we do enough for people away from home fighting for our freedom. He would like to see a Memorial in town. He also would like to see more people taking interest in our meetings, visitors come up with some good ideas and some things we are not aware of.

Larry: Wished everyone a Happy New Year and hopefully it will be good for everyone. Now that we have this new sidewalk and bridges the only complaint he heard was ice. We need to look into something to sand the sidewalks. Garrett will speak to Bob Hood

who plows the sidewalks.

Francis made the motion to come out of the regular Selectboard meeting and go into a brief Executive Session to discuss a personnel issue. Seconed by Art and the motion passed by voice vote 4-0.

Entered Executive Session at 8:25 pm and came out at 8:50 pm.

Motion made by Bill , seconded by Francis to adjourn the Board of Selectman with a voice vote of 5-0 at 8:55 pm..

Approved 3/17/2011