WILLIAMSTOWN SELECTBOARD MEETING MINUTES PRESENT: Larry Hebert - Chair, Rodney Graham- Vice Chair, Bill Ashe, Francis Covey, Art Stone Town Manager: Garrett Earls VISITORS: Kathleen Lott – The Northfield News,
Kamala Chouinard, Allen Chouinard, Pete Gilbert, Rich Chambers, Mike Sprano,
Larry Ellison, John Jamieson, Robert Hood, Jr., Pierre Gilbert, Larry
Wiggins, Al Day, Becky Watson Larry called the June 7, 2010 Williamstown Selectboard Meeting to order. He asked for a motion to enter the Board of Water & Sewer Commissioners. Rodney made the motion to enter Water & Sewer Commission. Seconded by Francis. Motion passed by voice vote of 5-0. WATER & SEWER COMMISSIONERS Al Day – Water Issue, Walbridge Water System Al said he was still researching his position of the water problem on his property. It was decided to bring this back to the Board and asked Al to bring his paperwork to the Manager to be included in the Board packet. Pete Gilbert – Water Ordinance Pete looked at the Water Ordinance and no where does it say the flat fee charge is from the meter or the curb stop. Everyone he spoke with before thought it was charged to the meters. The policy does not say anything. He had Allen turn off one curb stop. He now would like to be charged for one meter and one curb stop. Also they found he has been charged for two sewers and he only has one. He would like the Board to drop that charge. On the one meter is only a thousand gallons, hopefully you will drop that at the same time. So he is asking to have one sewer and one meter charge dropped. Larry explained you would be only dropping the flat fees. Rodney said we had made a decision about two other meters, different situations that if they did not take the meters out they would be charged the flat fees. So have you removed one of the meters? He has not removed it. Larry said if you have service available to you, a curb stop, you are charged a flat fee whether you have a meter or not. In your case you would need to disable that second curb stop so it could not be turned on. Allen Chouinard said to start with it would be to shut it off, leave the meter in there and test it. If it works out he would go and pull up his second box off the rod. No one would be able to turn it on. Also the other meter would be removed. You would have one meter and one sewer. Larry said you are asking for is to be billed for one meter and one sewer. After 30 days to test it, if after the 30 days you will abandon the old meter. If you have a problem in the future you will have to put a one inch line in. Carroll Fuller – Water Bill Garrett explained Mr. Fuller did not receive his January water & sewer bill for his property on Railroad Street in January. The tenant left. The service was shut off last November. Larry said the Water Ordinance clearly says the landowner is the one suppose to be billed. He could not see how they could hold him responsible. The mistake was at Town Hall. Fran made a motion to bill the $200.00 and abate the $1352.10 to Carroll Fuller. Seconded by Rodney. Motion passed by voice vote 5-0. Larry Wiggins – Flat Fee Larry said the Board had told him to work it out with Garrett about the flat fees. Garrett did not have the authority and only can follow the policy. Larry’s situation is unique as he has one curb stop and two meters. No sub division – and the mobile home has been moved onto the house lot. He would like to keep the meter and didn’t mind paying the fee for the amount of water & sewer use. He would like to have the Board drop one flat fee because he only has one curb stop. He does have two meters and it would hard to remove one meter and still have access to both places. He has one curb stop that connects to two curb stops on his property. Larry said until he got it resolved he would have to keep paying double. Larry said they needed to reconvene the Water & Sewer Committee to review these issues. Allen will provide a list of those issues he knows about and provide it to the committee. Hopefully they will be able to come up with solutions. John Jamieson – Grandfather Spring Water Source He has a unique situation way back before Town Water & Sewer he put a thousand gallon concrete tank in that was his water supply for him and his son. Now he would like to use that water for his last unit which would be for himself. Years ago he made arrangements to have the town sewer for this lot but he would like to use that spring water. Fran said our Water Ordinance does not allow any wells to be drilled in the water district. Larry asked what if we allow this but if you sell you would hitch to the water district. He agreed to that. The sewer is charged with a flat fee based on an average water use. Fran made a motion to allow John to use his spring and pay the sewerage flat fee of $218.00 with the stipulation when he sells the place he makes sure it gets hooked onto the Town’s water system. Seconded by Rodney. Motion passed by voice vote 5-0. Robert Hood – Water Bill The Town allowed him after he was washed out in the flood a few years ago to tap on to Larry’s. The guy in the trailer tapped into it so there are three people with three meters that come down on the one curb stop. His problem is three bills ago he used 16,000 gallons. He has been waiting for his bill in January that he never received. A few people in his area did not get a bill. His bill was for 23,000 gallons and he only uses minimal water. The next day the new bill was coming out and it was for 11,000 gallons. He wanted to know how that could be and was asking the Board for 10,000 gallon abatement. Something is wrong with the meter. Allen said you have three lines hook on since 2007 and have no problems. The meters are new. Robert said the trailer had a leak all winter long and since it has been repaired his only has one faucet still jumping all over. Robert felt his pipes had air in them making his meter record higher readings. The Board asked to ask E. J. Prescott to see if air could cause the meter to jump and bring back the answer to the next Board Meeting before abating any charges. Rodney made the motion to move out of Water & Sewer. Seconded by
Francis and the motion passed by voice vote 5-0. SELECTBOARD MEETING Announcements: Larry said they were going to announce the citizen of the year but they were not able to attend tonight. It will be tabled to next meeting. Visitor’s Comments: Larry Ellison representing the Historical Society announced a benefit concert at the Williamstown Historical Society Museum, June 11th from 5-7 pm Larry reminded the residents of the public hearing at the Williamstown Middle /High School on the Town Plan. Review and Approval of Warrants: Bill moved to approve SB50, SB51, SB52, and SB53. Seconded by Rodney. No discussion and the motion passed by voice vote 5-0. Approval of Minutes: Rodney moved to approve the minutes of May 17th. Seconded by Francis. After a correction was made the motion passed by voice vote of 5-0. Manager’s Report: Parade: Garrett offered formal recognition and gratitude to Larry Hebert for use of his fields, plus everything else he did. Thanks to Avalon Tent for providing tents, chairs and tables for a very manual charge. Garrett thanked his daughter, Averill for doing the DJ services and his wife, Jennie, for coordinating the parade. Thank you to Bill Corrow for laying the wreath for the memorial services. Thanks to Barbara Graham for setting up the judging of the floats. Larry said on behalf of the Town and Selectboard personally thank Garrett and Jennie for all the work you did. You did a very good job. Larry thought having the parade at 5 pm had people staying around waiting for the firework was very good. Garrett spoke about the buffing compound that was brought up and even though it was expensive, it was needed for the truck that was sold which had paint that needed to be removed. It also is good for 3-4 more trucks. Next Garrett needed the Board’s input about paid holiday time for the road crew. The crew is now on 4 ten hour days and 3 holidays fall within the time. If a holiday shows up during that time it seems we are paying a ten hour holiday. Everything is based on a 40 hour work week and the other option is they would have to come in for two hours on a Friday to make up that forty hours. After a discussion Rodney motion that when the Town Highway crew is working 4-ten hour days and a holiday falls on one of them scheduled days they will be paid for 10 hours. Seconded by Francis and the motion passed by voice vote 5-0. Rodney asked about the report from the Treasurer and he had hoped Bob would be here. He asked Garrett if we would have enough money to the end of the fiscal year. A discussion followed and Garrett will ask with the Treasurer. Larry asked if we had received anything from American Survey on Young Road. Garrett said no and was asked to look into it. Francis asked when the parade signs will be taken down and Garrett will look into it. Unfinished Business: Policies: Accounting, Auditing & Financial Reporting Policy & Credit Card Policy Bill explained the Accounting. Auditing & Financial Policy requires that the Selectboard receives from the Town Treasurer at its first monthly meeting financial statements for the previous periods which we have received the last two meeting. There is still a question about what kind of report we would like to have. Basically the Accounting Policy specifies, the Treasurer will provide the Selectboard with a financial statement at the first meeting each month. A discussion followed about the report from the Treasurer, how and what ending date would provide the most accurate information on balances. Some members would like the Treasurer be in attendance for questions and it was suggested to email the Treasurer with any questions and then ask him if he could come to a meeting and answer them. Rodney wanted everyone to know the policies were written not for any one person but we are trying to write these policies that would be the best for Williamstown. Garrett said the polices were needed to have but there will always be changes that will occur. Next the Credit Card Policy basically the policy says the card is to be used for town business, to be used in a proper manner and take care of the credit cards on separation. Cards will be used by authorized users for authorized purposes. Rodney motioned to approve the Credit Card Policy and the Accounting, Auditing & Financial Reporting Policy for the Town of Williamstown. Seconded by Francis and the motion passed by voice vote 5-0. Red Flag Policy: Garrett explained if you go to page 5, Section 6: Program Updates that is the only sentence that makes any sense in this whole thing. IN THE EVENT UTILITY ACCOUNTS REQUIRE PERSONAL OR FINANCIAL INFORMATION THE TOWN WILL IMPLEMENT THE FOLLOWING. Just because of the way we operate, we deal with individuals, but use parcel ID’s not personal information. Rodney motioned to approve the Identity Theft Prevention Policy with the change to; Oversight of Service provider will include Selectboard or Town Manager. Seconded by Francis and the motion passed by voice vote 5-0. New Business: Purchasing Policy, Cash Receipts and Returned Check Policy, Conflict of Interest Policy, Procedure of Internal Control Bill reviewed the Purchasing Policy and explained its purpose is to obtain the highest quality goods and services for the Town. Bill continued to read the policy for everyone’s information. A discussion followed and changes made to the policy. Francis made the motion to accept with the revision in the bid process to say and/or advertisements placed in a newspaper of general circulation in the region. Bill thought that if you said the and/or you could read it that the or to mean all one would need to do was the advertisements in the newspapers. He didn’t think that was the intent. Francis revised his motion to say may. Seconded by Rodney and the motion passed by voice vote 5-0. Next the Cash Receipts & Return Check Policy purpose is to establish proper management practices over cash, checks, and other receipts in order to instill public confidence in Town Operations and to provide accurate, reliable and timely information upon which financial decisions can be made. Rodney made the motion to accept Cash, Receipts and Returned Check Policy with typo repaired. Seconded by Francis and the motion passed by voice vote 5-0. Bill continued with The Conflict of Interest Policy which purpose is to ensure that the business of this municipality will be conducted in such a way that no public official of the municipality will gain a personal or financial advantage from his or her work for the municipality and so that the public trust in municipal officials will be preserved. It is also the intent of this policy to insure that all decisions made by municipal officials are based on the best interest of the community at large. He read through it and all were in agreement. Francis made the motion to accept this Conflict of Interest Policy as written. Seconded by Art and the motion passed by voice vote 5-0. Lastly was the Procedures of Internal Control. The purpose of this document is to describe the procedures to be followed in the Town Office for handling money. Internal controls are procedures designed to minimize the potential for a misuse of funds, and to maximize the efficiency of the internal process of receiving money, documenting the receipt of money, properly entering the transactions into the Town’s bookkeeping system and depositing funds into the proper accounts. While Williamstown has a small office staff the goals within the internal control procedures are to assure to the extent possible that no single individual is able to a) authorize a transaction, b) record the transaction in the accounting records, and c) maintain custody of the assets resulting from the transactions. Bill said the policy may still need more tweaking and the intent was to try and outline what the procedures of internal control are currently and how money is handled. Bill felt this policy should be available to the auditor as our intent is to try to describe our internal procedures. Hopefully the auditor will have some suggestions. Garrett will pass this on to the auditor for review. Rodney said generally speaking and this will be up to the Board; generally the Board adopts policy, and generally does not adopt procedures so there is the ability for management to work with the procedures to tie them to the policy. The policy says what we want done and the procedures say how you are going to do it. Occasionally a Board will adopt procedures they feel are important enough not to be changed with out a Boards approval. So you can be thinking on that do you do want to approve them as a Board or work closely with management to be sure they are being followed. Larry noticed there was a place for the Treasurer to sign and suggested adding the Managers name for signature. Bill had two more policies to work on and asked for Board approval to contact VLCT for information which they did. Single Axle Truck Recommendation: A Truck Committee met and reviewed information provided to them. Ed Farnham the Road Foreman is going to do the negotiations for the new truck. The bids were really close around hundred twenty thousand and hundred thirty five thousand with the truck, plow and wing. Francis made a motion to spend up to a hundred thirty five thousand on a single axle truck fully equip. Art seconded it and the motion passed with a voice vote of 5-0. Rodney made a motion that the revenue of those two trucks that were sold at auction goes into the equipment reserve fund. Seconded by Art and the motion passed by a voice vote of 5-0. 45 Day Waiver – Triland Partners, LP Larry explained this is the proposed solar panel project. It came before the Regional Planning Commission and this project will go up by the Interstate. There is a 45 day waiting period unless it’s waived by the Municipalities, Planning Commission, and Regional Planning Commission. The Regional Planning Commission already waived it. It meets the Town Plan and has been signed by the Chair of the Planning Commission. Rodney made the motion that we grant the 45 days waiver notice to Triland Partners solar energy project. Seconded by Art. The motion passed by a voice vote of 5-0. Visitor’s Comments: None at this time Around the Table: Francis: Nothing at this time. Rodney: Nothing at this time. Bill: Nothing at this time. Art: He had one piece of information; the McCarthy building down by the post office is going to be torn down this summer and possibly a small office building will be built. Larry: To end on a positive note, Larry is very pleased things have transpired; the Policy Committee has worked very hard. The Water & Sewer Committee did a good job what they did even though it may not have seemed it. We have a little tweaking to do and we’ll get together to get that done. We have come a long way in the past year. It’s working out real good and hopefully it continues. Thank you for coming. Rodney made the motion to adjourn and Francis seconded. Motion passed
by voice vote 5-0. Approved June 21, 2010
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