WILLIAMSTOWN SELECTBOARD MEETING

WATER & SEWER COMMISSIONERS

November 15, 2010 - Monday 7pm

Williamstown Middle/High School Library

MINUTES

PRESENT: Larry Hebert - Chair, Rodney Graham- Vice Chair, Francis Covey, Bill Ashe

Absent: Art Stone

Town Manager: Absent: Garrett Earls

VISITORS: Horace Duke Jr., Kathleen Lott - Northfield News, Irvin Stephenson, John Perkins, Mike Sprano, Milo Winters, Pete Gilbert, George Gilbert, Mary Gilbert, Wally Roberts

At 7 p.m. Larry welcomed everyone to the November 15, 2010 Selectboard meeting. First item was to enter the Water & Sewer Commissioners and Rodney made the motion to enter the Water & Sewer Commissioners and seconded by Francis. Motion passed by voice vote 4-0.

WATER & SEWER COMMISSIONERS

Town Manager - Abatement

Larry spoke for the Town Manager abatement for Barbara Jones. Her home was removed from Williamstown in March 24, 2008 per the Town Clerk. Rodney made the motion to abate the hundred dollar flat fee that was charged on March 13, 2010 plus the interest and penalty for the total balance of $112.00. Seconded by Francis, no discussion and the motion passed by voice vote 4-0.

Larry asked for a motion to come out of Water & Sewer Commissioners. So moved by Francis and seconded by Rodney. Motion passed by voice vote 4-0.

SELECTBOARD MEETING

Announcements: None

Visitor's Comments:

Milo Winters spoke of Halloween night some vandals went into the West Hill Cemetery tipped over and broke 11 monuments. He asked if any residents have any information to call the Sheriffs Department or the Town Office.

Wally Roberts explained the foam insulation has been installed in the attic of the Town Hall. On Tuesday the flooring will be installed and he is looking for help to move the files from the container and the back of the attic onto the new floor. Then they can insulate the back third of the Town Hall. Larry suggested they could rent a conveyer and you can't always do it on a Saturday because of the weather. He said doing it with the highway crew it could be done during the week. Rodney suggested contacting the Fire Department as well. Wally will contact Garrett to set it up.

Irvin Stephenson had two issues, one he went to the town garage looking for the kiosk and didn't find it.

The grader was in the back there, he wondered why it wasn't grading the roads. Larry said they needed to get the paving done on Chelsea Road.

Another thing, Representative Phil Winters was in touch with someone at the state and he says we can have as many crosswalks as we want. We only need to ask for them, did someone contact him. Rodney said no one knows the name of the person and he will contact Phil Winters and get the name of the person to contact.

Mary Gilbert said Garrett asked us, Mary and George Gilbert, to come in and explain the Town put in a turnaround for the town trucks and school bus. George Gilbert explained how much of his driveway was used to make the bus turnaround and it was about 50 yards. Larry explained at the last meeting someone said the town put crushed ledge on someone's driveway up there. He asked if the Town put crushed ledge on their driveway. Mary assured everyone that they paid for their own driveway and it was in before the Town made the turn around. Larry asked if that answered Irvin's question from last meeting. Irvin asked if they paid the Town for the driveway they answered they did not. Larry thanked them for coming and explaining.

Review and Approval of Warrants:

Rodney made the motion to approve payroll warrant week of 10/24 to 11/06, SB73 and SB74. Seconded by Bill. After a few questions the motion passed by voice vote 4-0.

Approval of Minutes:

Francis moved to approved the minutes of November 1, 2010 Selectboard meeting and seconded by Rodney. A correction was made and the motion passed by voice vote 4-0.

Francis moved the minutes of the Selectboard meeting as Water & Sewer Commissioners of October 25, 2010. Seconded by Rodney. A discussion followed and Bill asked for consideration of expanding the minutes to include more completely reflect the discussion. The minutes will be tabled to the next meeting to include addition discussion and Bill will email the details he would like to see added.

Rodney explained what the project was: the original contract was basically down Brockway Hill Road and the decision was made to have Hebert Excavation continued this additional 560 feet. The problem was there are twelve homes out there were on a one inch water line. So there was no way they could get pressure enough if more than one person was using the water. If we went further, we had to go around a property with so many feet to where the next hydrant was going to be. Then you could take all but four off the original main. Now there is only four homes left on the one inch line and the rest are hooked into the new main line plus there is a fire hydrant there for fire safety. We figured that project is done and everyone should be satisfied. The water pressure problems should be done. While we were there and had the easement to get that far it was a decision that we had enough money in the water fund to cover it so we made the decision to do that. Francis said we looked at this in a different way, a different route be taken that would have cost a lot more. There was going to be a second phase to that. Going this way kept the cost down considerably and gets it done now. So we thought as a Selectboard this would be the smart way to go about it. Garrett and Bernie Chenette took the number and put it toward the Osterberg project it would have been a hundred and twenty thousand, Francis said it would have been twice as much the way we considered it before. Larry said the volume up there the people at the end of the line they would have to take showers different times of the day so they would not run out of water. That has been going on for years and we had an opportunity to correct that problem by going a little bit further. Francis said also the safety feature with that fire hydrant. Francis motioned to tabled this until we have more complete minutes of October 25, 2010. Seconded by Bill and the motion passed by voice vote 4-0.

Manager's Report:

John Perkins knew Garrett asked the state to line stripe Chelsea Road and they didn't think they were so Garrett was asking L&D for a price to line stripe it. He didn't know if he did it yet but it does need to be done. Rodney asked when the bid was sent out it had to be 50° or above to pave and then we were told 40° or above. When they started paving it was in the teens. John Perkins said it was about 27° when they started, the mix was 340 when they got there and right after that it started to rise up and we had two days to do it. Rodney asked if we have any guarantee on it. John thought the Town would be satisfied with it.

Unfinished Business: Dubois & King - Nov. 15th Meter Deadline

Larry said today is November 15th and he asked the Board what they would like to do, take some legal action or something else. A discussion followed with the deadline of November 15th and what would the Board's decision be on the meter at the water plant. The meter did not work for reasons of low water flow causing it not to register the flow. The company is redesigning the meter as they had similar problem in other small towns. It has been three months with correspondence to Dubois & King. Larry said they are still in the design phase and it's not that they aren't going to replace it. Bill said they are not going to refund the money so it could turn into a legal squabble with a company over seas. The Board decided to give them three months to get some kind of correspondence to where this is and six months to get it installed. After the discussion the Board decided Larry and Garrett will set limits and forward to Attorney Paul Gilles to write the letter.

New Business: None

Visitor's Comments:

Kathleen Lott asked how long was the meter installed and when did you notice it didn't work. Larry explained about three years ago it was installed and right from the start it was notice, it did not work. She asked if you were only comminuting with Dubois & King and it was explained they were the engineers on the project. She asked if there was a warranty on the meter and there was. This new meter will be replaced for free under that warranty. Larry explained they will not give us the money back so we could buy another one. We would need to go to court to get that or try to work with them to replace the meter.

Around the Table:

Francis: Reported the Hoyt/Seaver sign is beginning to come together and will keep us informed of the progress.

Rodney: Nothing at this time.

Bill: He had one thing to bring up, were sitting here in the middle of November and other than the audit report, he thought was very well done, he has not seen a financial statement as to where we are in this year, five month in. He would encourage us to invite the treasurer to come to one of the next Selectboard meetings so we could have a discussion with him to see if there is a way for us to move forward and that we are able to have the kind of information we need in order to make informed judgments when spending tax payer's money. Other members agreed. Rodney just commented that our treasurer did return to work Monday being out of the country for six weeks. He has heard rumor he is going back in 3-4 weeks. Bill said we are making decisions on the dart board philosophy and it makes him uncomfortable. Rodney thought a bookkeeper would be the answer in a short term but he strongly believed in investigating maybe to start the process of a charter change. Bill though there was a systemic problem here, it's one has the ability of placing the tax payers in some jeopardy. He would like to start with an open conversation so that everyone is really informed what the issues are and what we are trying to do to resolve them.

Larry: He spoke of seeing Barbara Graham the other day about some town stuff, she just works part time and has been covering for the Treasurer for six weeks. Plus the Town Clerk has had some personal issues to deal with so she has not been in the office that much. So Barbara, that poor girl was in there and right out straight. She was definitely holding the whole place together. She deserves a big thank you for that. It was like one person doing ten peoples work. It isn't right and should not be that way. We definitely need to do something to rectify the situation.

Mike Sprano had an answer for Bill on why we don't have the financial report; he asked the treasurer today why they weren't coming in. He told Mike he asked for remote access so he could do that because he was going to be away. Larry said the treasurer made the comment if he had remote access he could probably get us something. He did not ask me for remote access and we have been down this way before. Why would anyone have six weeks vacation, right at the busiest time of the year with tax money coming in. Francis said we should have had a report before he left and we did not get one. Francis said we are not going to argue with you about this he thought they needed to talk to the treasurer not somebody that has talked to him. Rodney asked to make one more comment on this, he could not understand how we, the Selectboard could risk the town's money to allow remote access from a different country.

Larry asked for a motion to adjourn, so moved by Francis and motion passed by voice vote 4-0.

Approved 12/6/2010