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Select Board Meeting Minutes 10/3/23

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Meeting date: 
Tuesday, October 3, 2023

Minutes of the Select Board meeting 10/3/23

Meeting Date: Tuesday October 3, 2023

Meeting Opened at 6:00 pm

Select Board members present: Justin Makuc, chair; Susan Cooper, Frank Abbott

Also Present: Melissa Noe, Mickey Jervas, Don Torrico, Rian Dowd, Laurie Shaw, Dennis Lynch

Also present remotely: Laurie McArthur (SB secretary), David Eisenthal, Don Coburn, Sara Hunter, Sophia Bletsos

Call to Order 6:00 pm

  1. Local Building Inspector Appointment: Rian Dowd

Justin moved to appoint Rian Dowd for a term of two years as a local building inspector.Susan seconded.Call a vote: Justin-yes, Susan-yes, Frank-yes.

  1. 6:00pm: David Eisenthal (Unibank) and Sara Hunter, Treasurer, to review loan renewal options for November

David reported that the town has approximately $1.2 million worth of notes that mature on November 2, 2023.  This includes the remainder of the Library project and two equipment loans.  The options are to renew the notes for one year or they could opt for permanent state house loan notes. 

David recommended renewing the notes for one year and reported that the interest rate will likely be over five percent.  David said that in a year, permanent financing may be a better option than it is now.  He said that Sara will take bids on the loans the week of October 16th, and the Select Board would sign documents on the 23rd of October.  Justin reviewed the amounts for the current notes and outlined them to be $44,000 for one highway truck, $56,815 for the tandem axel, and $135,000 for the Library loan approved at Town Meeting, and additionally the Library received $100,000 of LEED money to put towards the principal paydown.  Sara clarified that the town has an additional $22,073.79 pay down of previously unused funds also designated for pay down of the tandem axle truck, which was available due to an error made last year. 

David offered to work with Sara to produce recommendations that the Select Board can review, and that will allow Sara to bid on the notes, and then the Select Board would have the paperwork on October 23rd.  Susan asked if the longer term state house loans allow for early principal payments to reduce the loan.  David explained that the longer term state notes usually preclude early principal payments, which is another reason for the town to use the one year notes at this time.

  1. Human Resources Director resignation, exit plan and work priorities for the next month.

Justin clarified that Sophia will be working with the Town of Monterey for the remainder of October and would be resigning at the end of the month.  Sophia said that she has had a discussion with the Town Administrator and will identify important topics that will need to be prioritized.  Sophia said that she was unsure if she had all comments but would complete the work on the handbook prior to her departure.  She is reviewing the performance reviews to complete basic amendments that arose, as well as formatting changes and some general changes that had been confusing during the process.  Sophia said that she will speak with Marie Ryan, West Stockbridge’s Town Administrator, to ask permission to be in Monterey on Tuesdays in October.  Sophia said that she was also going to look into the department meetings to see if she can organize some topics and help them to continue to evolve.  Justin said that he wanted to make sure that Sophia’s time was well utilized for the remaining time she was here. 

Melissa clarified that performance reviews would be scheduled to be completed in February.  Susan raised concern about the timing of the review cycle.  The Board has set a budget deadline for departments in mid-January, and the hope was that personnel reviews would be completed in time to incorporate potential raises in those budgets, so completing them before the budget cycle makes emminent sense.  Justin said that he thought it would be helpful to complete the handbook.

Frank said that the employee handbook would be an important task to complete, backing up the Town Administrators job description and Board policies.  Frank asked if they should consider a consultant and reported that some of the other Towns are not interested in bringing on a new HR director, so Monterey would be alone on this part.  Susan asked how many hours of consultant work a week would be appropriate for Monterey.  Sophia said that a lot of her function is overlapping with the work the Town Administrator currently completes.  Melissa said that she believes that the list of responsibilities could be completed in the time frame.  Justin said that they will have to solicit proposals and conduct interviews.  Justin said that he would be open to entertaining both options, but Susan noted that it may be challenging to find someone outside of a consultant position at this time. 

Justin said that the Town signed on through June 30, 2025, and there is a financial obligation in the Inter Municipal Agreement between five towns.  Susan asked if there was a contingency in the event the agreement dissolves.  Justin said that he will give Sophia his employee handbook comments this week.  Susan and Frank said that they have already sent their comments along. 

  1. Sign Special Town Meeting warrant.

Justin said that he thought that a Saturday meeting made sense for Monterey, but six of the eight towns in the Regional School District Planning Board agreed to hold their meeting on Monday October 23rd.He said that if a single town votes no, then the agreement fails. Justin said that they may have a discussion to see if they can proceed with fewer towns in the event the vote failed.Justin reported that Monterey was considering holding the meeting on Saturday October 21st, but after some discussion said that he understood the reasoning for holding the meeting on Monday October 23rd.

Justin said that his vote would be to hold the Special Town Meeting on Monday October 23, 2023.Justin discussed limitations on the voting process if one town were to vote no on an earlier day than the designated meeting date for other towns.The Board agreed to hold the STM on Monday, the 23rd.

The Select Board agreed to have a few printed copies of the Warrant and proposed Regional Agreement available at the Town Hall, the Library, and the Transfer Station, and to put an easy link to the full RSDPB document on the Town’s loading webpage

 

The Select Board reviewed each of the individual articles for the Special Town Meeting warrant.Justin moved to approve the Special Town Meeting warrant.  Susan seconded.  Call a vote:  Justin-yes, Susan-yes, Frank-yes.

  1. Recognizing outgoing Director/Coordinator of Monterey Community Center

Laurie Shaw said that they would like to recognize Mary Makuc for the work she has completed for the Community Center.Frank made a motion to recognize Mary Makuc’s contribution at the next Select Board meeting.Susan suggested making a certificate of appreciation.Dennis said that the Monterey Community Center would be willing to help assist with creating a letter of recognition.Susan offered to assist the Community Center with drafting the letter of recognition.

  1. Review Town Administrator job description

The members of the Select Board reviewed the different categories of the Town Administrator job description.  Justin said that the Finance Committee should be involved, but the Town Administrator needs to ultimately report to the Select Board alone.  Melissa discussed the added role of being appointed assistant Town Clerk in order to be able to accept paperwork for the Zoning Board of Appeals.  Justin discussed concerns with adding additional roles and positions to the Town Administrator role.  Susan said that she understood the reasoning for this appointment since the Town Clerk was the only one who could accept paperwork for the Zoning Board of Appeals, and the Town Clerk only had 10 hours of availability per week.  Justin said that he was ok with the Town Administrator acting as the Zoning Board of Appeals secretary and the Board of Health secretary, but felt the Clerk position should remain separate  Melissa said she would create a clean copy of the Town Administrator Job description for the Select Board, for approval by the Board next week. 

  1. Treasurer contract

Melissa reported that the Treasurer has created a scope of services where she does not agree to taking the seven-and-a-half hours out of the contract due to some services and requirements that have been asked of her which would require additional hours.  Melissa said that the Treasurer would like to clarify the scope of the position. 

Melissa suggested that they wait and see what the treasurer comes back with regarding the contract.  Melissa said that some tasks do take more time than others and there is the possibility that at times it could take more than seven and a half hours.

  1. Town server

Frank said they met with Roger McDonald, and reported that the SB needs to choose whether we wish to have back-up only with a physical server in the building, only on the cloud or to utilize both as an additional level of security.  He believes the combination is best practice.  Frank spoke with Mari over the weekend, who said that if there was a physical server at the Town Hall then she would put her tax software on the server.  Mari had informed Frank that there is a fee of $1700 to store the software on the cloud, which is not in the current Tax Collector’s budget.  Frank said that if they have the server, then they would have to purchase software.  Frank reported that Melissa was going to look into a grant for some of the software and a firewall, which would total approximately $10,000.  Justin supported maintaining a physical server in Town Hall and a cloud server for redundancy.  Susan said that they do not want to be in a situation where critical records are unable to be accessed in the event there is no power. 

  1. Town Administrator Items:
    1. Medex renewal for 2024

Melissa reported that the Medex renewal payment for retirees for calendar year 2024 had a .07percent increase and she said that the Select Board would need to approve and vote on the increase. 

Justin moved to approve the Medex renewal for 2024.  Susan seconded.  Call a vote:  Susan-yes, Frank-yes, Justin-yes. 

  1. School building insurance renewal for FY23

Justin reported that it was $108 dollar extra for the terrorism premium.Susan said that they need to decide what to do with that building.Justin reported that this was the only school building owned by the town.Justin said that one option would be to sell the building. Frank and Susan said that they would be open to selling the building.Susan said that she has not heard of any viable plans for the school.Susan said that parking was an issue for the building as well and they may need to acquire a variance.Susan suggested seeing some proposals and costs for what they could do with the space.

Justin moved to approve the insurance renewal.  Susan seconded.  Call a vote:  Susan-yes, Justin-yes, Frank-yes. 

  1. 1Berkshire’s request for letter of support

Justin moved to approve the 1Berkshire’s request for letter of support.  Susan seconded.  Call a vote:  Susan-yes, Justin-yes, Frank-yes. 

  1. Request to use funds from the Community Development Block Grant unrestricted monies.

This will be tabled until next week. 

  1. Draft Town Report

This will be tabled until next week.

  1. Unanticipated business

Frank reported that the Berkshire Regional Transportation committee wanted to meet once a month for the next five months. 

Justin said that the Town Meeting will meet at 6:00pm and asked if the Select Board thought they should hold a public meeting to answer questions in advance.  Susan asked how many of the questions would be repeated during the actual Town Meeting.   Justin clarified that they would be voting on the Warrant article and the 44 pages of the proposal.  Susan said that they can either vote it up or down.  Susan discussed concerns with the administration and how the new administration would be drawn with a new building.  Frank discussed how the educational costs would also increase. 

  1. Comments & questions from the public

There were no comments or questions from the public.

  1. Approve minutes of 8/28/23, 9/12/23, 9/19/23

This item will be tabled until next week. 

Justin made a motion to adjourn the Select Board meeting.  Susan seconded.  Call a vote:  Susan-yes, Frank-yes, Justin-yes.  Meeting adjourned at 8:18pm. 

 

Documents used at the meeting:

  1. Signed Special Town Meeting Warrant
  2. Draft Town Administrator Job Description
  3. 1Berkshire’s request for letter of support
  4. Medex renewal
  5. School building insurance renewal
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