Select Board Meeting Minutes 10/6/22

Minutes of the meeting of 10/6/22

Meeting Opened at: 12pm

Select Board Members Present: Justin Makuc, Chair, Susan Cooper and Scott Jenssen

Also present: Sophia Bletsos, Mickey Jervas, Don Coburn

Present remotely: David Eisenthal

12pm: Meet with Sophia Bletsos, Human Resource (HR) Director to discuss the following items:

1. General updates: Interviews for Chief candidates will be next week (1 external and 1 internal based on the required qualifications), she is also working on the handbook and a meeting has been setup with the Town Clerk for next week as well as a separate meeting with one of the transfer station attendants.
   1. Department roundtables: Sophia supports monthly meetings as she feels strongly that this town needs to improve its culture and learn to interact with one another, it will also be good for all departments to know what each is doing, it really does benefit. Justin’s concerns are what time works for everyone and who exactly would be expected to come to the meetings.
2. Draft policy: anti-discrimination and harassment:
   1. History has shown that the Select Board is not the best set up to report complaints to due to lack of training and this is one of the main reasons that HR was hired. Susan said that this will put the Board in an awkward situation and some of the edits that Justin suggested may result in additional issues for the Town/Board. Justin explained his reasons for the edits he made, the main one being that HR cannot discipline or terminate employees so he wanted the procedure to be clear if that was the recommendation of the HR director after an investigation. Susan has reviewed roughly twenty policies from other towns and they are vague and she believes there is a reason for not over-specifying. Susan does not feel the Board is set up to perform investigations nor does she feel it is advisable.
   2. Open Meeting Law (OML) guidelines on Executive Sessions were discussed due to the recent email from the Division of Open Government.
   3. The Board agrees that day to day HR items to be addressed would not need to follow all of the steps in this procedure.  Sophia noted that even when an employee says “this is off the record” she is obligated to look into it.
   4. Justin will work with Sophia to rework the draft taking in all of the comments from today. Justin will also speak with Counsel on how specific or vague the policy should be.
   5. Susan wanted it noted that she had concerns about the edits that appear to second guess HR and repeat an investigation. Justin felt that it is the Board who makes any final decisions regardless of any recommendations from the HR director or another investigator. Susan understands but felt it should be stated more generally so that the Board is not locked into something and she would like to hear Town Counsel’s thoughts on the matter.
   6.  Justin will work with Sophia to rework the draft taking in all of the comments from today. Justin will also speak with Counsel on how specific or vague the policy should be.
3. Timetable for employee reviews and structure for department head reviews: Sophia noted that she and the Town Administrator have come up with an agreed upon timetable which Melissa will present later in the meeting.
4. Employee handbook: Sophia will begin working on the handbook as a whole instead of trying to do it chapter by chapter as that worked well in Sheffield.

12:30pm: The Board met with David Eisenthal of Unibank to discuss the upcoming loan renewal options to roll over the borrowing anticipation note for Library and to roll the borrowing anticipation note for highway equipment as well as paying down principal for amount not used. The bid sheet will be going out the 1st week in October, and banks will bid the week of October 17^th. Notes will need to be signed the week of the 24^th by at least two members of the Board and the Clerk and it does not have to be done in a public meeting. Settlement would occur on November 2^nd. It will be rolled for one year due to the rates rising quite a bit, the one year option also allows us flexibility in pay down options. Municipal purpose loan (combined purposed to achieve economies of scale as per MGL), one note for both items, on the books of the town it is separate borrowings.  The only requirement to follow through on the above noted plan is that at least two Board members, the Town Clerk and Treasurer need to sign the documents. The note renewal includes $170,373.79 for the dump truck and $875,000.00 remaining for the library building; there is also $353,405.00 unissued balance for the library building. A motion was made to move forward with the borrowing anticipation note in the amount of $1,045,373.79 for the library and dump truck for a one year note.  The motion was seconded and unanimously approved.

1. Plan for Special Town Meeting: Historically the Board has divided up the articles to speak to at Town Meeting and Justin inquired if the Board wanted to do the same for the meeting next week. The Board has also been made aware that the deductible for the Walker lawsuit will be $2,500 instead of the $1,000 planned for and this article may need to be amended on the floor. No one felt that the articles were contentious and all should be able to handle it collectively next week.
2. Early voting hours for the State election: The Board previously set hours but the Clerk has since proposed extending the Saturday hours and adding additional hours during the week (all of which fall within her normal office hours with the exception of the Saturday hours). Susan inquired why the Clerk is proposing more hours than the four hours required on Saturday the 29^th. The Board noted that the Clerk needs to make sure she stays within the hours she has budgeted for her department and if the additional hours do not push her over then she can work however many hours she would like. Susan proposed removing the extra hour. Scott suggested asking the Clerk why she added an additional hour before making any changes. Justin feels that the proposal is clear but if the Board wants more of an explanation then we can ask. Susan pointed out that this is another example of problematic communication as the Board set hours and the Clerk comes back with a counter proposal. Melissa Noe noted that this was precisely one of the reasons why she asked the Board last week to weigh in on “extra hours” and strongly suggested that the Board approve the policy that any extra hours that need to be worked must be given prior approval from the employee’s direct supervisor. A motion was made to set early voting hours as follows: October 26^th 10am to 7pm, October 28^th 11am to 7pm, October 29^th 9:30am to 1:30pm, November 2^nd 10am to 7pm and November 4^th 11am to 7pm.  The motion was seconded and unanimously approved.  Scott made a motion to return to the normal chain of command of the Town Administrator being the direct supervisor to the Town Clerk. The motion was seconded.  The motion was amended to resume written communications between the Town Administrator to the Town Clerk.  The motion was seconded and unanimously approved. Justin will properly advise the Clerk of this change.
3. Susan noted that an item from a previous agenda (a draft memo concerning the use of town hall) was never addressed and she would like to finish it today. This will be added to the next meeting agenda.
4. A motion was made to appoint Kathryn Roberts as the Administrative Assistant/Council on Aging Outreach Worker with a 3 month probationary period and no term limit. The motion was seconded and unanimously approved.
5. State of the school house: Justin stated that the last he could remember the highway was going to seal up the building and have the pest issue resolved; he is not sure what the current status on this is, but thinks the Board should consider what should be done with the property as its current state is not benefitting the town in any manner. If the Board wants to keep up with the maintenance and it gets on the historic register there may be funds available to help, it is not improving the situation by leaving it alone. Justin volunteered to prepare a briefing on the current state.
6. Town Administrator items:
   1.  Melissa reiterated what she and Sophia felt with regard to department roundtables and would like to institute with best effort to attend for at least a year going in with a positive attitude to build a more positive cohesion and exchange of ideas. Monthly department head meetings held by HR and the Town Administrator will bring together various department heads for adequate flow of information and sense of cohesion. A motion was made to institute these monthly department roundtable meetings and make them compulsory in the spirit of cooperation for a 12 month trial. The motion was seconded and approved 2 – 1 with Justin voting against. Scott asked about whether people would be paid for this and would this create any budget issues. Susan asked if there would be any other concerns. Justin understands cooperation and working together, but suggested that this could send a negative message if a department has been running well and this places another burden on them. Justin also feels that this is another plan rolled out with unanswered questions, such as a date and time that work for all people expected to attend this meeting since some of them operate on completely different schedules. Susan was concerned that Justin feels these are negative and added it would never be her assumption that these meetings have a punitive implication.
   2. A motion was made to accept the $100 police donation from Daniel Robbins. The motion was seconded and unanimously approved.
   3.  A motion was made to accept the Medex renewal for 2023.  The motion was seconded and unanimously approved.
   4. The Board reviewed the proposed timetable for employee reviews and structure for department head reviews. Sophia and the Town Administrator have come up with an agreed upon timetable which will entail all reviews being completed during January for the previous calendar year and submitted to the HR Director and Town Administrator no later than February 15^th.  The Board agreed to the timetable. Justin requested a chart of each employee who will be reviewed and by whom they will be reviewed, the HR director and TA will work on coming up with this chart.
7. Review mail & correspondence received or to be sent:

1. Letter from the Southern Berkshire Regional School District School Committee regarding the 8 Town Regional School District Planning Board. Don Coburn, a member of the Committee, stated that their letter came up at the last meeting of the RSDPB and received a good amount of discussion which resulted in a unanimous vote to have a facilitated meeting to further air out any issues which boiled down to personal relations not the fundamentals of the proposal.
2. Response from State Representative Pignatelli regarding parking fees for State Forests

1. A motion was made to approve the amended minutes of 9/14/22.  The motion was seconded and unanimously approved. A motion was made to approve the amended minutes of 9/21/22.  The motion was seconded and unanimously approved.
2. Unanticipated business:
   1. Scott asked that the owners of the General Store be invited to come in with an update on the status of the store.
3. Comments & questions from the public:
   1. Don Coburn inquired about why the September 28^th minutes have not been posted on YouTube. Justin explained it is because it contains an executive session, and we are working on a solution with IT to edit out the executive session part of the video so that the open meeting portion can be posted.

A motion was made and unanimously approved to adjourn the meeting at: 2:06pm

Submitted by:

Melissa Noe, Town Administrator

Approved by:

Monterey Select Board

cc: Website (www.montereyma.gov)

Select Board Members

Minutes Book

Town Clerk

Any documents used in the meeting are listed below and are available by request at town hall.

1. Draft anti-discrimination and harassment policy
2. Municipal note sale information
3. Medex renewal
4. Early voting hours proposal
5. Letter from the Southern Berkshire Regional School District School Committee regarding the 8 Town Regional School District Planning Board
6. Response from State Representative Pignatelli regarding parking fees for State Forests