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Select Board Meeting Minutes 9/7/22

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Meeting date: 
Wednesday, September 7, 2022

Minutes of the meeting of 9/7/22

Meeting Opened at: 12pm

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

Also present: Sophia Bletsos, Steve Moore, Frank Abbott,

Also present remotely: Jake Eberwein, Lucy Prashker

12:00pm Meet with Human Resources Director, Sophia Bletsos

  1. All agreed to the process for hiring Police Chief which will be initial interviews in early to mid-October performed by the current Police Chief, the HR Director and the Town Administrator. A selection of candidates will then be presented to the Select Board for final interviews. The advertisement will be posted tomorrow and will remain posted for at least a month.
  2. The Board agreed to continue consideration of the recommendations from Sophia on draft policies: non-discrimination, professionalism, and part-time employee vacation and holiday pay. Sophia recommends calling the professionalism policy a code of conduct instead. Justin noted that he will not be participating in the approval of any part-time vacation or holiday policy as his parents are both part time employees of the Town, and he thinks that decisions on these policies could affect their financial status. Susan would like to see the harassment policy finished as quickly as possible.
  3. Justin recused himself, after which the remaining members and Sophia briefly discussed the part-time employee vacation and holiday draft policy. It was agreed that Sophia will send Scott and Susan policy excerpts from other town’s prorated vacation and holiday policies to consider.  This item will be continued to a future meeting.
  4. The draft memo to send out to all departments clarifying the role of the Town Administrator will be continued to a future meeting, as will any possible edits to the job description to allow Justin to go over it with Melissa and Sophia. Sophia did not have concerns about the current wording that she reports to the Town Administrator (TA) as any directives the TA gives would be coming from the Select Board, but also had no objection to reporting directly to the Select Board.

Susan asked to hold next week’s meeting at noon to meet with Town Clerk, Terry Walker. Terry has said she is not available and would also like her attorney present.  Justin will request Terry’s availability for a meeting next week.

12:30pm Meet with Lucy Prashker and Jake Eberwein regarding the $15,000 request for funding from the 8 Town Regional School District Planning Board.  Lucy Prashker and Jake Eberwein provided a summary explaining why the request is necessary.  The funding is necessary to fund the next 12 months of operations. The Planning Board is continuing to work hard on advocacy with various state departments to support research and transition efforts.  The Board asked about the rural aid monies and if it increased at all for Southern Berkshire and Berkshire Hills for this year; Jake noted that the amount may go up slightly but the numbers have not been finalized yet. In the proposed budget, Justin noted there is $21,400 allocated for pre-k and 4-8 and he wanted to know why this was included in the budget if the regionalization is focused on the high schools in the proposed model. Jake explained that the emphasis is on the 9-12 grades, however the districts are still being merged into a single entity and it would be a positive to have all the staff interact moving forward. The Board inquired if the other towns have approved this request yet; Berkshire Hills is expected to move forward favorably, as is Alford. Egremont is the only other town that has met about this and the meeting unfortunately was cut short and the item tabled. Lucy explained that there are funds to get the Board through September 30th, if Berkshire Hills provides the $15,000 immediately that would take the Board through the end of October.  Ideally the Board would like to have the majority of the funds by December 1st.  For anyone interested, the monthly budget of the Board’s expenditures is available on the 8town website.  The Board thanked Lucy and Jake for their time and agreed to continue to consider the request.

  1. Justin will contact the Town Clerk about her availability for next week.
  2. Steve Moore was present to talk about his email of 7/27/22 regarding restarting the Select Board corner in the Monterey News.  It was agreed that the Board will work on a piece for this month that addresses items that the Board has been working on to keep the public apprised.  These would not be individual opinion pieces, but rather an article that the Board as a whole has approved for publication.  Justin will work on the first article about the tree work that is being presented at the Special Town Meeting.
  3. Draft Special Town Meeting warrant
    1. Steve Snyder was present to answer questions about the Parks Commission’s request for $10,000 to fix the ballfield.  The Board has requested the Parks Commission submit a summary of funds spent to date and funds that are already allocated for projects in FY23 to confirm that the Parks will not have the money to address the ballfield.  Steve agreed to work on this and get back to the Board before the end of the month.  The Board also requested quotes for the work of renovating the ballfield to know how much money is needed.
    2. The extent of the tree work needed at Bidwell Park and the Community Center was discussed as well as the Board’s thoughts on asking for these funds at the special town meeting. The Board will continue to discuss this.
    3. Elevator code upgrade: The Finance Committee will be discussing doing a reserve fund transfer for this item tonight.
    4. Request for Conservation Commission Agent line item: Justin reviewed the expenditures and revenues collected and recently the expenditures exceed the revenue collected. The Board discussed multiple options for funding additional hours. Melissa contacted the Accountant during the meeting and she verified that since the agent is currently paid from a revolving fund it would be allowable to overspend it and do a current year transfer at the annual town meeting to cover any deficits.  The Board will send a memo to the Conservation Commission about this and recommend that they consider raising their fees.
  4. The review of executive session minutes to determine if disclosure is appropriate was tabled to a future meeting as Scott did not have a chance to review the packet.
  5. The Board discussed the $8,737.31 bill from Jeremia Pollard for Hume lawsuit appeal which is more than double than was originally estimated ($3,500-$4,000). Justin will follow up with current Town Counsel to determine the Town’s legal obligation to pay this bill.
  6. Designate early voting hours, early voting location, and police coverage for State election in November: Justin will research the timeframes required and will make a proposal at an upcoming meeting. Melissa requested that the Board consider moving future elections from Town Hall to either the Community Center or back to the firehouse. Melissa said that the election in August was disruptive to Town Hall operations, she also suggested that the Board keep in mind that the recent election bulletins that came out stated that a check out table is not required and could save the town some money in staffing.
  7. Monies received from state for FY23 extended polling: Terry has confirmed that these grant monies are something that she has being receiving for years, and are not specific to early voting so she would not be in violation of using it even though the Town did not meet the new VOTES Act requirements for early voting for the primary; Justin will follow up with the Clerk one additional time.
  8. Susan has confirmed that the library is happy to let the Town use their bulletin board as an additional posting site for Town jobs and info of importance.
  9. Review mail & correspondence received or to be sent:
    1. The Board acknowledged that Hillel Maximon has submitted an Appointment Request Application for Finance Committee and discussed the fact that it was submitted long after the deadline for letters of interest.
    2. Susan reported that she spent several hours yesterday on trying to determine who sets the fees for state parks (Secretary of Administration & Finance). Susan will draft a letter to State representatives regarding parking fee for non-MA residents at Beartown State Forest to see if they are able to assist in any way.
    3. The Board discussed the Department of Conservation Notice of Proposed Land Acquisition.  The parcel is a 242 acre piece off of Beartown Mtn Road of which 105 are in Monterey, the rest is located in Tyringham. The applicable regulations require the disclosure of the Commonwealth Reasons for the proposed land acquisition, and public hearing held in town, where such real property is located. As requested the Board documented the announcement during the meeting.
    4. The Board noted receipt of a document from the Department of Fish and Game which is considering the purchase of a conservation restriction on land located in Monterey, abutting Mt. Hunger Road.
  10. Susan reported that she has received two letters from residents on Lake Buel concerned about noise from what was formerly Camp Half Moon, and is now under new ownership. Justin will be adding this item to next week’s agenda and will invite the neighbors to attend.
  11. Back in May when the Board first discussed holding a special election to fill the vacancy from John Weingold’s resignation, Susan stated that Justin had reached out to Terry Walker, Town Clerk, to see if we could hold the special election on the same day as the primary in September. Terry responded that we cannot do this, however Susan has recently learned and confirmed yesterday with the Elections Division that we could indeed legally have held the special election, in concert with the state primary. This would have saved the town a few thousand dollars and an additional election. Susan feels that if the Town Clerk did not know, she should have checked before giving an answer. Susan also noted that since the Clerk refuses to come to Select Board meetings it makes it difficult to confirm things such as this. Susan does not feel it is ideal to constantly have to check that answers provided by the Clerk are accurate. Susan understands that everyone makes mistakes, but accuracy and repeated mistakes are frustrating.
  12. Approve minutes of 8/31/22
  13. Comments & questions from the public: none

A motion was made and unanimously approved to adjourn the meeting at: 3:38pm

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. $15,000 request for funding from the 8 Town Regional School District Planning Board
  2. Parks Commission’s request for $10,000 to fix the ballfield
  3. $8,737.31 bill from Jeremia Pollard for Hume lawsuit appeal
  4. Hillel Maximon Appointment Request Application for Finance Committee
  5. Department of Conservation Notice of Proposed Land Acquisition
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