##VIDEO ID:xlGjWIpWn88## e e e e e e right good afternoon everyone today is Tuesday January 7th 2025 it is 4 pm this is a meeting of the board of Selectmen is there a motion called meeting to order so move second all those in favor I this meeting will be audio and video recorded please rise for the pledge of leave Justice right everybody get up right all but Cala uh first item seasonal snow plow driver review matters presented votes may be taken uh we are going to hire a seasonal snow plow driver uh Mr gasman you said you worked on the rate of pay with the DPW that's right Mr chairman we came out with the average rate of pay to make it fluent and and Echo the B to everybody it's $30 an hour and from 7:00 a.m. to 4: p.m. and then anytime outside of those parameters will be time and a half $45 a Mr Kelly you need a motion to I need a motion to approve rate and to have us uh extend uh when they're driving our equipment that they are under our insurances so we thank all those in favor easy uh snow parking band reminder it's that time the year again um what side of the street is this one just the fire hydrant side fire hydrant side right that's the best way to put it yep all right the fire hydrant side anybody needs to know where the fire hydrant is check it and help out the uh fire department and dig them out as well it's cool right we also have a letter of resignation from our assistant Treasurer collector Colin Morel so please accept this letter as my official official resignation for my position as assistant treasur collector last day will be Friday January 3rd 2025 thank you for the opportunity to better serve our residents I wish you all well in your future endeavors um Carla will be missed I have spent a lot of time talking to caller and I appreciate everything she did and I wish her well and I would accept a motion to accept her letter of resignation of regret so move second all those in favor Mr chairman if I could on Call's behalf I just like to thank Kal Mor for her outstanding um work ethic in the town of Acushnet um you will be solely missed by me and many others ker you did a fantastic job in the town of a chriset you always have the town of a chriset taxpayers and residents at interest all the time anytime you I ever spoke to you it was always about our town so thank you very much for that commitment to our town unfortunately we have another letter of resignation we have letter of resignation from Manuel gou from the golf committee please accept this letter as formal notification of my resignation for my position as assistant chairman member of the golf management Committee in the town of ausnet effective 12 1924 appreciate the opportunity to have served on this committee since its Inception and for our contributions to the community uh Mr Gula was pivotal in making sure the golf course happened he will be sorely missed and I appreciate everything he's done for this town AG read again Mr chairman if I could yes um on behalf of Manny gulad I can't say enough kind words about Manny Gul out he's instrumental he has been instrumental and will always be instrumental m al in my eyes when it comes to that Golf Club um the clubhouse and the golf course um as you alluded to he was instrumental in getting this thing off the ground 25 plus years ago and he is also very instrumental in his community with is um very successful business Sentry house so to Manny gulat thank you very much for what you've done for all of us um in as Town officials as a representative of the golf management committee and what you do for our community every day I agree wholeheartedly go L great great guy great member of the community thank you that being said is there a motion to accept the letter of resignation from Emanuel G with regrets so move second all those in favor I uh gentlemen I'm going to take this slightly out of order so the chief doesn't have to stand up and sit down uh number six is Town administrative contract as you guys know there is a clause in the town administrative contract that says we must notify him if we are entering negotiations um with that being said the Town Administrator Al also gave us a letter today um saying that he has plans on retirement um but with that being said I would take a motion saying we are not going to be entering negotiations with the current Town Administrator for a new contract once his expires so moved second all those in favor I Mr chairman given the the latest development with Mr uh Kelly notifying us of his retirement I think it's really important that we start a search process immediately correct and get that process moving um because it's as you know it can it can drag on Y and um so I'm I'm asking that we have this for discussion point for the next right next week absolutely Mr Kelly what are you going to do in retirement what whatever I want to that's the answer a good run Mr I uh also so uh will be available for the board for anything they need as far as the search for replacement and uh will be available to once you've decided and hired someone to fill in the blanks so to speak when they have questions appreciate all right Chief ready for you we got a couple things on the agenda for you we have the draft RFP for the hazard mitigation plan Grant and also um go back to some old business about uh rescue 2's engine replacement uh yes so we'll start with the uh draft RFP um we were awarded um from FEMA through Mima um I believe it's a sum of $177,100 in um state and federal funding uh to create a what's called a hazard mitigation plan um it's one of the few Emergency Management plans that they rely heavily on um and it's one of the ones that they shy away from saying that it's 100% mandatory but it's it's one of the the ones that helps uh our community out the best as far as like mitigating potential future disasters um we are one of I believe only four communities in the Comm Massachusetts that does not have one currently um so we were able to get secure that Grant through Mima uh on behalf of FEMA um and the first step in the process is to create this RFP to um seek out some vendors that will actually do the bulk of the work for us on our behalf um I worked with um miss alaro our planner who's actually headed up this project in a uh previous employment that she had um so it's a great resource for me to to kind of Bounce things off of um so I put together this request for proposals and once you guys approve it and and get it ready to be sent out I can work with her on getting it posted and and sent out to the the six or seven uh companies that she's aware of and has used in the past to get some hopefully some bids so we can get the uh contract awarded in a short time um per Mima they send they send out a timeline with it um so that we can hit goals specific to how the plan is supposed to develop um in the next um um tick mark for us is to a want a contract and select a vendor and that is sometime between February 1st and February 28th that they're expecting that to be done if you don't mind Chiefland you did mention that there was a percentage match yeah there there is a small percentage match that the town is responsible for it's not necessarily funding it can be used we can use staff hours so my hours that I put towards this program come off of the local match if I use Victoria or any other staff within Town Hall as long as I track their hours and and report it out that covers whatever local match that we're required to provide excellent gentlemen any questions Chief when it says uh flood related issues right it's getting more and more serious as we start seeing more and more rainfall right in the storms that we've been seeing and it does talk about dams in there and I know we don't own the dam but it's on it's on a cushion it's prop we don't but it is within our town borders corre I know I've I've spoken with um new bedford's Emergency Management director um because they had a couple of meetings last summer about the dam um nothing definitive was ever decided or anything like that but I am in close communication with him as far as the status of the dam and things like that so it will be included in our Hazard mitigation plan um and I'll keep that relationship open with with Mr mriga to kind of make sure anytime anything's discussed or done with the dam we're looped in as well thank you excellent Mr any questions no I think it's great but I think it's I'm glad to hear that uh our town planner is helping you out in that process I it's a great resource so continue to use to work with with her on not only this but other potential opportunities that you see you see fit I think that's awesome so that being said is there a motion to draft the RFP for the hazard mitigation plan Grant and approve the grant so second all those in favor I and chief Island once again always uh thank you for consistently trying to find money that was not normally found and doing your best to make sure that uh the safety of the town is taken care of I appreciate thank making sure those strings aren't attached to it right all right looks like you also got the final quote for rescue 2's engine uh Y and got it where it needs to be fixed um it is currently at the Eastern fire department where we have an intermunicipal agreement for vehicle repair um the final quote came in at um it was $19,700 and it cost us $750 to have the vehicle towed from the prior shop to there um I heard from him uh this past Thursday um the engine the new engine was already in he was waiting for a couple of last um install kits um we should be taking possession of it this week at some point um it won't be back in service as of yet we still going to put the 500 Mile uh break-in procedure through its Paces um and then it will go back to him he'll do an oil change send the oil out to make sure everything took properly um and then it'll be back in service so hopefully within the next two two weeks depending on on our ability to get those miles in sure excellent um so that being said that total was 20450 um it it it's been a rough six months vehicle repair wise um which is why um attached with the um update on that was a reserve fund transfer um to cover the overage in vehicle repair the new engine replacement on that rescue and to provide a small cushion to get us through to till July 1st so your the request is for $60,000 Chief correct but the the engine is 21 roughly the engine is 20 and change 20450 in that Park 21 um we are already 25 Grand over our budgeted amount for vehicle repair due to repairs on Squad 2 um the other ambulance uh engine one and engine five yeah so those are so we're in the hole in your budget correct and this this Reserve fund transfer will fill that void plus an additional plus provide about $15,000 to carry us from now until June 30th so that we can continue to do our oil changes and routine preventative maintenance and hopefully not break anything else okay my question Mr chairman would be back to the Town Administrator can we do can we do that can we go for a reserve fund transfer and supplement a budget line item within the budget yes okay very good motion to approve the amount of $60,000 second all those in favor and good it's this mid year and we haven't hit the reserve fund yet so uh hopefully we won't have to hit it a lot but this is valid expense oh absolutely question Chief everybody okay with that accident uh yes there was a three vehicle rear end collision Chain Reaction accident um no injuries good I was coming up at right at the corner of Hamlin and in Maine traffic was backed up and I saw the Cruisers and um it's good to hear excellent anything else Chief that's all I got keep up the great work thank you gentleman thank you sir all right uh jumping back into some master plan committee letters of interest uh gentlemen be somewhere in between the time of posting the agenda and today we've had much more interest in this committee and at the time of this posting basically we had just enough to fill it but there was also some applications that I missed that came in well before some of these so I'm going to ask that where the at large ones are not appointed tonight simply because I think you gentlemen deserve to read through everybody's letters of Interest there's a lot of talent out there and there's a lot of different qualifications in there um that's just my opinion I haven't gone through a couple of them myself um simply because we had already posted this um and because this is such an important committee I would like to make sure we do our due diligence to make sure we're putting right people on the committee that's all right with you yeah I do have one question though because it says we have letters see Ryan rendes I don't see a letter it says Conservation Commission looks like he's doesn't he resign I thought he resigned from the Conservation Commission so he did and we did put interest out to the Conservation Commission um and have not received any letters from them I have a I had a a verbal letter and Ryan did say he was going to send his actual copy and um that he is more than happy to do this using basically the knowledge of being on conservation technically his last day is the 15th and I'd rather have somebody whether they're resigning from concom or not at least representing the qualifications that conservation has that's my opinion um nobody else from concom reached out with a letter of interest i i i Cur with that i' I'd make a motion to a point Ryan Rend he's he's he's very instrumental in in the and on cons conservation I I don't have an I don't have an issue with Ryan I think it's good I'm just if we're if we're delaying forming a committee I think we we owe it to the members of the actually we're on the concom one last chance to respond um because I because if somebody from the concom says hey wait a minute I want to be on this master plan committee and then we've got somebody who's a representative of on the concom representing the concom who's not on the concom and you know Ryan wants to put his name in for a at large position well at that point if we're waiting anyway I mean we could just appoint somebody else from concom as an at llarge member so it doesn't motion on the Flor to point Ryan resendes I'll make a second all those in favor I respectfully disagree understood I don't get it and while we're on this master plan committee we they blasted out an email from the planner for a meeting this Thursday um but I would like to talk about that with this board because there's no sense nobody's been sworn in as a member of the master plan committee the master plan committee has not been appointed in full the nine I think it was nine members we agre to um and she's already scheduled a meeting for this Thursday we can't conduct any business we really can't do anything and it says Deep dive on the agenda so I would request that that meeting be canceled um out of respect to other committee members who haven't been been appointed to this committ yet um and out of respect to all of us our time does matter so with that said I don't see any reason that we're having a meeting we will be we will be ridiculed for doing that meeting if we do it when none of us sworn in so I don't know why the why the meeting's being posted in things of the like but I don't I don't even know who's I mean this whole thing is when the planning and the Mr Francois and the planner came in presented what they thought was the construct of a master plan committee which I thought was was fine and then it got expanded I have no idea who's on the committee who's not on the committee can we get a final roster like we get names here before us that we hadn't seen and we got people coming in after the fact that we need to look at so you know you you helped appoint members just to have things are being done peace me right and so I think that might be adding to the confusion correct this whole thing is turning into well a lot of the peace meal comes down the fact that that we're on a time crunch with this and behind the eightball so out of respect for the planning board both the chair and the planner I said that I would appoint as many people as I could last meeting and that's what we did we appointed five people last meeting by rights if all five showed up to mirror what Mr Gasper said technically that's a quum that would at least get their foot in the door but nobody's been sworn in nobody been sworn in yet so yes I agree that it's being done a little half hazard but I also did tell the planning board that we would do our best to get people appointed so she can roll out her plan that was that was the statement all right well I just think somebody's going to provide Mr chairman I appreciate your work on this and kind of taking the lead but I think this board or the planning board it's got to give her some guidance on guance swearing it getting people sworn in and all that type of stuff you know I mean I don't know who's who's doing this thing or not not trying to be critical admin be the Town Administrator communicating that with with the planner she's only here for two days a week so Mr Kelly to piggy back on uh Mr Gasper's statement about people being sworn in we do not have an assistant Town Clerk and the town clerk is not uh in going to be available until Friday so if people haven't been sworn in you're not even going to have a forum so you you you you don't even have a committee because nobody's been sworn in so you can't post an agenda for a committee that doesn't not exist yet that's my problem and but they couldn't even get sworn in between now I I understand that and I I understand she's on vacation um help a family member so whatever when so when somebody gets sworn it and somebody gets appointed do they get a welcome packet from us sent in the mail got a letter today from 2 weeks ago okay when I was when we were appointed okay so that came late but they they usually do get that letter from our Roby and you've been appointed to XYZ committee you need to get SW clerk gets I realiz the holidays we went into a two we hole with the holidays we hole with the holidays right and then the clerk informs them what they have to do if it's something they have to do the ethics disclosure FL Etc conflict of interest law important to this master plan it's not getting off on the right foot and I don't want that to undermine The credibility of the process and then when there's a final product presented to the residents so hopefully it'll it'll get tightened up should by next meeting it shouldn't be a problem like I said I just don't think it's fair we only had a couple of letters and I missed a couple we have some other situations that reflected that I think would be beneficial to at least put in front of you gentleman beforehand that's the only reason why we did this uh Mr Kelly if you could touch base with uh the town planner tomorrow via email or a phone call and explain why we can't have that meeting on Thursday just to give her a heads up yep perfect Financial policy uh Mr Kelly I believe all unions have reviewed the financial policy all uh all the unions that it's applicable to uh and uh they've all uh okay it uh there were changes uh for two words uh by when we met with the appme we circulated to the other unions the words were uh recommended by coun and uh all the other unions accepted the changes Mr chairman Mr G my advice would be to have this call policy as it's written with every Union um rep signature on it so that down the road griev grievances cannot be filed on behalf of that they can be but they can't say that they didn't acknowledge it and it accept the changes uh we have uh emails from ch two and I met with the third and I'll get a signature if those emails want to be attached to this copy to keep in the treasurer collector's office that would be great for the record so Mr Kelly if this point we can make a motion to accept and implement the updated timekeeping payroll policy accept and publish so move all those in favor all right all right select [Music] announcements Happy New Year to everyone all right I would just like to say happy belated birthday to Sydney congratulations thank you and also happy give me to everyone want right yeah we're good all right uh just a reminder we have some decent amount of vacancies on various committees in town uh finance committee we have a Precinct one vacancy if nobody from Precinct one uh applies we can accept precincts 2 2A and three as long as we don't have other options so I advise anybody that's interested in the Financial Health of this town um especially the very vocal ones that if they want to see and put some effort into the town uh to send a letter of interest of the bo of selectman so we can appoint you uh there's also Conservation Commission vacancies up open space committee golf committee um so now is a perfect opportunity starting this year to get involved with the town and um help us get it everything operational that being said is there a motion to adjourn someone second all those in favor all