CLARKSBURG, Mass. — The Select Board held a brief meeting on Tuesday morning to give final approval to a bid contract and the language for the town administrator posting. 

 

The board had determined at its meeting two weeks ago to post for the position left vacant by the resignation of Carl McKinney and to set up a search committee. 

 

However, the advertisement for the job had been delayed about a week. Tuesday, Chairman Ronald Boucher and Select Board member Jeffrey Levanos gave the OK to some slight modifications suggested by absent member Danielle Luchi. 

 

They also approved sweetening the job slightly by raising the maximum salary up to $55,000. Levanos asked if extra $5,000 was available and Boucher said he believed there were some places that could be tapped.

 

"I have a couple of people already sending resumes," he said. "And I think there's a few more that are interested." 

 

The job will be posted with the Massachusetts Municipal Association and locally. 

 

The search committee is comprised of Town Accountant Donna Estes, Town Treasurer Ericka Oleson, Administrative Assistant Deb Choquette, Planning Board member Erin Scott and Finance Committee member James Stakenas. 

 

The board also confirmed a bid contract of $25,450 from Barile Environmental to remove asbestos from around the school building's furnaces. There had been some questions raised about the scope within the bid but Boucher said he had spoken with Barile and was confident everything was covered within the contract. 

 

The company is expected to take two to three days to remove the asbestos, which will allow the new boilers to be installed. Climate Heating & Cooling won the boiler bid at $107,222 but Boucher said that figure may come in lower. 

 

A company representative rescoped the work, he said, and "might be able to save us some money because we might not need as big of a unit as he originally thought. So that could be savings there."

 

"But that ball is rolling, we want to let everyone know, because we have the asbestos abatement," Boucher said. "And then we want to make sure as soon as that's done, we can follow through and get the boilers in."

 

The board also agreed it would set the date for a special town meeting on the school district merger with Stamford, Vt., at its next meeting on July 10. Levanos and Boucher had initially thought they could wait to the end of July but Superintendent of Schools John Franzoni said the merger committee would like to approach the states for more funding as soon as possible. 

 

Stamford is holding its special town meeting on Monday; if the proposal passes, the Clarksburg board will set a meeting, if not, the board will file that agenda item.