Cheshire Board OKs Draft Warrant, Compensates Town Clerk
CHESHIRE, Mass. — The Board of Selectmen endorsed the draft warrant for the annual town meeting and voted to transfer funds to compensate the town clerk for election work.
Following a public comment from its last meeting, board members discussed compensating Town Clerk Whitney Flynn for her hours during elections as they exceed her regular hours.
"Yes, election days are long, prior to elections there's set up. There's also state-mandated 9 to 5 hours on Fridays or Saturdays, where you have to be at the office to accept anyone who should choose to register to vote, and that's in addition to regular hours," Flynn said. "And then there's also state-mandated hours from Elections Commission for numerous days. And you know, there's multiple emails from the secretary of the commonwealth notifying that you must be in office to complete the certification of signatures during a lot of different days, just depending on how many elections are within that year. So they're mandatory hours by the state as well."
She kept track of her extra hours for the board to see. She has used other options to help pay poll workers.
"But what I would say is that there are opportunities with the [state] Division of Local Mandates to be reimbursed for a lot of those election costs," she said. "So essentially, I go through after elections, and I put in all of the vote-by-mail costs associated with that, I put in the like the poll workers hours if election workers come for early voting in office, which is mandatory for state and federal elections."
The Selectmen decided to move $2,500 from the book repair line into the elections line to cover for the extra hours but she cannot exceed that and will communicate her office hours around it.
The board voted to recommend the 31 warrant articles for the annual town meeting scheduled Monday, June 8.
Among the questions to be posed to voters is the operating budget, Article 8, to raise and appropriate $1,642,481 and Article 9, to approve the Hoosac Valley Regional School District's assessment of $3,402,982, an increase of $196,900, or about 6 percent. The budget was approved the School Committee in March.
Article 10 is to approve the Northern Berkshire Vocational Regional School assessment of $595,431 and Article 23 asks to use free cash of $14,137 for the town's portion of McCann Technical School's roof and window project.
Article 12 is towould appropriate $403,000 to the Police Department. This includes an increased police chief salary to help attract a potential candidate as well as three full-time officers.
Article 13 would appropriate $131,805 to support the Fire Department and Article 14 is to transfer $18,726 from the radio stabilization account for emergency radio communications.
Article 28, the room occupancy excise tax, would be capped at 6 percent as that is what most communities do.
In other news:
Following a walkthrough with engineers, the fire station's meeting/training room remains closed.
Department of Public Works Director Corey McGrath informed the board in April that the fire station needs to have a geotechnical study done because of the chance of a subsurface issue.
Hill Engineering has an additional cost for geotechnical engineering. As of Tuesday, McGrath had a total cost of around $25,000, of which the geotechnical cost was a little over $19,000. He will have them get a couple more quotes.
Town Administrator Jennifer Morse said they could have a special town meeting before the annual town meeting to transfer money from the fire station floor repair account, or see if they can add it to the annual town meeting to transfer funds for this
• McGrath also mentioned the West Mountain Bridge will start construction in late June and will be worked on through October.
• Morse said the Board of Health finalized the new rules and regulations for the poultry and livestock permitting following the Attorney General's Office approving the new rules.
The new materials will be posted to the town website and residents are encouraged to apply by July 1 with annual renewals. She explained the application will be simple: asking what types of animals, structure design, where the food will be stored and fed. There will also be an enforcement structure where the first complaint will ask for action, the second complaint there will be a $50 fee.
The Board of Health will have hearings on each application before approval for residents to voice their concerns.
• Morse spoke about the town's new software, Vadar, saying the new system will be an improvement from the current and will go live soon to be able to to move forward with water billing and real estate, personal property and motor vehicle excise.
On that note, Chair Michelle Francesconi said for residents to contact the appropriate town office with any questions instead of relying on social media.
"If there's ever questions about something that's happening with town billing or town process, please just reach out to any of us directly that are in the appropriate department," she said. "So if you're looking for water collection, go to see the water collector. If you're looking for the town clerk, go to see the town clerk. But there's just been numerous instances where people have been going to Cheshire neighborhood watch or other social media sites and asking the public questions, and the public doesn't have the answers to the questions. And you know, we do have access to the software.
"We have a great team of staff on so many levels that are willing to answer questions. So please come to us and ask the questions internally, and don't rely on the public for answers."
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