Lanesborough Open Space Panel Invites FinCom Rep
LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — The town's Open Space and Recreation Committee is inviting the Finance Committee to assess its proposed projects.
The committee's Chair Stacey Parsons and Vice Chair Mark Hawthorne updated Finance members last week on implementing the open space and recreation plans. They asked if Finance would provide a liaison to address financial implications and help coordinate grants.
"There's concepts that might involve an existing line item, so something like with DPW or with the recreation committee, things that like reoccurring costs, and then there's things that might be a warrant item where we need to kind of package something together to bring to a future town meeting," Hawthorne said.
He said it would be great to have someone with knowledge of grants and what would be the best for some of the priorities on the OSRP.
"And from what we understand so far with the grants, a lot of them are reimbursements. So we have to kind of go to the town with, hey, we've got this project for X amount. We're looking at these grants that we're going to submit, and whenever the corresponding timeline is, and then it's a reimbursement afterwards," Hawthorne continued. "We want to make sure we're also going to be fiscally responsible, not asking for too much, because a lot of the stuff it's great to have, but it's not like a required necessity, and it may not be a top priority that you guys are going to deal with when you're looking at the next year's budget."
Parsons noted that the planning had representation from different boards and committees, and that "there's a lot of work going on that maybe people don't know about, or resources in one pocket that another pocket doesn't know about."
"So we're being very intentional and asking out to make sure we have the required expertise at the table, and as Mark said, you know the fiscal component comes up in just about every project. So to have someone with that knowledge to say that's not going to fly this year, put it on a five-year plan," she said.
The OSRP committee set 10 objectives for its first year including potential work on Pontoosuc Lake and an age-friendly park project, a site visit with Department of Public Works.
Finance Committee member Kristen Tool volunteered to be the liaison because of her knowledge of grant writing.
In other business, she also suggested holding joint meetings with the Select Doard to discuss the tax rate rather than relying on information passed between the boards. The aim was to make the conversation more efficient and let members ask questions directly of the Select Board and Assessor Ross Vivori.
While the Finance Committee has no say in the tax rate decision, they thought it might be a good idea to ask Vivori questions.
"There have been some questions about how assessments are done that have come up, and I think it would be helpful to be able to ask those with the Select Board and Ross all in one as well, because the assessor is part time. We don't want to be trying to make him have more and more meetings and use up his time," Tool said. "I know we had previously asked about personal property taxes related to the short-term rentals, and Ross had said that short-term rentals are assessed personal property taxes. But then, with the new bylaw that we just started, we kind of learned that none of the short-term rentals were registered as businesses with the town, right?
"And so I'm not sure how they would be assessed personal property taxes if they weren't registered as businesses. So just kind of getting clarity on those questions."
Finance member Vera Farrell, who is the liaison to the Baker Hill Road District said the district had discussed whether the Connector Road could be transferred directly to the state, rather than returned to the town, with state Rep. John Barrett III and state Sen.Paul Mark.
"The representatives recommended that as an option, that it could transfer the Connector Road directly to the state, as opposed to deeding it back to the town to dispense it. If we get to that point, that would be a better option to do it that way," Farrell said. "They would support the town and the district's work towards development of the road property."
She also said the road district's website is on track to be updated as it is the public face for the group making it an important task.
Tags: Finance Committee, open space,
