Welcome to Leicester, VT

Town of Leicester

Selectboard Meeting Minutes

Monday, October 6, 2008

*Unapproved*

** See subsequent minutes for any changes

Members Present:  Diane Benware, Bob Oliver, Ken Young, Ron Fiske, Tom Barker

Others Present:   John Hughes, Mary Hughes, Arlan Pidgeon, Sandra Trombley, Secretary

Call to Order:  Meeting called to order at 6:35 by Chair, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. 

Agenda Review:  Agenda reviewed.

Public Complaint:

Jeff Bradish from 235 Stove Pipe Avenue voiced a complaint about problems with people riding their dirt bikes and four wheelers tearing up Stove Pipe Avenue.  One person lives on Stove Pipe Avenue, Roy Lockwood, Jr.; the others are his friends and relatives.  They are tearing up the road and causing big ruts.  Bradish has called the Sheriff’s Department, but they say their hands are tied.  The only thing they can do is; if they catch them on the road, they can pull them over and cite them for being on the road with unregistered vehicles.  Bradish offered to take pictures of the damage.  The offenders also have an old Blazer with no doors that they also use to go up and down the road.  Sunday, the Sheriff went down and waited around in an unmarked car, but of course, they did not come out at that time.  Bradish is also worried about the children playing outside. 

Action:  Heidi Schuerger is the second constable.  Diane will talk with her. 

The Chair will send a letter to Lockwood about the complaint and the damage to the road and will contact Mark at the Sheriff’s Department to see if someone can come in an unmarked car to witness the incidents.

Review Minutes of September 15, 2008: 

Motion by Bob to approve minutes, seconded by Ken. All in favor.  So approved.

Review and Approve Bills:

 Bills made their rounds for review and approval.   

Reports from Town Officials or Committees: 

Arlan reported he had the sand piles in and the shoulder done.  There’s no salt left in the shed. 

 Arlan has not been up to Shelly Mason’s to look at the water problem.  She indicated that the last big storm caused the water to run down and contaminate her well.  Chair explained that we need to look at the problem as promised.

Arlan will check Mary Falta’s culvert at 2996 Leicester-Whiting Road and clean it out.  Frank Nicklaw’s culvert on the Bullock Road needs to be done.

Chair reported; according to the profit and loss statement, we have spent $588.00 on culverts and we had $3,000.00 in the budget.

The grader is back on the road and running ok.

Other Road Work:

Build a plan about what we would do between now and winter: 

·        Culvert work

·        Town Shed

·        Grading

Kylee reported thru Chair that tax bills are coming in regularly.  She is going to be open all day Tuesday and all day Wednesday of next week 8:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m.  Kylee would like the Selectboard to consider clerical support for a total of 10 hours to help with the taxes, answer phones, filing, etc. 

Motion by Bob to provide 10 extra hours at $13.00 per hour to provide some clerical support to Kylee.  Seconded by Ron.  All in favor.  So approved.

The new voting tabulator came.  The card for the tabulator needs to be preprogrammed.  Kylee went to the training two and a half week ago.  The card that you program it with came today.  It has an $800.00 price tag on it.  The tabulator machine is free. 

New Business:

Discussion about meeting one time a month from October to December.  Consensus to continue two times a month as usual.  We will meet October 20^th, November 5^th, November 17^th, December 1^st, and December 15^th.  The budget meeting will start December 29^th.

Municipal Planning Grant (MPG):  Andrew Peterson and the Planning Commission have been given passwords and access to the web-site to begin the work.  Donna Swinington has been to one day’s training.  Tomorrow evening at 6:00 p.m. the PC is meeting with Elizabeth Golden from Regional Planning to begin the process.  The Selectboard is invited to attend.  The grant application is due October 31st.

Tom indicated we are short a zoning member even before Heidi leaves.  He would like to see something done in the way of getting someone interested in the vacant position. 

Action:  Chair will put another article out again to see if we get some interest.

Old Business:

Roadwork:  Arlan was asked what kinds of things could get done between now and when snow comes.

·        Put culvert in on Hooker Road

·        Put culvert in on Bullock Road

·        Clean ditches

·        Extend ditching on east side of Deform Road between Ken’s and Mann’s

o       Ken, Bob, Arlan will talk with Randy Wilcox and will come back with a plan to take care of the problem

·        Grading as many roads as possible before winter

In the ditching fund, as of December 2007, there was $12,600.  There was $3,400 in the road/highway fund.  There was $9,200 in the culvert fund.  There was $67,000 that came from the bridge fund.  Then the $30,000 that the voters approved.  We had bills for $32,615 for Hooker Road.  We have $92,000 and add the $60,000 we had approved for paving.  In order to pay D&F for the Hooker Rd project, we were taking $32,000 from the bridge fund which would leave $35,000 balance.  To pay the $208,951.90 for Leicester-Whiting Road, we authorized Kylee to prepare a check for $100,000.00 of the $208,951.90 owed, and would take the $60,000  that was voted for paving, we would take $20,000 of tax money that came in, and the remaining $20,000 would come from the left over bridge money.

In order to get the reimbursement for the two for one grant, you need a copy of the invoice; a copy of the canceled check, and a completed form that you send to Tom Roberts.  The Town will be getting $167,753.00 back from the State.

According to the profit and loss statement there has been about $10,000 spent on salt, $1,900 on roadside mowing, materials $16,780.  Next meeting we need the RSMS data from Donna & Deb.

Town Shed Update:

 Mr. Munger was not available to do the repair job, so Arlan went to Robert Charbonneau for a quote.  Discussion why beams and trusses are getting broken.  Option 1 Quote: $9,380.80 Option 2 Quote: $4,700.  These are rough estimates.  There was not enough money budgeted to do this.  What can we do to get us through the winter? 

Action:  Arlan, Ron, Bob and Ken will go to look at shed and come up with a plan and budget to stabilize it to get us through the winter.

Ken brought up the subject of winter sand.  Other towns are securing the sand piles.  With the price of sand, we should prevent commercial trucks from taking the sand.  The taxpayers shouldn’t pay for commercial vehicles to use the Town’s sand.  Discussion:  There is no good solution to monitoring the problem without a fenced in area. 

Capital Budget Planning Update: 

The last piece of the Class A Grant for the Town is to have a capital budget plan written which Donna and Deb are working on.  Diane will try to help them next week.  Robert Turner said it can be as simple as a one page sheet that lists the name of the road, the condition that the road is in, the priority for future work to the road and what the estimated cost would be. 

Other:

The Brandon Fire Department sent a packet of fire bills for the year going back to the first of the year.  Mr. Churchill on Lakeview Drive has an alarm that goes off quite often.  There is $2,300 in bills for Mr. Churchill for false alarms.  Chair talked with Beth Ripley about fire bills back in June.  Kylee put the information in Beth Ripley’s box, but apparently Beth has not seen the information to date.  Total invoices are over $10,000.   There was consensus that Mr. Churchill should pay the bills for the false alarms. 

When the Blaise property sold, $3,501.00 came back to the Town.  $800 came back to the Town from the Foley fire.

Action:  Chair will contact Beth to see if she is willing to do something about the fire bills and if not, Chair will talk with Kylee.  If Kylee is not interested then we will have to get somebody else.  Chair will send a letter to Mr. Churchill.

Public Opinion:  None

Executive Session:   

Motion by Bob and seconded by Ron to adjourn at 8:30 p.m.  All in favor.  So moved. 

Next meeting Monday, October 20, 2008, 6:30 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Sandra L. Trombley

Selectboard Secretary