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HomeMy WebLinkAboutmin brd of selectmen 04/20/05 (' '" 1'-'" ., . \- ''" , . ~ " .' " t" ,.) C.. i \J .:':~ t.5 <'; nFF ICE Present: I. .:L !, .,~ . -~ f :''') , 1 L:\;\::.l< C.L.J Chairman Steven MacCaffrie; Clerk Bernard Dolan~~2tfh~i ~a6iI ~oruso and Selectman Michael McCue Town Manager John O. D' Agostino Vice Chairman Roger Achille was not present for meeting Town of Mansfield Board of Selectmen Minutes of April 20, 2005 (j~i 28 9: 36 The Board of Selectmen's meeting was called to order at 7:30 p.m., and a moment of silence was held for Margo Figueredo, wife ofLt. (Ret.) George Figueredo. The Pledge of Allegiance then followed. . Warrant No. 43 in the amount of$3,274,102.99 Motion: To approve (Amoruso - Dolan) 4-0 Passes . Executive Session Meeting Minutes of April 13, 2005 Motion: To approve but not release (Amoruso - McCue) 4-0 Passes r . Regular Session Meeting Minutes of April 13, 2005 Motion: To approve (McCue - Amoruso) 4-0 Passes . Commercial Parking Facility Application for 875 South Main Street Realty Trust Motion: To approve and sign license, subject to the usual regulations (Amoruso - McCue) 4-0 Passes . Commercial Parking Facility Application for DLC Corp. d/b/a Tweeter Center for the Performing Arts Motion: To approve and sign license, subject to the usual regulations (Amoruso - McCue) 4-0 Passes . Commercial Parking Facility Application for Nancy Gray McNeeley Motion: To approve and sign license, subject to the usual regulations (Amoruso - McCue) 4-0 Passes ~ . Common Victualler license for Magic Pizza, 365 N. Main Street Motion: To approve and sign license (Amoruso - McCue) 4-0 Passes Board of Selectmen Minutes of April 20, 2005 (' Selectman Amoruso noted that the Board usually invites new license holders in and the Town Manager said that we will invite them in for next week. . One-Day Beer & Wine License for Glee Gifts' Opening on Friday, April 22, 2005 from 5:00pm to 9:00pm Motion: To approve and sign license (Amoruso -Dolan) 4-0 Passes . Letter from the Department of Housing & Community Development received April 11 th regarding the Massachusetts Lead Abatement Program. . Letter from Comcast received April 11 th regarding two changes to the cable television lineup. . Letter written to the Conservation Commission & copied to the Board dated April 11 th from TEC Associates regarding CSX Transportation 2005 Vegetation Control Program. r . Letter from Police Chief Arthur O'Neill dated April 11 th regarding an underage liquor sale. Selectman Dolan noted that the letter doesn't require the Board to take any action and that the employee did card the individual. The Town Manager commented that the Board, at some time, did request notification of any events like this. The Town Manager said that we can hold a hearing or wait until a later date. Town Manager noted that one incident occurred that the Board did not know about and the Chief went directly to the ABCC, and the Board later adopted a policy that they be notified of any incidents. Chairman MacCaffrie wants to ask the Chief for a recommendation on what the Board should do and that we should remain consistent with how we handle it. Chairman MacCaffrie believes we should probably invite them in. . Letter from MassHighway received April 12th regarding its spring highway sweeping operations. . Letter from Self Help Inc. dated April 12th regarding representation on the Self Help Inc. Board of Directors. Self Help is recommending that Doreen Lindsay of Sharon represent Mansfield, Sharon & Easton on the SHI Board of Directors. Motion: To approve the recommendation of Self Help and nominate Doreen Lindsay (Dolan - Amoruso) 4-0 Passes . Bulletin from the Department of Revenue dated April 12th announcing that a seminar for recently elected or appointed finance officials will take place on Friday, June 3rd in Auburn. Selectman Dolan suggested that the new Board of Assessors may want to attend and it should be shown to the Finance Committee. r . Letter from Beth Flint, Farmers Market Manager, dated April 12th requesting permission to use the public parking lot for the Farmers' Market to be held starting Thursday, July 14th and continuing each Thursday through October 6th, from 2pm to 6pm. Board of Selectmen Minutes of April 20, 2005 2 r Motion: To approve the use of the public parking lot for the Farmers Market (Amoruso - McCue) 4-0 Passes . Letter from Dan Clemmey of Foundry LLC to the Department of Housing & Community Development received April 13th regarding the Priority Development Fund - Mansfield request for planning assistance. . The April 2005 "City & Town" publication from the Department of Revenue's Division of Local Services, dated April 13th. . Action Alert from the Massachusetts Municipal Association dated April 14th regarding the House Ways & Means FY2006 budget. . Letter from MassHighway received April 14th regarding the National Bridge Inspection Standard sIB ridge Rating & Posting. . Fax from the Clean Water Action received April 14th regarding the Massachusetts Producer Take Back Campaign. . Letter from the Department of Housing & Community Development received April 15th regarding the Community Development Block Grant Program Monitoring Report. Chairman MacCaffrie noted that it clears the Town of a potential violation .r . Letter from the Airport Commission regarding the construction of a building to house snow removal equipment and a training/meeting facility. Motion: To waive the Town's portion of the permit and connection fees for water & sewer. (Amoruso - McCue) 4-0 Passes Howard Fiske, Chairman of the Airport Commission informed the Board that the bids have come back for this project and are a little high. The Airport Commission met with a close bid and he hopes to have it on budget. The funds are coming from the federal government; it will be a steel building but have a brick facing. Chairman MacCaffrie noted that the Airport "expansion" is going well. Mr. Fiske said that the construction of the quadrant 4 tie down should start in 60 days and invited the Board members to come visit the airport. Board members thanked Mr. Fiske for coming in. Correspondence from Town Manaeer & Staff: . Letter from the Town Manager to the Planning Board and copied to the Board received April 11 th regarding the Zone 13 Overlay Proposal by Bergmeyer Associates. . Letter from Town Manager to Ralph Penney of Penney Engineering dated April 12th regarding the Town of Mansfield document request and payment issues. , (' . Memorandum from Town Engineer John Sullivan dated April 15th regarding the construction start of the Route 106 reconstruction. Selectman Dolan noted that it will begin May 2 and end in December of 2006 - there will be 2-way traffic and no detours. Board of Selectmen Minutes of April 20, 2005 3 r . Memorandum from Town Manager dated April 15th regarding budget reductions for FY2006. . Memorandum from Town Manager dated April 14th regarding the smart growth flier for Transit Oriented Development Funds for the Train Station project. Chairman MacCaffrie noted that there was a letter that needed to be signed in an emergency nature and that he polled the Board members on the change to the letter and an authorization to sign the letter. Copies of the emails are in the reading folder. Chairman MacCaffrie noted that Selectman Achille voted in the affirmative via telephone. Motion: To affirm the poll vote with regard to the letter (Amoruso - McCue) 3-0-1 Passes (with Chairman MacCaffrie abstaining) In attendance were Dave Leary, Chairman of the Recreation Commission and Karl Clemmey. Mr. Clemmey presented the town with a check for the remaining two benches on the Rails to Trails and he also presented a $400 check for the buses for local children to attend an upcoming Pawtucket Red Sox game. He presented that check to Mr. Leary. The Board thanked Mr. Clemmey for his generous donations. Motion: To accept the checks from Mr. Clemmey for the purposes so designated (Amoruso - McCue) 4-0 Passes ",- The Town Manager noted that all of the benches are now paid for and the trash receptacles are all set on the trail. He further noted that the Rotary Club will be making a presentation in the future with money raised at their auction. Chairman MacCaffrie asked the Town Manager how the Rotary made out with the wine auction and the Town Manager said they made approximately $6,000. Chairman MacCaffrie asked that a note be sent to,Ray Martin asking to him to let the Board know how the auction went. Finance Committee members in attendance were Chairman Andy Gazzolo, Mike Sams and Jess Aptowitz. r- Mr. Gazzolo said that we started out with a $5.5 million deficit, once the CIP was taken out, it is now $2.3 million. He further noted that the School Department has 68% of the budget; the town has 32%. As oftoday, the School Department has cut $915,000 and the town has cut a little over $800,000. Mr. Gazzolo said that the town may have possible revenue upgrades but the deficit would still be $2.1 million. To balance the budget the School Department would need to cut $1.6 million and the town $445,000. The School Department will provide a new budget review (after they confirm various grants prior to next Wednesday) and Mr. Gazzolo believes that this will be the toughest year that we have ever had because stabilization was used in previous years. Mr. Gazzolo believes that are some issues that need to be reviewed, from garbage collection to Board of Selectmen Minutes of April 20, 2005 4 r r insurance costs, etc. He went back to 2001 with Town Accountant Bea Kearney - property taxes went up 24%, state education grants went up 31 %, local receipts went up 8%, and other financial sources went up 53%. In the expense side, the school salaries went up 31 %, school benefits went up 86%, town salaries went up 23% and the town benefits went up 79%. Mr. Sams said that when we are talking about cuts, we are talking about reducing the request rate of increases for FY06. Selectman Dolan asked when the Finance Committee is meeting with Superintendent Moretti and Mr. Gazzolo replied that he is meeting weekly with the School Committee Chairman. Mr. Gazzolo said that hopefully by next Wednesday, we will know better what the School Department can cut and how that will affect their structure. Mr. Sams said that on the town side, the Town Manager has erased proposed employees increases and the schools are looking at what they can do. Mr. Gazzolo said that the Town Manager took all ofthe potential new hires and eliminated all of them already. Selectman Dolan noted that we can't keep cutting its staff requests and that our insurance rating went up because we don't have enough manpower in the Fire Department. Chairman MacCaffrie noted that it is a combination of the location of the fire stations as well as manpower - he would like to know the other communities ratings are - he feels the ISO just wants more money. Chairman MacCaffrie noted that the maximum response time hasn't changed. Mr. Aptowitz noted that 78% of the budget is salaries and benefits - that is the issue. Mr. Sams added that there are a lot of towns that have done layoffs, and we have used stabilization funds to the point where we can't do that anymore. Mr. Gazzolo said we should wait until next week and see what the School Department has come up with. Chairman MacCaffrie thinks we should keep the dialogue open so we aren't racing for a compromise at the last minute on the night of Town Meeting. Selectman McCue noted that the Board took a vote to wean ourselves off of stabilization - we can appreciate the problem. Mr. Gazzolo noted that we are running out of time. Selectman McCue asked if the school grants will help much and Mr. Gazzolo replied that they won't help enough and Selectman McCue further noted that grants aren't guaranteed every year either. Mr. Gazzolo said that we don't have any reserves for major problems. The Town Manager noted that there may be a slight increase with the Senate budget, but not enough to help us close the deficit. Mr. Gazzolo said that we will need to cut almost all new hires, across the town side and the school side. Selectman McCue noted that the town has already done that. Mr. Gazzolo said that we still have 3 weeks to go. Selectman Amoruso thinks we should get all of the groups together, after next week, to discuss this issue. The Board members thanked the Finance Committee for coming in to discuss the budget. The Town Manager noted that we have a special town meeting warrant, which will close tonight. He commented that in the Special, there are some CIP articles that didn't make it to the warrant, r but if we are going to borrow, we can do it at the Special. The Town Manager said that the rest are basically money articles and Chairman MacCaffrie noted that these are basically unpaid bills. Board of Selectmen Minutes of April 20, 2005 5 r-. Town Manager noted that there is a transfer for money for a light department truck, reimbursing an enterprise account. Motion: To close the Special Town Meeting Warrant (Dolan - Amoruso) 4-0 Passes Annual Town Meeting Warrant Discussion: Chairman MacCaffrie noted that we went through a bunch of the articles, but we are waiting on the ones that have money attached. Article 4: Chairman MacCaffrie asked why do we keep transferring the $92,000 and the Town Manager said that we borrowed from the general fund before we created an enterprise account. We bonded a significant amount of money before we set up the enterprise account. Selectman McCue said that it was the only way to get the bond and asked how many more years do we have and the Town Manager believes we are close - he will check. Motion: To support Article 4 (McCue - Amoruso) 4-0 Passes Selectman Dolan noted that some of the articles are not ours and asked if the Moderator will be asking us for our recommendations. ".- Article 5: Town Manager wants to set up to have DPW Director Lee Azinheira come up and make the same presentation that he did to the Finance Committee about this article. Selectman McCue noted that in the past, we have taken a position on pretty much anything - a lot of times, the moderator didn't ask but we had it just in case. Chairman MacCaffrie noted that we are running out of time and asked if we can put Lee on next week, by starting right at 7:00pm. Article 35: Selectman Amoruso asked if we need to have a public hearing on this article. Selectman McCue noted that it is just supporting the adoption of a General Law. Motion: To support Article 35 . (Amoruso -Dolan) 2-2 Fails (with Chairman MacCaffrie and Selectman McCue voting in the negative & Selectman Amoruso and Selectman Dolan voting in the affirmative) Selectman Amoruso said that we'll have to take it up again when Selectman Achille is here. Article 50: Selectman Dolan noted that he talked to Planning about it and the Planning Board supports it to allow parking. Chairman MacCaffrie wants to know the intent of the townspeople when they voted for it. Selectman Amoruso wondered if making an exception for one person the right way to do business. Town Manager said that the issue last year was that they didn't want a mix of ".- residential and commercial on the first floor. He added that the issue of parking - the Planning Board has approved this - their intent was to prohibit the mix of retail with residential units on Board of Selectmen Minutes of April 20, 2005 6 r the first floor. Chairman MacCaffrie asked what this article changes and the Town Manager understands that this will be amended on the Town Meeting floor by either the Planning Board or the petitioner. Selectman McCue said that he supports the concept but that this needs to be amended and that he couldn't support 100% parking underneath. Chairman MacCaffrie suggested that they do the amendment earlier so we can see it - we need a recommendation prior to Town Meeting from the Planning Board. He added that we need those recommendations on this and others prior to Town Meeting and Selectman Amoruso suggested that we send a memo to the Planning Board asking for their recommendations. Article 27: Chairman MacCaffrie said that he has not yet heard from the Building Inspector on this and the Town Manager said that Nick doesn't like it. Town Manager noted that staff has some reservations about this as well and further noted that the Planning Board is going to vote on these articles on the 4th. Article 22: Motion: To support Article 22 (Amoruso - McCue) 4-0 Passes r Article 6: Motion: To support Article 6 (Dolan - Amoruso) 4-0 Passes In his April 15th memo to the Board, he has included a budget analysis sheet - that format mirrors what is in Article 1 of the warrant. There is a $2.3 million deficit as we stand right now - additional cuts are necessary to balance the FY06 budget. We have $1.6 million in stabilization; as state revenues increase, the current revenue sources (one-time) are inflating the budget's bottom line. Even if we get an additional $200,000-$300,000 from the state, we are still looking at a significant shortfall. Selectman McCue asked where we are capturing the funds to pay for snow/ice removal and the Town Manager replied that we have $200,000 that we have not yet captured, and we may end up using some aspect of that - he would like to revert some of that for free cash. Selectman McCue added that there is a movement afoot that money from could possibly come from the state to help communities with snow/ice removal costs and he asked the Town Manager what impact that would have on our situation right now. The Town Manager replied that it won't affect the FY06 budget, and it won't help us going forward. Chairman MacCaffrie noted that the warrant is on the town's web site but that the revisions are not. The Town Manager said that the warrant cannot be changed. Chairman MacCaffrie said that he has gotten calls about why some of the increases in Article 1 are 140% and the Town Manager replied that we don't want two different sets of numbers - we don't have final numbers. r-- Chairman MacCaffrie further added that significant cuts have already been made to the numbers Board of Selectmen Minutes of April 20, 2005 7 r in Article 1 and Selectman Amoruso said that people need to understand that the numbers will continue to change and that they are looking at incorrect numbers. The Town Manager said that he will be out of state from April 28th to May 1 st and will be entering the hospital for surgery on May 2nd. During this time, Lee Azinheira will be Acting Town Manager. The Town Manager said that he will be out for a period oftime. George Dentino, 2 Gladiola Terrace Mr. Dentino came to discuss Article 50, relative to zoning in the center of town. He noted that we were sold on an article that the entire first floor would be retail. It didn't say anything else. He said that Mr. Crugnale is trying to change it so that some parking is on the 1 st floor. The voters will make the decision at Town Meeting. If you want to save the retail in the downtown area, then come up and vote this article down - we'll get what we voted for the first time it came up. Karl Clemmey, 750 South Main Street Dan Clemmey, 65 Old Farm Road ".- K. Clemmey told the Board that he thinks "Questions & Comments" should be on the agenda every week - he feels it is important. In addition, he suggested that once a month, a roundtable discussion should take place, so people can come in and talk about things that they are doing. K. Clemmey discussed the issue of the northbound ramp and noted that he would like to have a solution to the ramp - there is a lot of traffic on West Street and Route 140. He suggested that it make sense to hire a consultant to take a look at the northbound ramp. He believes that one house needs to be taken for the ramp to be constructed and he said that it will take 5 years to build the southbound ramp. K. Clemmey wants the Board to take a stand on the roundtable idea. D. Clemmey believes that there is a lot of misinformation in some of the Town Manager's memos and the Town Manager replied that his memos are in response to D. Clemmey's letters. D. Clemmey asked how many applications have been submitted and how many have the Board supported and added that Bergmeyer has submitted an overlay district to the Planning Board. He said that in looking at the application submitted by the Town, there are some issues with it. The Town Manager said that it has been difficult for the town to get planning money. D. Clemmey mentioned contract zoning and that he would like a workshop and find a direction to go. Chairman MacCaffrie noted that the Board isn't in a position to tell the Planning Board when they can meet. ".- Chairman MacCaffrie said that the letter that we sent for priority development funds was of a vanilla flavor - it is a support letter that states that we support the theory of the application Board of Selectmen Minutes of Apri120, 2005 8 '.. r relative to the planning process. We have not endorsed giving the $55,000 to the Cecil Group. Anyone can apply for a grant - Cecil Group has done that - the money is ours to spend on the project. D. Clemmey said that this process has been going on for several months and believes that he wasn't involved. Chairman MacCaffrie noted that nothing has come before the Board relative to the use of the property and that it hasn't come full circle with respect to the Planning Board. K. Clemmey stated that Foundry LLC hasn't been kept informed from Day 1. The Town Manager replied that what the Clemmey's wanted in that design was incorporated by the Cecil Group. K. Clemmey reiterated that the Board considers his idea for a roundtable discussion. r Selectman McCue: He went to an MPO meeting last Thursday, (the Metropolitan Planning Organization makes planning decisions - it oversees the expenditure of funds for transportation projects) we were reviewing amendments for the addition of a couple of projects for other communities. It was noted that we have some money from 2003-2005 for the route 106 underpass project, and that money could be taken away from us because some actions haven't been taken relative to the use, and Selectman McCue made a motion at the MPO meeting to get it on the TIP. The Town Manager said that he will prepare a letter to MassHighway Commissioner John Cogliano & District 5 Director Skip McCourt. Chairman MacCaffrie thought that the 500,000 was encumbered on the design portion but not the construction. Selectman McCue noted that he is confident that we have done what we needed to do but wants to make sure that the money gets to us for the project. Selectman McCue will give the Town Manager the information that he received at the MPO meeting. Selectman Amoruso: Asked the Town Manager if Lee Azinheira has any information on the completion of the Elm Street Bridge and the Town Manager replied that he will find out. Chairman MacCaffrie: Asked the Town Manager ifhe could have the property list and the Town Manager replied that they are working on aerials and Chairman MacCaffrie will have it this week. (McCue) 4-0 Passes ~~~ Signature of Clerk JIpri127. 2005 Date of Approval r Board of Selectmen Minutes of April 20, 2005 9