Selectmen's Meeting, Monday July 6, 2015
Well, I made a boo-boo..... I left the video recorder home on the kitchen counter. But thankfully, there wasn't much happening at the Lebanon Selectmen's meeting tonight. So you'll all have to forgive me and read my notes on the meeting without the video.
On the agenda for 4 pm was Road Commissioner Tom Torno, however, Selectman Heath stated that Mr. Torno had contacted him earlier in the day and stated that he would be unable to attend. No reason was given.
The Selectmen have finally received information from the bank they've chosen regarding the Procurement Cards for the town's department heads. The Procurement Cards will allow each department head to have a certain amount of money at their disposal, sort of like a Petty Cash fund. The cards would be stocked with a $200 - $300 spending limit and allow the purchases of office supplies, cleaning supplies, and the like without the need for a small purchase order each time. The receipts for money spent would still need to be turned in to Lebanon Treasurer Jeanette Lemay, and larger purchases would still require a purchase order, but this will give the town's department heads a little flexibility to keep things well stocked. Selectman Royce Heath made the motion to accept the bank's Procurement Card program set-up plan and the motion was 2nd by Selectman Ben Thompson with the two voting to begin, while Selectman Paul Nadeau abstained from voting due to the fact that the program was not discussed with him as it had been begun by the Board prior to his June 9th election.
The Selectmen then looked over a proposal by Mosaic Technologies to come in and assess Lebanon's computer system and upgrade needs for a price of $1,250. This would only be the price for the assessment and a written report coming back to the Selectmen to aid them in creating a bid request for the actual work needing to be done.
Conversation from Selectman Thompson was regarding the need for this work, however he has a few reservations as to whether or not coming in and doing the assessment would then give Mosaic Technologies the upper hand in any bidding process. He also said that he thinks the time to do this is now, as there are many questions regarding the information safety of credit or debit card payments made to the town.
Selectman Heath also noted that in today's computer driven world, the Board had to act on this one way or another to be sure they're protecting the town's residents from threat of identity theft.
No vote was taken at the time whether or not to move forward with the technology assessment as outlined by Mosaic Technologies.
Selectmen's Assistant, Sue Collins, was asked to come in earlier than her 4:30 pm scheduled agenda time, which she did. There was talk about the town's insurance agency, Norton's Insurance and e mails sent back and forth between Agent Mike Lonergan and Selectman Thompson with cc's to Fire and Rescue Department Chief Dan Meehan and Sue Collins. Selectman Heath was a bit worried that neither he, or Selectman Nadeau had been cc'd and he asked if he could have a look at the notes. The information was regarding the insurance company's offering of Auto Safety Seminars to the Fire and Rescue Department, which the Agent had spoken to the Selectmen, and Fire and Rescue Chief about a little over a week ago.
The Board decided to ask Anthony Jones, the insurance company's Auto Safety Seminar person, to come and join an upcoming Selectmen's meeting and ask Chief Meehan to attend as well. Ms. Collins will be scheduling that to meet everyone's needs.
Georgie Allen arrived to ask the Board a few questions with regards to a Lebanon Summer Camp field trip to Lake Wentworth in Wolfeboro, NH, scheduled to take place on July 22. Ms. Allen has been named the Acting Director of the Lebanon Summer Camp, due to the Director, Shirley Matthews' inability to direct the camp due to an unforeseen medical issue.
Selectman Thompson asked Ms. Allen what was happening with regards to the Lebanon Youth Soccer program. Ms. Allen stated that she had tried to contact Erik Davis but that she had not yet received a call back from him. However, she was moving forward with her plans to proceed and had been working with Soccer Maine and the folks over at the Berwick Soccer Program in order to get everything together and provide a quality soccer program for Lebanon children. She credited the Berwick Soccer Program for their help, and said that she should have more information soon.
Sue Collins continued with her questions, talking with the Board regarding and incident that took place up on Lower Barley Road over the holiday weekend. The property up in the back areas of that road have been a favorite for ATV riding in the past, but lately there seem to be a lot of large trucks going "mudding" up in the area. Several residents worked together to place some large boulders across the access road, which would prohibit large trucks while still allowing the ATVs to access the property and trails. In the very early hours of Saturday morning, apparently someone in a truck, driving up the unfinished roadway, did not see the large rocks and smashed into them. Unknown damage was done to the truck, as they left the premises, but a license plate was left behind.
Selectman Thompson told Lebanon Truth Seekers that he was waiting to hear from Sgt. Shapiro of Troop A of the Maine State Police in regards to this matter, and that the Trooper may be at Thursday evening's Selectman's meeting, along with several concerned residents from that area.
Questions were asked by Lebanon Truth Seekers in response to resident's questions regarding whether or not the Road Equipment Rental, or Road Paving Work, for the town would be coming up for a new bid with the renewal of the fiscal year. Selectman Thompson said, "Well, they should!" and Selectmen Heath and Nadeau had nothing to add. Thompson stated that he'd asked Road Commissioner Tom Torno about putting together a request for bids for the paving and truck rental prices over a week ago, and it was one of the questions he had for Mr. Torno tonight, prior to finding out that Torno would not be coming in. "It's currently not up for bid," said Thompson, "but again, it should be. Tommy needs to be writing that up."
That question led to a discussion between Selectman Heath and Thompson regarding mowing work, and they agreed to ask Mr. Torno (who oversees the bid winners responsible for cemetery and town property mowing) if he would contact them as they both agreed the lawns in town were getting a bit long.
Again the subject changed, this time talking about the mowing and brush cutting that needed to be done on the sides of all the town's roadways. There was a lot of discussion between the three men regarding the different machines required to just mow, rather than to mow and cut brush.
Selectman Nadeau recalled "when Dick Thompson used to do the job, it was always wonderful!" But Thompson reminded him that Mr. Thompson has been gone about 10 years now. Nadeau then spoke about the work the NH Highway Department was having done down near Chestnut Hill Road in Rochester, adding that he had seen the machine they were using and it was pretty amazing as it could cut the grass and take down even small trees with one machine.
Selectman Heath spoke to the different machines that he had seen in use, and that the town had rented a John Deere machine about 2 years ago. He said that it had done a good job cutting back the brush along the town's roads. "It took a VERY long time," said Heath, "We couldn't do all the roads in town."
Lebanon Truth Seekers asked whether the Selectmen had any idea yet how much of the $28,000 delivered into the Highway Department budget on June 29th, had made its way back into the General Fund. While Selectman Heath had said on Thursday, July 2, that the Board should have a better idea of the money being returned at tonight's meeting when they would go over the project with Torno and Treasurer Jeanette Lemay, since Tom had not shown up for the meeting, they still did not know.
"It could take as long as a month before we have a good idea of that," said Thompson, "as we have to wait for all the bills to come in and be processed by Jeanette."
When asked if they even had a general ball-park figure, Heath and Thompson said it was still an "unknown".
I left the Board to their Accounts Payable duties, and they were going to go over some Transfer Station applications after I spoke to them about a trip I made to the Transfer Station today where I had a trailer full of heavy trash bags and even though I have a handicapped license plate, no one came out to help me unload it and I had been left to do so alone, while someone inside continually operated the compactor. The Board said that they were going to go over the several applications that they had received and begin the interview process soon.
Lebanon Truth Seekers left the Town Office around 5:30 pm.
