Prudential Committee Cotuit Fire District 24 August 2015
Present: Stan Goldstein, Laurie Hadley, Fran Parks, Treasurer Mike Daley and Clerk Charlie Eager
Fran I’m going to call the August 24th, 2015 prudential committee of the Cotuit District meeting to order. Is anyone recording? Amy Kates is recording. The prudential committee meetings are conducted in compliance with the Massachusetts Open-Meeting law MGL Chapter, Chapter 38, Sections 18 through 15. For the regular monthly meetings of the Prudential Committee there should be a reasonable period of time for public comment. The public does not participate in committee discussions or deliberations. No person shall address a meeting of a public body without permission of the Chair, and all persons shall, at the request of the Chair, be silent. No person shall disrupt the proceedings of the meeting of a public body. If after a clear warning from the Chair a person continues to disrupt the proceedings, a Chair may order the person to withdraw from the meeting. If the person does not withdraw, the Chair may authorize a constable other officer to remove the person from the meeting.
Fran: Is there any public comment? Please limit your comments to three minutes.
Amy: Amy Kates, Falmouth Road. I noticed on tonight’s agenda, you were going to be discussing the district clerk’s contract with the thought of perhaps offering a raise to the clerk. I wondered if part of your discussion tonight might center on the clerk’s hours. I remember a couple of years ago when we had talked about having a district office. My thought was, gee, that would be great, because it would be something that would be open to the public for people to see Charlie, ask Charlie questions, look at public records, and that might be an opportunity for Charlie to indicate his available hours where the public could contact him. I wondered if part of your discussion tonight might talk about, even though the district clerk’s position is a part-time position, what hours members of the public could contact Charlie and when he would be available. Thank you.
Fran: Any other comment? Public comment is closed. Any response to public comment?
Stan: Wouldn’t having an office for these folks full-time require increased expenses?
Stan: Depending upon how it’s organized, having additional office hours and space for additional folks may require additional expenses.
Laurie: May I speak.
Fran: Go ahead. Yes Mrs. Hadley.
Laurie: The purpose of acquiring the property of 56 High Street, was to eventually create a district office. That’s four or five years in the future, and at that time, we will be addressing permanent hours for clerk or treasurer of the administrative assistants in the different departments.
Fran: Thank you. Next item on the agenda’s the clerk’s salary. This was discussed, I believe, at the August 3rd meeting.
Laurie: I would like to move that we increase the district clerk’s salary by 10%.
Fran Is there a second to that?
Stan: I’ll second that.
Fran: Any discussion?
Stan: Yes, I have a problem with that. Let me just establish a fact that it’s my understand Charlie? Oh, he. Okay, sorry.
Fran: I believe its four years. Is that correct, Charlie? Four years?
Charlie: Yes
Stan: I’m sorry?
Charlie: I had a raise after the first yea.
Stan: The first year? You’ve been here how long?
Charlie: Five years.
Stan: Okay. It’s just I don’t … Okay, so it was four years. Just give me a second here.
Laurie: It’s 2.5% per year.
Stan: Yeah, it’s … In actuality, if I multiply by 1.025, I compounded it, effectively, and that does work out to 10%. A little over 10%. In that case, I guess I would be in favor of it. It’s just the issue is looking at other employees and other things that are going on. At the time, it could just make it difficult in other negotiations that are happening. PC 24 Aug 2015 Page 3 of 22
Fran: Well, I think in terms of any other negotiations, Charlie’s part-time, so he doesn’t receive any benefits. An increase in his salary is purely an increase in his salary. There’s no increase in any other compensation.
Stan: Okay. Going to buy us an ice cream?
Laurie: That doesn’t even pay for his gas coming back and forth ].
Lori: All those in favor of increasing the clerk’s salary by $250, or 10%?
Hadley: Aye.
Stan: Aye.
Fran: Aye. So moved. Mr. Clerk, did you want to talk about public information access and the procedure for that?
Charlie: Stan asked me to get some fees that could be charged, should request for information be put out there. I went on the Secretary of State’s website, and I did make up these. These are the fees they say are allowable.
Laurie: On the last two paragraphs, the fee charge would be the hourly rate for the administrative assistants who will be doing the research.
Charlie: Right, it’s just the lowest paid person who was able to do it, so most likely it would be the administrative assistant for the fire department or the water department.
Stan: This is pretty much what my recollection is of reading the stuff on the public records law.
Hadley: This all sounds quite reasonable to me.
Fran: Yeah, do you think we should have it posted on the web site
Lorie: Oh, yes.
Fran: Okay, all right. Well, I’ll send it Patricia. We’ll post in on the website.
Stan: Yes, well it just follows that we’ll have to make sure that all the wording is exactly correct according to the law.
Fran: Okay, thank you.
Hadley: I move that we adopt the fees that Mr. Eagar has drawn up for us.
Stan: I second that.
Fran: All in favor?
Stan: Aye.
Hadley: Aye.
Fran: Aye. So moved. Mister-
Laurie: Just for your information, you want to tell him what it is?
Fran: It is 20 cents per page for photocopies, 25 cents per page for microfilm copies, 50 cents per page for computer printouts, and if a request is going to exceed $10, then an estimate will be given to the requester. Water tank, mister treasurer?
Mike: Getting through the green-light is like getting the permission to go forward from bond council. We’re knee-deep in that. That shouldn’t be a problem. We’re close to putting all the legal documents in the hands of the bank and the bond council. The water board had an authority voted at the annual meeting of 2.1 million dollars, and at the time, they thought that would adequately meet their needs, which in theory, it does. All of the bids are in. The putting up of the tank and the taking down of the two tanks is under 2.1 million dollars to the point where there’s some availability of also using the article appropriation towards some of the engineering costs. They’ve already designed and bid, so some engineering costs were incurred out of the previous year’s appropriation with a [turn back 00:10:27], as a matter of fact. They close that article at the end of the year.
To the best of my knowledge, they’re going to go forward and award the contracts. The project they’re estimating will take about upwards of 18 months. The cost of the engineering will be allocated over those 18 months, some to the article and some to the budget to get them through. There may be another article in the spring to finish up whatever engineering or other out-of-pocket costs they have for the project. Part of green-lighting, we have all kinds of tax ramifications when we sell tax-free debt, which we’re trying to do. In the world of taxation, the federal government basically says you cannot use tax-exempt proceeds for non-public purpose. These tanks sometimes have telephonic antennas on top of them. The tank that we are taking down first doesn’t have antennas on it. The tank we’re taking down second does. The tank we’re putting up has specs for the capacity to hold antennas built into the cost, but no antenna costs in there. The telephone companies are not sure they want to lease on the new tank. What happens when you have an electronic system that bounces signals off of an antenna is that if you move one antenna, you have to move a whole bunch of other antennas.
When the second tank comes down, we may go out of the antenna business. They move it to the new tanks, which as that proceeds, we’ll deal with bond counseling, green-light issues there. We may end up seeking to lease a tower on the site of the tank with the antennas so that the telephone companies don’t have to move all of the other antennas to reconcile to moving it to our new tanks. That’s all in play, but that’s not going to cause us to have any green-light issues. We may lose some antenna revenue as a result, if the companies decide not to use any of our antenna sites. That’ll play out as time goes on, and obviously the water commissioners will advise us on that process.
We’re going to get green-lighted, we’re going to award some contracts, and we’re going to start spending some money. Now as part of green-lighting, we have to advise bond council if we are going to receive and federal or state subsidies. We are pursuing, because the United States Department of Agriculture has certain loan and grant programs available to rural communities under populations of 10,000. The Cotuit fire district has historically qualified for USDA opportunities. The fed has changed the ranks, and it’s more likely than not that the Cotuit fire district is now going to be tied to the town of Barnstable population, which will bop us out of contention for any USDA participation.
The Wareham office of the USDA has told us on the finance side that they’ll try to get us an answer this very week. Meanwhile, Chris is still pursuing it on his contact’s side. If there’s an opportunity to pursue USDA, then we will do that. The big upside to USDA borrowings is that when we sell a bond, we have an incredible amount of issuance costs. For example, if it’s a federal loan, the interest rates are potentially below market, and the issuance costs are minimized. If it’s a incentivized private sector loan, like the bank gets a guarantee, we would still have issuance costs. If we’re selling the 2.1, we’re also going to be selling others to take out these notes that we have and permanently fund probably another 3, 4, 500,000.
One of the things that are in play, we’ve already green-lighted the water restriction on the property that’s being bought if it gets conveyed to the trust, the Barnstable land trust. That’s another 230 to go with the 2.1 that’ll be new issue, probably a note, and then wrapped into the bond. We have the roadways paying down notes. We have the security system with a small note out there. We have the property on High Street with a note. We’ll probably take out all the notes with a permanent funded bond, it’ll exceed 2 and a half million bucks. If you sell bonds in increments of 5,000, which they prefer to do, the last time I checked, it is $7.50 per bond. We would have 2.5 million divided by 5,000 times
$7.50 a loan, which that’s approaching 20 odd grand just to sell the bonds, not including bond council’s fees, DFA fees, and [sort of sundry 00:16:54] the printing costs associated with both we call [in OS 00:16:58] red herring first, and then the final offering statement.
We have a lot of costs that we haven’t budgeted for. Generally when we do big projects, the motion was made and bond council had anticipated that we would also pay issuance costs out of all these authorities. We have some left over in the purchase of High Street for its share in the issuance cost. We have build in, I think, 15,000 for issuance costs on restrictions for the water. The expectation is that we would borrow and pay for those as well. The alternative is we can appropriate 20, 30, 40,000, whatever we’re going to need. We did not do that, but we may talk about that again somewhere along the line.
At the moment, we’re in the green-light mode. I would expect we’ll let you know at the next meeting we have green-lighted and we may be actually doing a quick note sale to get the cash in hand we need. If I can do an internal borrowing like I did last year, and get the free cash certified. I pretty much blew out the stabilization fund, so we can’t use that for internal borrowing, but we may be able to bridge until April when our notes mature and we normally do our notes. What I probably will end up doing is selling some notes in the fall that will mature in April where the other notes are maturing. Then into March or April, we’ll do the bond, have all the proceeds in hand to pay off all the notes, and we’ll go forward with a regular fixed principle interest payment going forward.
You may see me in here doing a quick note sale in the next 30, 45 days, or you may not. You may see me in asking to do an internal borrowing, and we’ll definitely be looking to probably sell a bond in the spring. I’ll keep you posted on that, but we’re fairly busy. Charlie gave me some more pieces I needed tonight. We’re waiting for USDA on whether or not we’ll get any federals with the help of the bond council and a few others. I expect we’ll get this pretty much buttoned up and be back to talking about getting the money the next time.
Fran: Thank you. Thanks good. Thanks. Can I just ask a question on a different topic? Do you know if we received a rebate for the HVAC
Mike: We did get that.
Fran: We did? Okay. Do you happen to remember how much it is?
Treasurer: I believe it was $900. Its miscellaneous fiscal 16 income, so it’s already been received and in the bank. I’m pretty sure it was $900.
Fran: Great. Thank you. Okay, Stan. District insurance.
Stan: Okay, so just let’s drop back and talk about what’s happened in historical time frame. On July 8th at 10:00, we met at the Cotuit Library. Attendees were Brad Preston, he was the insurance agent for Gowrie Group who was describing the VFIS insurance policy, Ronald Mycock, fire commission, Victor Mastro, water commission, Chief Olson, fire chief, Chris Wiseman, water superintendent, and myself. The primary purpose of the meeting was to look at the VFIS insurance policy, which is a major policy that the district pays for, and it covers the water department, the fire department, and it touches other departments in various too. The items that we talked about were the loss summary experience for both the policies for the past six years, accident and sickness schedules for both volunteer and career, property schedules or locations including coverage reach, crime coverage, portable equipment, schedule of current vehicle, general liability, management liability, and excess liability.
In general, the coverages were discussed from the point of view of … and as we found out, increasing deductibles, eliminating unnecessary coverage, which we found, adding and increasing some coverages, and changing the effective date from the 1st of August to sometime earlier in the year so that, because of the lead times that the insurance companies give the Gowrie group, we don’t know what August, next month, when we have our budget meeting in the spring, we won’t know, effectively, what the insurance policy will cost, as of August 1st, 2016. We wanted to make this policy a nine month policy instead of a one year policy.
I guess I’m frustrated. I ran into some roadblocks, and the roadblock is primarily on the part of the fire commission. Understandably they wanted, especially with increasing deductibles, that means you increase your own assumed risk or retained risk. I think the fire commissioners wanted to know more about that and discuss that. They had a meeting … I don’t know if they had a meeting in July that was before this or after the-
Fran: They met after.
Stan: – after the insurance . They met in August, and I don’t have the minutes from the meeting in August, and Chief Olson didn’t get back to my email asking if he recalled if they had … if the fire commission had discussed it. Any-who, what we found was if we increased the deductibles for many of the coverages that we had, including eliminating some coverage for some portable hand tools that the water dept. had, but eliminated the coverage. We also found out that the old ambulance item number 9 was still under coverage, so we eliminated that coverage. If we got the maximum deductible, we could save over $32,000 a year, according to the Gowrie Group. However, we looked at increasing some coverage for, effectively, what we call the PELP, the extended liability, except it’s not personal. It would be commercial extended liability from a million to 3
million. We looked at perhaps increasing loss of life benefit for the injuries on duty and increasing the loss of life benefit for the fireman from 50 to 250. Even with those increases, we still would have netted $21,000. No action has been taken, and if you divide 21,000 by 12, that’s $1,750 a month that we’re losing because no action’s been taken.
I also ran into some issues with Ron. He questioned the Prudential committees, perhaps, authority to move the line item of the insurance from where it was on the fire district to the prudential committee line item. When you look at the problem’s we’re having now, the water department’s made the decision. They’ve deleted the coverage for the hand tools. They tried to increase the coverage for the deductible, but because the fire commission hasn’t taken a stand yet, the deductibles have to be similar across all properties. You can’t have one property at 2,500 and another thousand, another 5,000. We’re really waiting on the fire commission to decide what they want to do. I think just the issues that we’ve had between the water department and the fire … the water commission and the fire commission, it really indicates that a policy of this needs to be at the prudential committee level, because it covers everything, all of the functions. The fire-
Hadley: Go ahead.
Laurie: No, I was going to say I think the purpose was mostly a housekeeping issue to have the insurance all in one place when it was moved, and we probably should have discussed it with the fire commissioners and the water commissioners before we did that. I think the insurance is their purview, because most of it covers them. It doesn’t even cover Freedom Hall. What I wanted to see was that it was something that was openly reviewed on a yearly basis by both those committees so that everybody knew what was going on. You left out how much of VIF has paid out for us over the past-
Treasurer: I’m recalling this. I think I have my handwritten notes. Well, let me just state upfront first that I personally think we’re very lucky that VFIS has continued to insure the district, because the payouts they’ve experienced over the past six years have significantly exceeded the premiums they’ve collected from us. I don’t remember the number exactly, so I won’t state it, because I don’t remember what it is.
Fran: I thought it was close to a million or a million dollars. Is that correct?
Stan: I thought it was 100,000. Again, off the … Well, it’s on the record, but I’m trying to remember. It was like $100,000 a year for six years.
Fran: Plus the payouts, so it’s probably close to a million.
Stan: No. I also want to state one thing. I know that the fire commission has done a … I think they’ve done a wonderful job over the past years in taking care of a lot of issues at the fire house. I’m just frustrated with this particular function. Also at the meeting … I didn’t have all the commissioners there, because I didn’t want to have a quorum, and we didn’t do a deliberation. Everybody agreed that this was the way to go. Mycock said, as a matter of fact some emails to me, he said, “I don’t disagree with what you’re trying to do, just the process.” Excuse me if I didn’t follow the process. I thought I had all the stakeholders there that could make a decision. I come from private industry. I’m asked to do a job, get all the stakeholders together, and make a decision, and we go for it, but so-
Fran Yes, unfortunately, Stan, we can’t order them to do something. We can request, we can plead, but we cannot order them, either the fire or the water commissioners.
Stan: Yeah, I understand that, but if there was some disagreement at the meeting, I would say, “Okay, where are we going?” But there was no disagreement. Anyway-
Fran: Weren’t they also on a deadline? Didn’t the insurance, the current policies have to be renewed as of one August.
Fran: It was renewed on one August, and it was renewed for a year. The policy that was going away that I think premium was in round numbers 41,500, and the new policy is going to be about 49,000.
Stan: We can change it at-
Fran We can change it at any time during the course of the year. Mr. Daily wanted to make a comment.
Mike: Yes, as far as the authority goes, the district was recommended for funding across a plateau of articles. There was no misunderstanding that all the insurances have been recommended by me to be placed into the prudential committee’s budget. The district followed your recommendations. The end of conversation occurring when the budget votes were made, and the district meeting closed, it’s your jurisdiction. It’s your appropriation. It’s your charge to transact them, because this is why I’ve watched and talked and talked and talked. I also, by the way, I would have liked to have been invited to your meeting also, since it was my recommendation. I’m a former licensed insurance broker all lines, I just let them lapse. I’ve forgotten more about insurance than most people will ever know. I recommended it. I did it in publicly. Everybody knew-
Lori: It was on the .
Mike: -that the insurance was being moved to, by the … This committee was in your jurisdiction of recommending votes to the district meeting. It was put in your hands for this very reason.
Fran That’s true.
Mike: There is no committee’s decisions to be made, except your committees, because the district has voted. There is no miss-appropriation of somebody’s authority, and the individual budgets do not have an impact for any of the accident or any type of what you would call the worker’s comp or the sickness recoveries. Those go directly to the general fund. They don’t go back in and push up the spending limits again, because they’ve spent for those injured people’s payrolls. The department hasn’t got a risk. Now if you take away coverage for hand tools, then if they lose $250 worth of hand tools and they don’t get a recovery, they still would have to buy them, because the recovery goes back to the general fund, not into their budget. If they have manpower who’s injured on duty and is being paid through the payroll of the department, the recoveries come back and go to the general fund. They budget for those incurrences. If they ran out of money, we would transfer it either from a reserve fund or through a special article at a district meeting. They have no risk for any losses due to any changes in coverages at their departmental budget level. Okay? I would have explained that to them all at your meeting so there was no fear of some unknown that doesn’t exist. The bottom line is you were given the appropriation to appropriate and insure. That’s the end of the conversation.
Fran: I think maybe just to smooth ruffled feathers we can invite at least the chairmen of both committees to come to our next meeting to go through this.
Stan: Is what … First of all, just let me say I read the by-laws. I’ve been reading them fairly consistently. One of these days I’ll have them memorized, but I didn’t see anything in there that said that what we’ve done, and as you’ve stated, is against the by-laws.
Mike: It’s not a by-law.
Fran It isn’t.
Mike: It’s a statute. It’s the Commonwealth of Massachusetts general laws. District meeting appropriates to the control of the appropriating authority. They expend what they’ve been given by district meeting.
Laurie: Unfortunately Mister Mycock was not at the annual meeting.
Mike: He may or may not have been. I don’t know that for a fact-
Fran: No, he wasn’t.
Mike: – but the bottom line is, there is no by-law that can supersede state law, and so your role under state law as a prudential committee is to advise on budgets to the district meeting. It’s their role to vote those budgets. Once that’s done, whoever has got the appropriation manages that appropriation. There was never any misunderstanding that I was recommending that those budgets be lowered by those funding levels of insurance and moved over into your control. It’s got nothing to do with them. The only problem we had is everything we get a bill, we got to put a piece against this line, a piece against that line, a piece against that line, and when it comes time, as you said, to get quotes, who’s getting the quotes. Water’s getting quotes and putting in their budget, and fire’s getting quotes and putting in their budget, and Freedom Hall is in that package. Yes, Freedom Hall’s got stuff in its budget, so now it’s all in the administrative budget, which is our shared budget, if you will. That’s who’s in command and control of it. If the district doesn’t like what you do and you place these commissions at grave risk financially, they’ll take it away from you, and they’ll put it back in their very capable hands. Until they do, you don’t have any restrictions. You only have fiduciary to fulfill.
Stan: Okay, as part of that fiduciary to go off and say we will have these particular deductibles, I would rather not do that without working with these commissions.
MIke: You have, so you’re expressing frustration that one person or board has slowed down the process. Okay, it’s slow, but it shouldn’t come to a dead stall. If they can’t find a favorable vote, then that’s what they call minority. You told me that you’re in support of it, and all these other people that you had at your meeting were all in support of it except one fire commissioner.
Stan: Well, I think he took it to the fire commissioner at the meeting, and they effectively said, “Let’s look at it.”
Mike: Okay, it’s not a lot to look at. You’ve looked at it, and you’ve explained it. At this point, you don’t have the inhibitor to stop you from moving forward with the policy changes other than common courtesy to other officials.
Stan: Yes, that’s what I-
Mike: Okay, there’s nobody that should cause you to have angst about going forward and executing the transactions that you wish to execute. If you blow it, they’ll take it away from you. I suspect you won’t blow it, but maybe you will.
Fran: Okay, thank you.
Stan: I think Fran has suggested in some of the emails that went back and forth over this that we do get all the commissioners together, so I would suggest that we have a joint meeting, and also suggest that Mike Daily be there so that we can explain all this and get it ironed out. I’d just like to see us save the money if we can save the money.
Fran: Okay, we’ll work with the other committee chairs. Freedom Hall. Okay, so I have the bids for the storm windows that we need to complete the storm windows on the building. I contacted three companies, and I got one estimate. The other two they just never got back to me, and I don’t think they ever will. I contacted All Cape Aluminum, which is on Iyanough Road in Hyannis, aluminum products of Cape Cod, which is in Dennis, and Falmouth in Mirror. Actually, All Cape Aluminum is the one that put these storms on the big windows. His estimate for doing it is $1,840.30, and that would be for one, two, three, four, five ,six, seven, eight, nine-
Laurie: Are we doing the large windows?
Fran: No, he’s not doing the large windows, just the two upstairs windows in the front that weren’t done. Three, four on both sides that weren’t done, and the ones in the back. It’s a quantity of nine.
Hadley: I hope I can get mine done for that price.
Mike: That’s perfectly legitimate.
Fran: Yeah, and I think it’s a reasonable cost, so I will entertain a motion to accept the bid from All Cape Aluminum of $1,840.30 for installing nine traditional series storm windows, white triple track style on Freedom Hall.
Laurie: I move we accept the proposal from All Cape Aluminum for $1,840.36 to install nine storm windows.
Stan: I’ll second it.
Fran: All in favor?
Hadley: Aye.
Fran: Aye.
Stan: Aye.
Fran: Good.
Stan: How about while you’re on Freedom Hall, how about the shades? How is that … Oh, is that the … Okay, sorry about that.
Fran: All right, so the shades. I got three bids on this, sort of. Behind the Blinds in Centerville really didn’t want to come out and measure until we decided that we wanted to go with them for their shades. Bass River Blinds came and sort of measured. If they got the bid, they were going to come back and re-measure more thoroughly. Then we have Budget Blinds, which is on Falmouth Road in Mashpee. The gentleman came, measured every single individual window with a digital device, and took every … He was here for over an hour, took every conceivable measurement too for these shades, and they would be vinyl, washable, they would have a side chain to put them up and down, and they would be … I chose sort of an off-white to go with the walls. I also researched online what was a normal expectation for these size of shades, and his total bid was $1,702.56, which I think is reasonable. That’s a firm estimate-
Laurie: That’s a firm estimate.
Fran: -whereas all we got is a little guesswork. The lady who came and sort of measured, her’s was $999, and the lady who just sort of got the measurements from me, and if she got it would come measure, was $868.80. My preference is to go with the Budget Blinds guy who also lives down the street and also gave us a guarantee on the shades and will be here within 24 hours if any of them malfunction.
Laurie: I think even though the price is considerably more than the other two, the other two seem like they’re not true estimates, they’re just-
Fran: Well, from the research I did for just the cost of these size shades, his is in line with everything I found out. I think the other two are, I think, at the end of the day, they’re going to say, “Well, actually we need more money.” I would prefer to go with Budget Blinds. I think it’s a reasonable cost.
Stan: We have a written estimate from Budget Blinds, and the others are just off the wall kind of thing.
Fran: Yes.
Stan: Yeah, I would go with Budget Blinds, also.
Fran: Okay, I make a motion we accept the proposal from Budget Blinds for six shades for the windows in the main hall at a cost of $1,702.56.
Laurie: Second.
Stan: Second.
Lori: All in favor?
Stan: Aye.
Fran: Aye.
Laurie: Aye.
Fran: We have to decide on maintenance for the HVAC system, and GHVAC said that they would do it, and it would be a cost of … They will come down twice a year to maintain the system.
Laurie: Is this the outfit that put them in?
Fran: Yes.
Hadley: Okay.
Lori: Yes, the installers, and the cost would be $800 per visit.
Laurie: So that would be $1,600.
Fran: $1,600. I don’t know if you want me to get other bids from other people, but I personally would prefer to have the people that install it take care of it, because I think they know it inside out, obviously.
Stan: Is that a contract, or just $800 a visit?
Fran: It would be a maintenance contract.
Stan: What does the maintenance contract get us?
Hadley: Cleaning.
Fran: Cleaning.
Stan Filters?
Fran: Filters.
Stan So that there wouldn’t be … On mine they come, just the labor, but all the parts I get billed at the house. Likely it would be the same. It’s the service portion that they’re guaranteeing for 800. Then if you need a filter or a belt or a pulley or something, you’re going to have the parts cost. That would seem to me to be the way they would work it. Do you feel comfortable with that money?
Mike: Well, it’s certainly compliant with 30 B. It’s such a low … It doesn’t require that level of three quotes, so it certainly falls within your purview to do it lawfully if you want to pursue it. It’s your call.
Stan: I just gulped when you said $800 a visit. That seemed a lot to me.
Fran: It’s a very big system.
Stan: Laurie, your feelings?
Laurie: Well, I’m wondering do they clean out ducts and vents and things like that?
Fran: Not as a rule. No, not as a rule.
Stan: We would have to have separate duct cleaning.
Fran: Do you want me to talk to him and ask him exactly what he would do for the … Yeah.
Laurie: We don’t need him right away, because it’s new, right?
Fran: Yes, no.
Stan: Yeah, so it’s … We’re going to pay $800 a visit, so we’re just contracting for the two visits? I guess I’m … When I think of a contract, I think of, okay, when we leave here if something goes bad, we call them up. They come flying over and fix it.
Mike: But that’s not the maintenance agreement. That’s a separate service call, but they usually, because you have a contract, you have priority status. They’ll probably give you a guarantee 24 hours response-
Laurie: When we have a wedding on New Year’s Eve or something like that and the thing goes out, that morning they’ll come over and fix it?
Mike: In theory they will, but that’s why you have an agreement
Fran: Trust me, this guy will.
Hadley: Yes, okay.
Mike: He’ll get in writing what you’re buying for your $800.
Stan: So it’s not only for the AC, but also for the heat also.
Fran: Yes, right.
Stan: I feel better about that.
Fran: I can ask him for a detail of what that’s going to encompass, if you want.
Stan: Yes, tell him to write up a bid. Can he do that, or do we have that, or is this just a verbal-
Fran: No, this is verbal. I spoke to him when he was all done installing the system.
Stan: Do you feel comfortable asking him to write up a bid?
Fran: Sure, yes. I’ll ask him for exactly what that would comprise of the $800.
Stan: It might be interesting to call up another HVAC organization and have them come over and give us a bid just to get a comparison.
Fran: Who would you call?
Stan: Franny? I don’t know if Franny does this, but-
Mike: Okay, Robies is another one who’s in the business.
Fran: I’d go with Franny first.
Stan: Check it out. Let’s see what we get for our dollars.
Fran: Okay.
Stan: We don’t need it right now. Is that okay with you? I know it’s going to hassle you a little bit more.
Fran: Sure. Yes, no. I’ll ask him. The last the rental agreement for Freedom-
Fran: For Freedom Hall.
Laurie: I don’t remember what I said.
Lori: Oh, okay.
Stan I can … Well, I have it here somewhere, but used to have the paper work .
Laurie I didn’t print them out as usual. I read them, I scan them, if I see anything, I make a note, but I don’t like to kill all those trees. We had discussed the security deposit.
Fran: Right.
Stan: Yeah, we talked about is this the … I had written that down, changed
Laurie: Ye. We had increased one of the fees and a $300 security deposit. Do you think that’s sufficient?
Fran: Yes.
Laurie: Okay, and we do have another estate sale coming in here, not this coming weekend, but the weekend before Labor Day.
Fran: Who’s doing that?
Hadley: West Bay. I know. They will be using the hall for five days, so they’ll be paying $100 a day, because she lives in Cotuit.
Mike: Can I ask a question?
Laurie: Sure.
Mike: Are you just going to hold the check and then give them back their check, and if they don’t meet your standards, then you’re going to deposit their check?
Fran: I thought we decided not to do anymore-
Laurie: I didn’t think we’d ever actually decided.
Fran: Oh, okay.
Laurie: But we can tonight, and we won’t do any more.
Fran: Yes, I’m sorry, but she’s left this place a mess every single time, and I never got my wastebasket back.
Laurie: They have been using the Liberty. I know.
Fran: I want her to understand that I want this room, this building spotless. She can’t go downstairs. That’s not available to her, and I don’t want any broken glass out in the yard or any other junk. Everything that they bring in here-
Laurie: Goes out.
Fran: – they have to remove.
Laurie: Right, and this will be the last time.
Fran: Yes.
Laurie: Okay.
ran Okay, so next is the minutes of the 29th of June, the 13th of July, and the 3rd of August, which the audios have finally been posted on the website. Both Patricia and I finally got our computer working
Laurie: She got a house to live in?
ran No. I don’t know where she’s living. She’s still in the apartment, I think..
Laurie: Okay, well as I say, I don’t have them with me. I did read through them. I didn’t notice anything.
tan Yes, I printed them out. I read them. As best as I can remember, what happened at the meetings is well documented in the notes.
Fran: Could I have a motion to approve the minutes of the 29th of June, 13th of July, and the 3rd of August?
Laurie: So moved.
Stan Aye
Fran Aye
Hadley: Aye.
Fran: Is there any other business, Mrs. Hadley?
Laurie: I don’t have any.
Fran: Policy advisory?
Laurie: Oh, yes. I’ll be calling a meeting in September, and I have a couple of things that I’ve been thinking about. Stan had suggested changing the current … It would be an amendment to the enabling act if we did either one of these things. One would be to disband fire commissioners, water commissioners, and prudential, and have a five member board. Another would be to consider consolidation with COMM, which the last time that came up, we had the biggest turnout we’d ever had to vote it down. I think a lot of people have changed their minds. I, frankly, would like to see a town-wide fire district. I would never be in favor of letting the town on it.
Stan: Yeah, I was told that you can’t disband the water commissioners. They’re by statute.
Mike: The prudential committee could serve as the water commissioners to meet the statutory obligation, so you can.
Laurie: The makeup of the different districts in just the town of Barnstable, one’s got no prudential committee, one’s got no fire commissioners, one’s got no water department. Well, two of them have no water departments.
Mike: I think there’s efficiencies to be had in a town-wide fire district, if you will, but the politics of it is “not in my backyard” kind of thing. I live next … When I say “I”, I mean some citizen lives five minutes away from the fire house. The closest firehouse if this one should be disbanded would be in Marstons Mills. That’s-
.
Fran: I think that could happen if the town took it over. I’m not convinced it would happen if it were a town-wide fire district.
Laurie: It’s just looking into it. It’s just and getting ideas.
Mike: – you’re going to need to have your act together.
Laurie: Oh, yes.
Mike: with a lot of facts and figures.
Laurie: Yes, and it would have to take an amendment to the enabling act, and that would require a vote, not just a district meeting vote, but a vote, a ballot vote.
Stan: Yes, how would that effect my favorite library?
Laurie: Yes, giving money to the library.
Laurie: They’d probably lose it.
Fran: Isn’t that part of the enabling act was amended?
Laurie: We adopted … No, we didn’t have to do anything to the enabling act. We were able to adopt an act of legislature which provides for towns and districts to give money to libraries and war memorials.
Fran: Yes, we will see so that would go away, essentially. I would like to see the policy advisory committee look at the water rates for big users.
Laurie: Okay.
Fran: I sat down and figured out, looked at who paid the most in water rates, I guess it was last year, and figured out that they used over a quarter of a million gallons of water for irrigation.
Laurie: Well, one thing you ought to figure out is how you can charge people for water at the dock who wash their boats for an hour, an hour and a half at a time.
Fran: Put a quarter in the meter.
Lori: That’s right. Yes.
Stan: You know what? One of the things I noticed when we were doing the budget, and I questioned Rick Kylie about it, why is the income that we get from water about half of what their expenses are? He came up with an argument that it seemed fairly logical is that there are lots in town that don’t have water. They’re not developed, so that by charging that extra, what is it, $300,000 I think into the general tax base, it helps … They’re paying at least for water or water improvements and stuff like that.
Fran: Also water is used for municipal purposes also, the fire hydrants and things like that, but I think for-
Laurie: Well, we got the water in the first place for the fire hydrants.
Fran: Yes, right.
Laurie: It was for fire protection, not home use.
Stan: Not home use.
Fran: But I think the people that … Certainly our rates are the lowest, because I compared them with the other companies, and I think for the people that are using massive amounts of water to irrigate their properties, I think we should be charging them more.
Laurie: Well, I get very upset when I see my next door neighbor’s sprinklers working when it’s raining, because it doesn’t cost much to get something put on it that turns it off when it rains.
Stan: I would be in favor of at least looking at that, charging … the rates should equal what their expenses are.
Fran: I’m not sure we can exactly do that, but-
Stan: Maybe over instead of like one fell swoop over a number of years.
Fran: Well, that’s because some of it is municipal use, so everybody actually shares that, but I think there’s some tweaking that we can do. Okay. Is everybody all set?
Stan: I just have one question for Mike on the? Have we moved the money from the-
Mike: What do you think? You know what I’m going to say, right?
Stan: I was talking about Greece a month ago. I’m not that dumb. I’m pretty dumb, but not that dumb.
Mike: As a matter of fact, I’m meeting on Wednesday. I didn’t see what the final nut was today, but I figured by Wednesday it’d be a pretty good buying opportunity, so-
Stan: I would still-
Mike: Well, I’ll think about it, but-
Stan: -entertain not moving at all-
Mike: We’ll see.
Stan: -because the market’s down quite a bit-
Mike: 12%.
Stan: -got a really good buy, and then it might go down some more.
Mike: Right, it might, but it might go up, too.
Stan: You never know. Market has its own mind. Doesn’t listen to me.
Fran: Could I have a motion to adjourn?
Laurie: I move we adjourn.
Fran: So moved.