Prudential Committee – Jan 26 2015 – Meeting Minutes

Present:           Laurie Hadley, Charlie Eger, Clerk, Mike Daley, Treasurer, Rick Kiley, Chairman BOWC and Fran Parks

Fran:                It’s 5:00 so I’m going to call the January 26, 2015 meeting of the Fire District Financial Committee to order. Is anyone recording? Amy Kates is recording. First, order of business is to appoint a new member to the committee to fill out Marge Wallace’s term until May 2014.

Laurie:             I would like to nominate Mr. Stanley Goldstein.

Fran:                I second that. All those in favor?  Unanimous

Fran                 Mr. Goldstein Would you accept?

Stan:                Yes.

Fran:                Mr. Eager would you like to swear him in?

Fran:                Thank you Mr. Eagar. I do not see anyone from the fire commission? The next order of business is an update from the chairman of the water commissioners. This is a required update by the by-laws. In February, we’re supposed to be updated on by the fire commissioners and the water commissioners.

Laurie:             In January?

Fran:                No. Actually, it says February.

Laurie:             For their products and the items that we’re voted on last year.

Rick:                Good evening, madam chairman, members of committee. Frederick Kiely, board of water commissioners. Do you just want me to run through the appropriations or do you have any specific questions before I start?

Fran:                I believe the treasurer has a specific question about the Lowell land about … You sent me an email.

Mike:               I had that of the attorney, not the water commissioner.

Fran:                No, not the high street property but the conservation property.

Mike:               Correct. I wrote the attorney with that question.

Fran:                Okay. All right. I misunderstood. Thanks.

Rick:                Since you brought that up, I did want to just talk about that. In our most recent meeting which was Thursday, this past Thursday evening, 22nd, we did have an update from Barnstable Land Trust and it sounds as if the process is moving in the right direction. Obviously, there’s a component with the town of Barnstable and then as well as the Department of Environmental Protection. They have to approve the language of the easement.

We had most recently had some conversation and revised the document, the agreement with Barnstable Land Trust and it just clarified Cotuit Fire District’s responsibilities as an oversight member with the town of Barnstable, with the land trust and Cotuit Fire District. It just sort of define who has a role and who doesn’t.

The fire district will be monitoring activities within the parcel outside the ballpark and outside that buffer that the town will control. Although no physical work can be done there, it’s really just to make sure that everything is staying as it is.

Then the second question that we had was as far as when the document is ready to be executed by all parties, I’m not sure who within Cotuit Fire District will execute that document, only because the appropriation itself doesn’t appear as a water department budget item.

My understanding is it’s a prudential committee expenditure or a fire district expenditure. I have no idea how you classify it but we don’t have it on our appropriations and I don’t know because the land isn’t to be held for purposes of the waterworks, whether it even should be executed by water commission. Maybe we can just put that out there for council to define that before we get to the point. It’s still probably 60 days away, that’s my understanding.

All right. I think without any other specifics, I can go through the appropriations for 15. This is as of the 22nd of January 2015, so 6064 which is the Main Street in West Street, storage tanks, engineering work, and a total appropriation of $120,000. 83,587 has been spent, leaving a balance with 36412 in change.

We anticipate that that balance is sufficient to complete the work. We had an update from Green Seal Engineering, the engineering firm that’s carrying out that contract. They’ve got a considerable amount of the work done. I think we’re comfortable that they’ve got through at least, they’re probably done with about 60% of the design work.

They indicated on the 22nd that they were comfortable with the estimate, the construction estimate and the bid number that they were going to provide for us, so that I feel that we’ll be able to … when we bring our budget to your committee, we’ll have a solid number in there for that article that we’ll be putting on the 16 work.

The other, next work from the bottom up and then the other item that we had funded for 15 is 6063, that’s pump replacement and well treatment. That was in appropriation of $30,000 to date. None of that money has been expended. There are two projects that Chris has teed up to do [in two 09:12] of the pumping stations and it’s mostly a matter of scheduling with the contractors. He’s got his quotes done but he hasn’t got a hard schedule yet. We anticipate it will probably be March or even April before that work is done.

Then if you want, I can just go back to a couple of things in 14. 6062 which is that it was $200,000 appropriation for the extension of the water main on Main Street. We had an update from the town of Barnstable about two weeks ago and Chris was at the bid opening.

The town of Barnstable has awarded the bid to the general contractor who will be doing their portion and the Cotuit water main as well. He’s been to, most recently, been to an engineering meeting kind of the project kickoff meeting.

The contractor is reviewing the design spec that we provided to them. It’s our anticipation that there’s no problems with that. It’s a pretty standard water main and so we’ll know probably within the next two weeks whether that’s all set to move ahead and the anticipated start date for that construction is March. They just, you know, general sort of March 15.

In that account, to date, we’ve expended 12,600. There’s a balance of 187,000. My understanding is preliminary, it looks like that the bid that came in on that is substantially under the 187. It’s too early to shoot it out because sometimes there are contingencies, sometimes there are change orders. It happens but again, we anticipate that. At a minimum, the 187 is sufficient to fund the whole thing so we don’t see any possibility of going over there.

Then other ones, 6061 was the truck expenditure. There’s $1,500 remaining balance in that account and we anticipate that we’ll be turning that back in that they’ve got everything fitted out, the radios are in, the lettering is done. I think everything is pretty much set and that was 45,000 was the total appropriation and the total ticket came in at 43,463 for the truck and equipment and everything with it.

Few other things that are still carried over from other years, I asked Chris at our last meeting to give us a summary of what he thought he would be using and what he thought he would be turning in. I think we’re probably, this year; we’re ready to close out 6043 which was the Santuit tank construction.

There was one last thing that came up with that and we’ve had a problem within the column, the actual support column of the tank. There’s equipment inside that and the heating system that was installed originally hasn’t been sufficient to prevent freeze ups in there. Not the actual main but of the test taps and the test equipment.

We’re finishing up with the construction of a small enclosure so within that round column, will actually be a room that will be finished. I think that we expect to have that by the end of February. Once that’s paid and I think we’ll finish up. There’s $38,747 remaining in 6043. I anticipate that probably somewhere around maybe 32,000 of that will come back as well.

I guess without any other specific questions, that’s the summary of where the money is, where it’s going. As far as our projects, I think within this huge kind of get an update on where we’re at with everything.

We initiated some discussion about adding to our five-year capital plan because at this point, it only goes out, I think to a 17. There will be a few things that will add to that so when we bring the budget in next month, we’ll give you a better idea of what we anticipate for a five-year capital plan.

Fran:                All right. Thank you.

Fran:                Any questions?

Laurie:             No.

Fran:                Thank you. Looks like the fire department is late, so I’ll go to the district meeting that we just had which approved the purchase of the property at 56 High Street, the Nickerson property. Our attorney has asked for me to request a motion, authorizing me to be the signatory for the purchase and sale agreement.

Laurie:             Okay. I’ll make a motion that Fran Parks  be authorized to sign the purchase and sale agreement for the property on High Street that was voted at district meeting.

Stan                 I’ll second that.

Fran:                Unambitious

Fran:                Thank you. Mr. Daley, do you have anything for us this evening?

Mike:               No. I have the report as of last week. I’m now focusing on your future agendas. I’ve contacted you regarding the schedule for the annual meeting that’s out there, Mark’s looked at it and Charlie’s going to look it. It’s like we have good agenda ride with the next month. The departments are good with your March meeting with their budgets.

I’ve also been focusing on the debt. We have a debt sale on early April. If we’re going to close on School Street prior to that sale, we need to do an internal borrowing and we’re in queued for that. I’ve asked you to put an article on your agenda next month to take that necessary vote.

These reports that you’re receiving early, technically are due in writing to the treasury for posting. If you don’t have them in writing, you need to compile something in writing with Charlie.

All the departments’ annual reports are in Charlie’s hands for physical 14. I’ve asked you to schedule the exit conference with the auditors for the March meeting with the audit firm. We’ll take that up at that meeting. While you’re on your January meeting, I’ve already started working on your February, March and to some degree, April agenda. I’m in good shape, if you are, if you have any questions, I’d be happy to answer.

Fran:                Any questions, [

Female:           The next item of business is to approve to … We need to do an RFP for our district treasurer. Mr. Daley’s contract is up in the end of July for his three-year term. The county has been very kind in assisting us in going out for these contracts and taking care of all the formal bidding business.

We already have a compiled RFP from the last time that we did it. Basically, they’ll just have to change the dates but I think we should have a vote to put the RFP out so we can start the process of going through all the paperwork and necessary meetings for the treasurer’s position.

Fran:                All right. I’ll make a motion that we go ahead and issue the RFP for the district treasurer.

Stan:                I’ll second it.

I have a question.        Are you both comfortable with the RFP or do we need to make any changes to it as far as the way it stands?

Fran:                Other than dates, no. I don’t think we had any questions…

Laurie:             It’s very thoroug.

Fran:                All those in favor? Unanimous

Fran:                Freedom Hall, about 95% of the HVAC work is done. One of the things that will probably go into the spring is charging the air-conditioning, getting that all charged up and I forgot to bring it. The next item is snow plowing.

Laurie:             I did not get a written report from Roger Scudder and Don Sousa never got back to me, the prices.

Fran                 Roger’s price was 75?

Laurie:             I think so. I was looking for the email.

Fran:                That didn’t include doing the walk?

Laurie:             No.

Fran:                Josh McGuire has given these bids for plowing and doing the walk which is $60 per occurrence or it’s just the dusting, doing salt which also would be $60. He lives in the village and he has all the credentials and the paperwork and the insurance because he does commercial plowing. I think I would like to propose that we have Josh come on board to do our plowing and to make sure that we have excess…

Laurie:             I agree with that because Roger wouldn’t do any sanding or salting and Don was a little reluctant on it still.

Fran:                If I could have a motion to make an arrangement with Josh. I believe his last name is McGuire,

Laurie:             Okay.  I’ll make a motion that you contact Josh McGuire and make a commitment. I’ll get a commitment to plow Freedom Hall parking lot, salt if necessary and do the walks.

Stan:                Starting tonight? I second it.

Fran:                All those in favor? Unaminoius

Fran:                Actually, I told him, he wanted to know what we wanted to do for tomorrow and I told him that I’d let him know if he got the bid and he could put us at the end of his list.

Laurie:             Nobody will be here until Friday.

Fran:                The interior painting, I spoke to Mr. Bodreau. I’ll just give you a little history on the painting. We had the interior of the building painted, we went out for proposal, we hired someone to do it, following the state guidelines. He did a very unsatisfactory job as you can notice by all the paint that’s peeling. That’s primarily because he didn’t do any sanding.

We had him back four times to correct mistakes and that was unsatisfactory. I’ve been having Mr. Bodreau get in contact with him, telling him to give us your guarantee and you can just literally peel the paint of the walls. Mr. Bodreau has been in contact with them and they have been relatively slow and returning any messages.

Finally, he had a letter from the painter’s lawyer which basically said, “You haven’t contacted him about having any problems so we’re not going to do anything about it.” Mr. Bodreau is getting ready to send another correspondence to him with the whole email correspondence that I had with him. If necessary, the meeting when he came down here for a meeting along with the audio of that encounter.

Laurie:             He’s very emotional individual.

Female:           Mr. Woodrow seems to feel that is satisfactory. It’s just not this paint job is not going to stand up, it didn’t stand up for half a year, so that story.

Fran:                We have new front door hardware. The problem with the doors are these two side doors and the two doors in the exit doors in the basement don’t have panic bars on them. We’ve made arrangements for Mr. Kerr to come in and replace the hardware and put on the panic bars.

Fran:                I was here the morning of the blood drive and I went to check the doors and the North side door here going outside was open.

Laurie:              Not just unlocked, open.

Fran:                Open.

Laurie:             Yeah.

Fran:                The door was open. I don’t know who’s using that door, what they’re going out there for, I didn’t see any cigarette butts. Who knows they may be letting somebody to come in here and sleep at night. We need to get the new hardware on those doors. Those actually won’t have locks on them, just be able to go out, you won’t be able to come in. Then this evening, had a note from our janitor that there’s no hot water, so I’ll be contacting the plumber. The outside floodlight over the front door that’s a motion sensor needs to be reset.

I contacted the electrician that put it in and follow the procedure that he gave me to reset it and it didn’t work. Somebody has to get up on a ladder and fix that up. All right, I think that’s it for Freedom Hall.

Minutes

Laurie:             I don’t have a copy with me but I did read them. I’d make a motion we approve the December minutes 25, 2015…

Stan:                I will second the motion.

Female:           All in favor? I. Unanimous

Fran:                I’ll forward them to Stan

Male:               Great.

Female:           Does anyone have any public comment?

Deborah:         My name is Deborah Watson and I’m here because I spoke to Lori, so both them show here at the hall. All right. The last show I did was the second show I did here. I had two people helping me clean up before I left and I was told by Lori, the place was a mess that someone said it was a mess. It looked almost like this but those tables were over there and I had my little helping mate which is a friend and he knows the routes and everything with here, the hall.

We both swept the floors down here but we had a ladder we had to deal with there and we put the chairs in front of the ladder and put some of the chairs back there. Then we had a ladder up there that we didn’t touch and the table is over there next to the ladder which is never touched and so I emptied all the garbage and brought it out like I did the last show that I was in, and I was the last one out.

I had two men helping and we swept all the floors so I don’t know what the problem was. I wish I would have taken a picture.

Fran:                I can tell you the problem because I’m the person that complained. The things that had been taken off the stage and moved and put chairs and whatever, put to the sides to make room for people to be up on the stage were not put back. We are the people that put stuff back. We don’t have anybody that comes in here.

Deborah:         What chairs are you talking about?

Fran:                Some of the brown chairs were up there and there were some other items that got moved off of the stage, make room for people up there and they didn’t get put back to where they were.

Deborah:         Oh, I thought they were in front of that door, the chairs. We put them back in front of the door.

Fran:                No, they were still on the sides.

Deborah:         Oh, they were?

Deborah:         Well, I think I don’t know if they were up on the stage but we moved a lot of chairs down from the middle of the stage back down here so the tables would all fit but that’s beside the point. I did feel like I clean and picked up and the place was in order when I left, except for the janitor stuff.

The ladders, none of that was touched. There was a table over there and there was an orange ladder up against the wall and there was something … Those tables up there weren’t there and there was a table, I mean, a ladder, a long ladder behind that side of the wall and that was left there as is, the way it was when I walked in.

Deborah:         Well, I thought that we did it. Milo swept the floors back and forth. There was nobody on the building when we were cleaning up. All the vendors left so the place was empty. All it was  two men, plus myself picking up … I’m sorry if there was something on the floor that we didn’t catch but we did, Milo ran the broom back and forth, back and forth and then I was doing up there. The other gentleman was moving these chairs and the tables and I’m not sure if the tables were over in that corner when we did it.

I won’t having shows here. I live in Cotuit, I’m from Cotuit and it takes a lot to have a show. First of all, this is a state promoter’s license that the town when I went to get … What you’re going to do before you have a show is you got to go to the town of Boston.

I had to get, this is a fee for $50 and this right here when I went to Barnstable, they handed me a form that I had to call Boston. This is a license, our promoter’s license from Boston, they cost $200. This is before I even have the show. This is to have nine shows, I’m up to 11/04/2015.

Then I paid to come in and write, so I’m in order and I try to keep everything in order. I do ads in the paper. Let’s see, they told me in Boston if I didn’t get this, the special permit in both of them that if I did the show here that every vendor that I would have here on the floor, if they walk in, would pay $100 out of their pocket because me being neglected for … I mean, I’m just saying but this is what it cost.

I try to do everything and I try to keep in order of what is going on but there’s a lot of people that don’t know this. When I have a yard sale, I go to the town of Barnstable and I pay $5 to have a yard sale. To do a show here, it cost $50, they charge just to walk in here.

There’s something you know that Boston wants you to have a promoter’s license and then you got to go in front of … What is it? The meeting that they have in Barnstable. You got to stand there and everybody is up on the board. I’m not sure what …

Fran:                It’s a licensing authority.

Deborah:         Yes. You have to do this in order to have a show, so I’m not the type of person, I keep in order. I promise if I do have another show that I will do …

Female:           That’s why we’re asking.

Deborah:         Yes. I’m just saying there’s a lot to do and I don’t know of people that have shows here know this. I don’t know if they’re informed that they have to go the town of Barnstable to get license or they’re going to be in a lot of trouble and they could put their vendors in jeopardy which I didn’t want to do.

Because they told me that I would put my vendors in jeopardy of paying a $100 each and that was 17 vendors and myself…

Laurie:             What was the date again that you want to [send 33:27]?

Deborah:         Well, I’m going to get back to you on that.

 

Deborah:         Because there’s a lot of work. Like I said, there’s ads in the paper and just contacting people.

Laurie:             I think you were talking about March?

Deborah:         I was talking about March.

Female:           Amy did you have a hands up? Did you want to make a public comment?

Amy:                Amy Kates. I think this might be the first time that I’ve heard about this show that Ms. Watson put on.

Laurie:             It was a craft fair.

Amy:                It was craft fair? Okay. It’s a for-profit organization and is our fee structure different for non-profits and profit organizations? I was wondering.

Laurie:             Yes and she was charged the for-profit price for the hall.

Amy:                Charged the for-profit price? The part about vendors paying her, what does that mean?

Fran:                That’s nothing to do with us.

Amy:                Oh, nothing to do with us. Okay. Once she rents the hall, then she advertises and vendors can pay her in order to rent space from her?

Laurie:             Correct.

Amy:                Okay. All right. Thank you very much. I was at the December meeting and there wasn’t discussion at the December meeting about appointing to the committee. I think Fran mentioned that this committee wasn’t prepared to discuss appointing to the committee but that you had a sense that you might wait until May and then have an election in May.

You indicated that there was a chance that you will discuss it at a January 12 meeting which was postponed and so tonight in 15 seconds probably, there was a motion to appoint Stan a second, a unanimous vote and yet, there was no background of how you were approached to fill that position who might have also express interest.

There was no background, no discussion, no introduction of the person and this is not indicating that I don’t think that Stan is a good candidate. My sense is he’s probably an excellent candidate but part of discussion at a meeting is that it needs to occur at the meeting so there was no rational to a point, there was no introduction of the candidate and the candidate’s credentials and why we would or would not appoint.

There was no background on the opening, no discussion about when to appoint, when not to appoint, should we do it now, should we wait until May, why would we wait, why would we not. I was expecting since the January 12 meeting was postponed that tonight, there would be a full discussion for the public. Less discussion has occurred outside of a meeting or at another meeting that I’m not aware of that doesn’t appear to be any discussion that’s occurred. I wanted to point that out and to get some feedback if I could on that.

Fran:                I don’t have any comment. Do you?

Laurie:             Amy was at the meeting, Stan was at the meeting.

Fran:                He volunteered.

Laurie:             I thought it was quite obvious myself.

Fran:                I take a motion to adjourn.

Laurie:             I move we adjourn.

Fran:                So moved.

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