Coordinator report February 3, 2011 We have a four article special town meeting on Monday at 7 pm. First there is the WiredWest enabling article. The path to this fiber to the home project is for each town to establish a municipal lighting company. We should do this so we can proceed with investigating this project. Reva will lead an information session beginning at 6:30 pm in the main hall. The Selectboard will meet at 6 pm in the boards room. The flood plain zoning article has three reasons to recommend it. It will make the Town eligible to apply for grants to mitigate against flood loss. It will make residents who sustain losses eligible for FEMA assistance. And finally, the banks have the flood maps and if they require insurance, affected homeowners will save substantially on their premiums by being able to get federally backed flood insurance at less than half the cost. The revolving fund article is to create incentive for the highway department to share equipment with other departments. Fees collected from renting equipment will be available for use for repairs, replacement and maintenance. The final article supports the highway departments desire to replace the current two wheel drive backhoe with a four wheel drive unit which is being sold by an area contractor who is not interested in taking our old machine in trade. Proceeds of the sale of the old machine will be deposited into the General Fund and increase free cash. At a future meeting the Town can vote to transfer the amount voted in this article to Capitol Stabilization Fund or to retire related borrowing. Chapter 90 will pay the difference between the purchase price of the four wheel drive backhoe and the sale price of the two wheel drive backhoe. There will be no effect on the tax rate and Stabilization can be restored at a later meeting with no effect on the tax rate. Postcards and newsletter notice was sent to each household informing folks of the Monday Feb. 7th special town meeting (STM). The Finance Committee is meeting on 2/3 to review and recommend money articles. We incurred an insurance loss from damage by an auto accident to the town park fence. I initiated a claim with the motorist's insurer. Repair cost will be about $1300 which will be covered. As we are the third party there is no deductible. Two 8" x 8" granite posts were broken. We purchased a flat bed document scanner for the Town Hall. I met with Fire Chief Lambert regarding fire incident reporting needs. He wants a portable computer and reporting software. We found the software funding in his budget. Once he gets the information on the software's system requirements he and I will see what the town-wide computer budget can absorb. We notified residents via newsletter and e-mail list of Town's role in assuring that plain old telephone service (pots) is adequately repaired by Verizon. To date no particulars on open issues have been reported. I speak with a Verizon representative weekly. A resident wrote to request copies of search warrants. While the request was clumsy, I treated it as a freedom of information request (FOI). We replied promptly on behalf of the police and Selectboard to say that we had no warrants. In addition I advised the petitioner to contact the court involved for this type of information. We have begun doing Internet installations under the customer premises equipment (CPE) assistance activity. Two have been installed and three additional approved and await installation. We are waiting for IRS adjusted gross income letter for five otherwise complete applications. Three applications have been supplied and not yet returned. We still have funds for seven or more projects. Police chief appointment letter issued. Last summer I ordered a structural analysis on the Mt Grace tower so we can add 2.4 Ghz for backhaul to repeaters and for more 900 Mhz access point (AP) capacity. I expect this will be completed in a week or so. We will do the build-out in a few months when the weather warms up and once we get Mass State Police approval. The study is being paid for by Broadband Committee funding. Our broadband system has 118 connections including out-of-towners and monthly income of more than $4700. The town hall elevator was out of service for a day. I managed to get it stuck between floors. There was no charge for the fix. The service company treated it as a maintenance call. The sump pump in the pit is restored to operation and there is now a high water alarm. The Guild is having the town hall dining room painted. The smaller water heater installed to serve the kitchen may not be of sufficient size. We are testing for the next few weeks before making any changes. Cartographic Associates got a contract to do GIS work for the state. They will do Warwick's property map updates as a GIS layer for an additional $1000. This has been ordered and the cost will be split between the zoning revolving fund and the highway department. Local aid cuts in the Governor's proposed FY'12 budget amount to a reduction to Warwick of $7,500 which is nine cents on our tax rate. Highway department reclaimed the town hall parking space behind the building with the front end loader. Tech school was able to remove their trailer and the space is available as second handicap parking spot until we run out of room for snow which at this rate won't be long. Don't forget the reception honoring Brian Peters' retirement as police chief. It's a "pot luck" and starts at 2 pm Tim reports that the snow and ice budget is a little bit more than 50% expended as of W-16 dated 2-7-2011. Bill Lyman has been working for us sealing air leaks at the school that are the result of the sprinkler repair. Blower door test was done at school. We are waiting for the consulting report.