Coordinator Report

A question was raised at the previous meeting about the Gas Pipeline and
the town making expenditure and becoming legally entangled. Our legal
counsel says that "paying for litigation does not make us a party to a
case.  We need to be added as a Plaintiff or Defendant by amendment of
the pleading, or in the initial filing, or we are not parties to the
matter."
	
Board needs to vote to open Annual Town Meeting Warrant. I propose you
do so effective 4/11 and to close it 4/18 at 5 pm. This is opening the
"window" or articles by petition.

Town is purchasing five Elm trees from the Liberty Elm Society in Keene.
Three will be planted in place of the Maples we recently removed on the
Town Common. The planting ceremony is scheduled at 9:15 am on April 28th
with a rain date the following day. The other two will join the Liberty
Elm already at WCS. I would like the town to support this project by
establishing a Liberty Tree Donation Account whereby, if we can sell
fifty trees, which come with brass markers for $99 to our residents, the
Society will contribute a $4,000 tree and memorial to Warwick.

Fiber broadband is in my opinion too costly. We have results of our
wireless study. I recommend we have the TM vote a portion of our surplus
/ retained earnings to capital expenditure and vote for some debt and
get the network into new electronics. I say we delay implementing LTE
and any fiber until the MBI grant funds are available. This phase I will
cost $300k. John and Dawn attended the most recent Sub-Regional
Broadband Network meeting and can report.

The BB Committee will meet 4/7 and make some recommendations. I am in
favor of proxy type questions rather than putting $2M bonding question
to our voters. They might pass it and we can't afford to do this and in
my view shouldn't delay upgrading our network while we all come to terms
with reality. We do need to agree on the decision path.

FY17 Budget and Articles
	Recall that we got a $22k energy settlement. I have included a revenue
budget article to use this funding to reduce the tax levy. I know the
BEC has designs on the money. I say not. There is still almost $50k of
Green Communties Grant yet to expend. These funds were compensation to
the Town for lost savings due to failure under a contract to deliver
savings. Result was that taxpayers had to support the town spending more
than anticipated for power. It makes sense to me to "return" this to the
taxpayers by using it as FY17 revenue, lowering the tax bill. That is
how I am treating it. We had planned to spend it on energy costs and
have not.