Coordinator report April 9, 2015

The MA Attorney General announced today an energy settlement with Soltas
in which Warwick receives $22,000 in damages.  I have provided payment
information to the General's office and we will soon receive a check,
within the next two weeks. I am requesting that the board vote to create
Electricity Special Revenue account from which we can give departmental
budgets allocations to reverse the past damage to their budgets and to
supplement future electric bill payments during now abandoned contract
term. I expect we can eventually release some of the funds to the
general fund to become free cash. To further mitigate losses due to the
high cost of electrical power generation I am working with Hampshire
COG's Power Co,  an alternative supplier, to contract at  lower cost for
supply in the short term while we wait for our net meter host project
with Seaboard Solar in Ware MA to come on-line. Seaboard represents that
we will be under construction in May.  Under that contract we can
purchase electric supply for 7 1/2 cents per kWh and will do so because
that is very low pricing that nobody would offer today.  The actual
contract terms are discounted net meter credits to the effect that we
are to pay 7 1/2 cents.

I will write a letter of commendation from the board to Officer Stewart
of the Warwick Police for his action helping to save a life of a
resident while on patrol. In the department of irony two of the most
outspoken tax cut crusaders who want to severely cut the PD budget had
to call 911 due to an attempted home invasion. WPD responded in about
ten minutes and called for assistance of state police and Orange PD
including their canine unit. No knock on the MSP, but they arrived about
a half hour after the 911 call. Our PD is on target to answer about 600
calls this year, hardly in my opinion, a service that could or should be
handled by volunteers. The personal liability issues alone would
preclude it.

Broadband committee will report. They recommend that the town delay
action on the fiber to the  home question to a fall special town
meeting. This means we have no need of a special meeting to meet the
deadline for inclusion of ballot questions on our Town election ballot.

I'll be seeking project approval of a new pothole grant work-plan which
will mirror the one we implemented last summer and this will contribute
a bit of relief to the snow and ice deficit by paying for some things we
already budget for, making funds available to allocate to snow and ice.
The snow and ice deficit is $78k and it snowed last night. The
legislature voted and the governor signed a bill allowing towns to
amortize the cost of this past winter snow and ice removal over the next
three years. The finance committee agrees with me that this is nuts
unless you really believe that future winters will be milder.

I met with my fellow town coordinators from our school district on the
definition of Capital for purposes of PVRS District and will have some
options for consideration at the next meeting. The range of options runs
from each town being totally responsible for its "plant", to selling the
local elementary schools to the District. A major concern is that with
fewer operating dollars than they'd like there is a tendency by the
District to shirk maintenance and compound problems to the point that
they become unarguably capital items.

Last night I participated in selection of a new superintendent of
schools for Pioneer District. We chose Ruth Miller who is currently
superintendent at Narragansett. She holds both the busness manager and
superintendent licenses. 

FY16 draft warrant and omnibus budget is included in the package. The
recommended budget will increase the tax rate by about 60 cents and I
note that we are still spending on snow and ice. Our Schedule A has been
filed with DOR and our local aid payments will resume.  We had an issue
of database compatibility which required some technical assistance by
our vendor to create the report.

I met with the Guild and we scheduled a candidate meet and greet on
April 8. During the day it will be at the "Gathering Place" and from 6
to 8 pm in evening. The Guild will provide evening refreshment and I
agreed to make invitations and handle publicity.