Coordinator report July 16, 2015 MA DOT Office of Diversity and Civil Rights requests that the board vote, sign, and return a Federal Highway Administration Title VI/Nondiscrimination Assurance. This is required in order to obtain any Federal financial assistance. I know that for the past seven plus years every Selectboard has operated under a policy that complaints first go to the department head and I can't document the fact. Here is a draft update of policies voted in the past couple of years and Rosa's earlier work. These are drafts and we'll combine into one document and a later meeting. I suggest that a new vote be taken to affirm the policy to take matters to the department head before coming to the Selectboard office. Finance Committee is serious about getting a town capital expense plan going. Chairman Abbott will attend the meeting to ask the board to support and assist the effort. I have some surplus electronics which I desire be declared such so they may be sold. John Bradford and Tom Wyatt would like to change places with respect to Warwick's WiredWest representation. Tom would become the delegate by your requested action. 7/13 Recorder reports that the MA House gave initial ok to a local option bill that would allow town's to grant property tax exemptions of up to $2,500 each to volunteer and call firefighters and EMTs. Revenue expenditures have the same effect as expenses and this could be very costly and shift the already high property tax burden to the rest of the taxpayers. Unlike the elderly exemptions I don't see where the state is proposing to fund this. Does the board want to advise our legislators that we oppose this becoming an option? I'll be conducting the Internet Satellite Dish Toss again on Sunday August 23. It will be in the town park which we all call the common at half past noon. There will once again be prizes awarded. This week we put new termination and grounding blocks at the cell tower and climbed and replaced two radio access points that were faltering. About 1/3 or our customers were down for two to three hours. Cambium, the successor to Motorola, who make most of the Internet radio gear we deploy are coming out with a new 900 MHz product in the fall that is 3 times faster than the technology we currently us. It is not backwardly compatible and can't until a software upgrade expected in the fall co-locate with our existing equipment. When the co-location problem is fixed I want to replace three of twelve 900 MHz sectors with this gear. There are three sectors with twenty or more customers being served through infrastructure that has a 4 Mbps bottleneck. This new gear will up the pipe to 14 Mbps. I met with Royalston's broadband representative Jon H to compare notes on our experience with wireless and their plans to deploy wireless hybrid fiber network and will continue to do so. Our signal extends to their town and theirs will likely serve some of our town. My concern about WiredWest proposed management costs was met with the following response. I said, "It looks to us as if $6 of every $50 is allocated to WW administrative and system operating costs. Another way to state it is $740k per year pays WW wages and salaries. This seems high, isn't there a better way?" The reply from WiredWest: "Qualified and competent personnel are expensive, so is rent, electricity, insurance, leases on vans, etc. Outsourcing some aspects of the business will not save money as the third party will also need to make a profit." I note that this doesn't square with the cost's Crocker provided in their simple annualized pro-forma operating plan. Tom and I didn't compete a draft letter to WiredWest in time for the meeting package. I have attached the letter that went to last Saturday's WiredWest meeting and response and we will try to have a follow-up letter for the Selectboard's consideration.