Coordinator Report August 20, 2009

Town Buildings: Town hall insulation and air sealing completed by
Cellu-spray. Rombaukus Painting caulked clapboards and restored the
paint where disturbed at no additional cost to the town. The town hall
bulkhead steel hinges were welded / repaired by Kurt Freitag. Painting
the ramp, railings, skirt and stairs at the Police Department is just
about completed. Summer youth employees are also painting the play
structure which was repaired with volunteer contribution by Bill Lyman
and some Community Policing funding. Voice mail at the Warwick Community
School has been implemented and our installer who is now working full
time on the I-91 fiber installation has found us an experienced vendor
to assist us during regular business hours with future configuration if
needed. The meeting with the architect and sprinkler repair company will
happen once the as built plans are located by the school district and
forwarded to the engineer. We are working toward bid documents and may
only have half enough funds to get there with the remaining balance from
WCS maintenance funds.

Historic: The Historical Commission wrote and asked for an inventory of
the items in the town clerks vault. Jeannette provided this promptly and
I forwarded the document to the commission.

Highways: We will begin work next week on the tree root removal at the
north end of town hall drain and then try to clean out the culvert. The
bridge on Tannery Hill / Chestnut Hill Rd was closed by the Police Chief
and Highway Supervisor when stringers were found to be cracked and
broken.  26 foot long 12" x 12" are being procured locally. Material
cost looks to be under $3,000. Prices ranged to up to $12,000. The new
sweeper attachment will arrive next week and will be used on Shepardson
Rd stone sealing. All the rain this summer has delayed the contractor's
ability to do pavement work.

Police: Brian reported some streetlights out. I reported them to
National Grid.  We pay a flat fee per light so if residents notice a
light out, note the pole number and report it to National Grid. We pay
whether working or not. Office Shoemaker attended a domestic violence
seminar and will conduct departmental training on the subject.

Fire Dept: The youth (Rangers) are training for muster and will compete
against Northfield on Sunday of OHD and at the Franklin Co. Fair.  They
will be using the 1957 Dodge and will be waxing it over the weekend.

Regionalism conference: This is scheduled in Worcester on Sept 3. I will
be attending. There are applications in your mailboxes should you wish to
join in.

Zoning:  I provided copies of zoning by-laws and instructions and
applications for special permits to three projects.

Transfer Station:  I had Kurt do some welding at the transfer station on
the catwalk. This coming Sat. neither attendant can work so BOH member
Dick Whiting and I are splitting the day and the project will save $80.
We are going to have a mechanic install an emersion heater in the
hydraulic oil tank to replace the magnetic surface heater which will not
need to be powered day and night in the winter.

Content of Minutes:  I think the board should have a discussion and make
a decision about what is and what is not in the minutes. It makes sense
to occasionally include documents that are adopted as policies and
incorporated by reference but there needs to be a line drawn somewhere.
As of the minutes approved at the previous meeting the minutes have been
seriously expanded from what they were even in the recent past. The
minutes are in my view already way more than they ought to be which is
motions and voted action.  I don't submit coordinator reports for any
purpose other than as working management reports. The board has never
voted to accept my reports let alone require them therefore they don't
as a matter of course belong in the minutes.  It isn't in my job
description to write a report for each meeting's minutes. It just seemed
like a good idea from my professional experience working for a board,
that good work does not speak for itself, and that it is good for
information to flow.  Including the highway dept. reports in the minutes
was voted by a previous board that none of you sit on so even though in
my view given the proforma nature of them it is kind of lame, it is
voted policy.  But updates of long and short term highway work lists are
not something Tim is required to do every other week and putting the
lack of them in the minutes isn't fair. On the other hand I am all for
posting working documents on the town's web site and I work to do so.
That kind of work product will come and go. But it won't be part of the
town's permanent record for the rest of time.

$1.1 M CDBG Housing Rehab Grant:  Recall our community development grant
application process last summer, fall and winter?  It just yielded fruit
with the announcement by Senator Brewer that the four towns, with
Warwick as lead community, were awarded the requested amount.  This will
be a help to income eligible homeowners and to area contractors. This
the same funding we used to give assistance to a project a few months
ago. In that case it was reuse of grant money that had been repaid by
borrowers.  Following is summarized from Selectboard minutes of January
12, 2009 CDBG GRANT HEARING. The Warwick Four-Town Rehabilitation
Program proposal is to benefit low- and moderate-income residents
needing their homes rehabilitated to meet current safety and sanitary
code requirements. The Franklin County Regional Housing and
Redevelopment Authority (HRA) submitted an application for a 2009 CDBG
Grant on behalf of Warwick (as lead town), Leverett, Shutesbury, and
Whately. Upon approval and funding, the towns will then contract with
HRA to administer the grant on their behalf. After income verification
and qualification for the program is confirmed by an applicant,
homeowners are placed on a waiting list. Six Warwick homeowners will
receive deferred-payment loans (payable upon sale or transfer of the
property) to address all health and safety code issues. An inspector
will visit the property and identify all areas that require
rehabilitation, replacement, or repair. The homeowner is given a list of
approved licensed and insured contractors, and is free to choose anyone
on that list.

Documenting Training:  It is in the town's interest to document training
that has been completed by the Town's employees, volunteers, elected and
appointed officials.  Town employees and board / committee members are
urged to send notice and any relevant documentation of what you or your
committee, dept. etc. has done in the past year to an email account that
serves to collect this information for when we need it for grant and
application writing, reporting etc. The account is CE@town.warwick.ma.us
 CE stands for continuing education in case that helps it stick in your
mind.

MOA with WiValley.net:  A few weeks ago the Selectboard signed a MOA to
share our wireless tower facilities with Access Plus Com. In that
agreement we get paid $10 / month / connection. That is slowly being
implemented and makes broadband available to some folks outside of
Warwick. It was supported by the MA Broadband Institute.  Now I am
urging the Selectboard to approve and agreement with a NH firm. This
agreement does not include VLAN provision so it has our system 
providing the actual Internet connection (backhaul). Because we provide
both the backhaul to the Internet and tower facilities I negotiated
compensation based on 50% of the gross revenue of a connection. The
least we will get is $20 / connection based on their price schedule.
There are two other aspects of this agreement that are covered at the
end of it. These are kind of a big deal for the Warwick Broadband
System. You may have heard about the MA Broadband Institute applying for
millions of stimulus money to create a "fiber loop" in Western MA. The
loop is to provide backhaul to systems and the design is that if it gets
broken somewhere, the fact that it is a loop means nobody is without
service while it is repaired. WiValley and the State of NH have applied
for stimulus money to create a wireless 300mbts loop (We currently buy
3mbts to serve our 45 customers routed via Mt Tom and Springfield MA).
If funded, and with this agreement signed, we will have a second source
of backhaul and be part of a robust wireless loop.  The other major
piece in this MOA is provision for us to add to Mt. Grace licensed WIMAX
(802.16) at 3.65 ghz. WiValley holds an FCC license for this technology
that can reach 100 miles and go 10 times faster than our current system.
It is not a vegetation solution but radios on this bandwidth could also
feed our distribution system and eliminate interference caused by using
900 mhz for both backhaul and distribution.

Adoption of a general policy for resale of Warwick Broadband: I
suggested to Fred Dupere, town counsel, that the town adopt a policy to
assure compliance with Chapter 30b procurement. Given the small size of
these agreements which are well below $25,000 annually we probably don't
need this but he agrees it is a good idea.  It will be something on the
order of "The Town will contract with established Internet Service
Providers to be resellers of Warwick Broadband Service providing they
have prior demonstrated experience in the field."  I will have approved
language for the meeting.

Old Home Day: I contacted Art Long at Hamshaw Lumber to authorize their
putting the rental of their dunk tank on a town charge account so the
Recreation Committee wouldn't be required to pre-pay for the rental.
Hamshaw's management did us one better and agreed to donate the use of
the tank. Since no good deed should go unpunished, I want to say out
loud, "Thank You Hamshaw Lumber". This puts the OHD committee and Rec
Committee $150 ahead. I know I will be all wet before this is over. If
you aren't so honored, be sure to attend and pitch in. Larry Carey
reports that Kenny Hubbard is going to be providing draft horse drawn
hayrides for OHD. I am running the satellite Internet dish toss
competition at 2 pm Sunday August 30. Employees, friends and relatives
of the Town of Warwick are eligible to participate. Finally the OHD
committee requests that the board vote a temporary road closing of Athol
Rd from Route 78 to the intersection of Hotel Rd.

Speed Zone update: We got a draft of the MA Highway recommendations. I
met with Tim Kilhart and Brian Peters who approved of the changes which
were to simplify and lower speed limits. We now await the final MA
Highway version for the Selectboard to vote to approve and then send to
the Registry of Motor Vehicles.

Procedure for Chapter 61 conversions: Mary Williamson has suggested the
town develop a procedure and possibly policy regarding these
conversions. When a landowner proposes to take property out of this tax
classification the Town has right of first refusal to acquire the
property. It may also assign the right to a non profit. This has been
referred to the planning board and will may in the future come before
the Selectboard.