Town of Otis
Select Board Meeting Minutes
February 25, 2020
7:00 p.m.
| Call to Order: Meeting was called to order at 7:01 pm in the Town Hall conference room. A quorum was present.
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| Present: Gary Thomas, Bill Hiller, Larry Southard, Heather Morgan, Brandi Page, Jen Daily, Stacey Schultze, Terry Gould, Hal Kobrin, Carrieanne Petrik and Richard Phair.
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| Review of Select Board Minutes from February 11, 2020 |
| The minutes from February 11 2020 were unanimously approved. |
| Review and Approval of Warrants: |
| Will be signed 2/26/2020
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| Recreation Commission, Howe Caverns Trip
Put on hold until next meeting since no-one from the Recreation Commission could attend the meeting. |
| Hazard Mitigation Plan options from BRPC
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| Carrieanne Petrik from the State, working with the Executive Office or Energy and Environmental Affairs, came to speak regarding the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness Program (MVP). As the vendor for the Hazard Mitigation Plan, Berkshire Regional Planning Commission has two options. The first option is to go with the Hazard Mitigation Plan (HMP) by itself. Option two is to simultaneously work on the HMP and the MVP with the help of BRPC. Target date for the HMP is July of 2021. The MVP will follow the same time line. Within a year both plans will be done. According to Carrieanne the MVP program is a very high priority with the state. The Town will need to first apply for a planning grant, 15,000 – 100,000. Get the grant, find a vendor to host MVP process such as BRPC, form a core team, invite stake holders to your community resilience building workshop to talk about climate hazards (not a public meeting). Next have a meeting and prioritize what is important to the town. The vendor then drafts the plan. Once you get a plan you have a listening session, outreach to let people know what you have done. Then the vendor submits the plan to the MVP. Once the plan is submitted and accepted the town will have access to action grants. Action grants can range from $2M for community-scale projects to $5M for regional proposals. The town can apply for planning grants as a region.
Jen Daily, a member of the Planning Board, expressed that they are hoping to do a comprehensive plan. This is the year the Planning Board will be working on the master plan. They feel that the HMP, MVP, Transportation, Open Space and Master Plan could be worked on in a comprehensive way. Brandi express concern regarding overlapping staff hours because of the reporting requirements of each grant. Hal believes that all the plans can be done by the end of the year. He feels the plans overlap so much that only one subcommittee would be needed.
Motion that the Select Board is interested in the MVP. The Board unanimously voted that they are interested in the MVP. |
| Town Report
Four possible covers for the Town Annual Report were discussed. It was agreed to use the cover with the picture of the bald eagle. It was also decided who the Town Report would be dedicated to.
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| Any topics not reasonable anticipated by the Chair at the time of the original posting. |
| Richard Phair has not received any quotes back for the new fire truck. |
| Adjournment. |
| The Select Board unanimously voted to adjourn the Select Board meeting at 7:51.
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| Respectfully submitted,
Heather Morgan Selectmen’s Secretary, Town of Otis
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| List of Documents
Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) Program handout. |