Town of Otis
All Boards Meeting Minutes
March 27, 2017
The meeting was called to order at 6:30 pm in the Town Hall conference room. It was announced the meeting was being recorded.
Present: Select Board Chair Roberta Sarnacki, Selectman Don Hawley, Selectman Bill Hiller, Walter Engels, Michael Ernst, Terry Gould, Jim Crandall, Sandy Pinkham, Russ Loring, and Eoin Higgins from the Berkshire Eagle
Energy: They are starting to blast the site this week for the foundation. All materials except the towers should be here by mid April. The towers are still held up in Canada.
Finance Board: Budget season is here and meetings are scheduled with the Select Board.
Fire Dept.: Fire calls have been quiet in town. They will soon finish the First Responder’s course in the next few weeks. If DEP approves the proposal, Otis and surrounding towns will do a house burn practice in East Otis on April 22nd.
Highway: No one was here but Don asked if we had sent a truck to the Longmeadow DPW member’s funeral.
Library: They have submitted all paperwork to the federal and state governments. They will soon begin their annual donation campaign in the next few weeks. CWMARS will now provide the Library with their own website as well as being on ours.
Maintenance: They have finished wiring Town Hall. Both new hires are working out. Jim would like to retire the old Rescue Truck and declare it surplus inventory and put it out to bid. The new gym floors are installed and an issue with a hot water heater in Town Hall has also been repaired. The roof over the gym has also been repaired. They plan to begin their spring carpet cleaning very soon.
Police Dept.: They have had a few active investigations this month. They conducted vacation and wellness checks after the March storm. Kops ‘N Kids will be in session from April 14th to 16th. Roberta spoke with Jim about some necessary construction in the Police Dept. evidence room. Everyone stated the Fist Bump thing was great for the kids. It’s a good way for the kids and the cops to get to know each other.
Technology: We have submitted four applications to Verizon and Eversource so far. Phase 1 of the Broadband make ready work came in under the expected cost. Eversource has six months to complete the make ready work, but we are hopeful they won’t take that long. Our Broadband network design build includes a municipal network of Town buildings with the Town Beach and the Wind Turbine included in the town locations. The wiring project in Town Hall is complete except for connecting the Seniors and Larry. The Town Hall is completely setup for wireless including wifi access from the parking lot outside.
Assessors: They have been checking out building permits and got together with Larry so they know where to go to find any missing information. Two permits were missed in transit when we changed over to RRG.
Zoning Board of Appeals: They have been active this year. One property has been continued three times.
The next Select Board Meeting after tomorrow’s will be held April 12th at 7:00 pm in order to avoid conflict with the Town Caucus.
The meeting was adjourned at 6:55 pm.
Respectfully Submitted,
Lisa D’Orazio
Selectmen’s Secretary
Town of Otis
List of Documents
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