Selectboard Meeting Notes: Police Fire Possibilities Probed, Feisty Event Potentially Averted

There was almost no mention of the FY15 budget during Tuesday’s meeting, giving the board a slight break from their spreadsheet to tackle other important issues, such as what on earth will the town do about the need for Police and Fire facility improvements. There wasn’t agreement, but some small steps forward were proposed.

The board also handled some feisty event prevention, made sure that the annual Independence Day parade would occur annually, discussed bridge work, and bought some equipment and software for the Police to crack open your cell phone’s lock codes and passwords, if necessary.

Preliminaries

Kate O’Connor was absent, on a secret mission of some sort.

A record number, seven, (a minuet?), of meeting minutes were approved.

Chair David Gartenstein began by explaining that Kate O’Connor was not on a secret mission, but rather at a meeting of the Agency of Commerce and Community Development regarding VY grant money for economic development. “She is there representing us.”

Gartenstein said he looked forward to moving ahead with other projects now that 112 Representative Town Meeting members had approved the FY15 budget, and noted that Brattleboro was busy with activity from shoppers, to Brooks House work, and the Strolling of the Heifers this coming weekend.

Interim Town Manager Patrick Moreland said that he has had the pleasure of working with Chief Wrinn over many years. Moreland described him as a very personable, funny person to work with. “He’ll be sincerely missed. He’s been dedicated and responsible for 28 years, and I’m proud to call him a friend.”

For Selectboard comments and committee reports John Allen thanked the town staff, department heads, and fellow board members for the hard work of the last two months. “I hope we don’t have to go through it again,” he said. He also noted the superior performance of ASL interpreters signing all 124 Town Meeting representatives names at the Monday night special meeting. “They did a great job.”

For Public Participation,  Leon Boyd informed the board that he was now officially the Town Service Officer, “but I’ll refer you to 211.”  He said he would help where he could.

Liquor Commissioners

A special event permit was denied for Flag Hill Farm for June 6 as part of Strolling of the Heifers. This would have made the fifth special event permit issued for the event, and the Selectboard acting as Liquor Commissioners thought that was potentially one drink too many that evening.

John Allen suggested that in the future, multiple vendors for the same event apply at the same time, and Patrick Moreland endorsed the idea as solid advice.

Donna Macomber was first to express a concern about the amounts being served that evening, saying that they had a responsibility to be mindful of the overall amounts being given out. She also thought the request was coming at the last minute. “I’m inclined to not support it. It has the potential to be a more feisty event.”

David Schoales said he worried that people would be getting 8 ounces at each sampling station, bringing the total amount of free liquor to nearly 40 oz. He said he’d be more inclined to approve if it were a local company, but felt the event was becoming “full of people pushing spirits.”

Moreland pointed out that Flag Hill would be giving one ounce, not eight ounce, samples if approved. He said they sell cider and peach brandy.

David Gartenstein said that it should be a family-friendly event, and that he was troubled by having five vendors selling or giving away liquor. “It should be limited to two or three. I’m voting against this. Five is way too many.”

“I’m open to hearing the conversation but am inclined the same way,” added Schoales.

Macomber said people in recovery need to be able to come out to an event and not have alcohol front and center.

“I agree,” said John Allen, “but wonder if we are pulling the rug out from someone at the last minute, and we granted the others.”

Schoales said they couldn’t be that disappointed, having made last minute plans.

They are pulling the rug out by coming to us late, observed Gartenstein.

By a vote of 1-3, it fails. John Allen voted for the permit.

Parade Permit – By The People; Brattleboro Goes Fourth

Brattleboro will have an Independence Day parade with 50 marching units. The parade will be Friday July 4 starting at 10 am and continues until noon, as stipulated in the permit granted by the Brattleboro Selectboard.

The parade starts at the high school and ends at the common.

“Kevin O’Connor was going to be here,” Patrick Moreland informed the board. As he wasn’t, Moreland continued. “I’ve been a volunteer for the organization for years and can speak to the topic. It’s the annual 4th of July parade, held annually on the 4th of July.”

He noted that the organization collects donations each year to fund the fireworks, “so if you’d like to contribute, we’d be most grateful.”

Moreland said it gets harder each year to afford fireworks, but people are working to make the tradition continue.

Financial Management Questionnaire

Finance Director John O’Connor presented the annual Financial Management Questionnaire to the Selectboard at Tuesday’s meeting. They voted to acknowledge receipt of said questionnaire.

It’s filled with very simple, basic accounting questions, such as “Are checks always written to specified payees and not to cash?,”  “Does the town loan money to employees?” and “Are financial records maintained in a computerized system?”

The auditors agreed with the answers, said O’Connor.

“Does the state keeps track of this?” asked david Schoales.

“No,” said O’Connor. “It goes to you, so you can see the controls, and weaknesses.”

“Are there any weaknesses?” asked Gartenstein. O’Connor said they had a break in and cash stolen at the Recreation Center last year, which was noted as a weakness.

“It also says a weakness is the Selectboard informing you whether we have received any financial training,” said Macomber.

“It should be clear we have not,” said Schoales.

Cooke Road Bridge Project

One of two remaining Irene-related repairs was approved by the Selectboard. Cooke Road bridge will get a permanent replacement.

Cold River Bridges of Walpole, NH, was the lowest qualified bidder and received the contract for the $437,171 project. The lowest bid didn’t meet all requirements, and was discarded.

Cold River Bridges installed the temporary Cooke Road bridge after Irene.

Most of the cost is covered by FEMA, but the total cost of the work is more than FEMA originally stipulated. A request to increase the funds to cover the actual cost of the repairs is underway. John O’Connor said there was money set aside previously to cover the costs, if FEMA doesn’t come through.

Sunset Lake Bridge Project

Sunset Lake bridge replacement is underway,said Public Works Director Steve Barrett. 

It’s taken a while to get going, but the million dollar bridge replacement project will be fully underway by next week, and finished by fall. In the spring of 2015, additional landscaping will be taking hold. He said a temporary bridge is in place, primarily for emergency services.

The fire department has tested the temporary bridge and finds it suitable for crossing and making a tight turn.

“We won’t allow any tractor trailers during the project,” he said. “It will all be done through our permit process.”

Ninety percent of the project is paid for with state funds; the remaining 10% is paid for by the town.

Fire Department Staffing Review

Fire person Henry Scott is retiring to move to Burlington, and that triggered a Selectboard Staffing Level Review. This is the new effort by the Selectboard to pay close attention to each town position as someone retires or vacates, to see how it impacts their budget planning.

The Fire Department just went through this recently, and the details haven’t changed. There are three platoons of seven firefighters each, plus others, bringing the total to 25 fire department staff. Contracts call for minimum staffing levels for safety requirements.

The Fire Chief repeated what he said at the last staffing review, and there was no action taken.

Grant Amendment – VDEMHS Communications Grant

The Brattleboro Fire Department requested and was granted a grant amendment, allowing them to add a $1,790 mayday decoder to a recent grant request to the Vermont Division of Emergency Management and Homeland Security.

It’s part of their upgrading and replacement of portable radios and pagers. Central Dispatch will be able to receive a distress signal directly with the new mayday receiver.

Fire Chief Buccossi said the moving of equipment off of Mt. Wantastiquet will be completed by Friday the 13th. This week and next, the various police and fire radio equipment will be moved about, with a helicopter being used next week as part of the project to move pieces from the mountaintop.

Justice Assistance Grant

Brattleboro Police were approved for a grant application to the 2014 Edward J. Byrne Justice Assistance Grant. They are asking for $21,073 to support officer time and overtime for proactive drug enforcement activities and to purchase an equipment upgrade.

The hardware and software upgrade will allow the department to “improve forensic capabilities” when working will cellphones using the CelleBrite system. It allows investigators to “securely capture and copy stored data on a seized cell phone either with a court-ordered warrant, and/or with simple authorization.”

“Terrific,” said David Schoales.

The software is designed to help get at all phone data, even if deleted, from the latest Android, Apple, Nokia, and Blackberry phones. Password extraction and bypassing lock codes are key features. It also works to get data from tablets and portable GPS units.

The company claims the software can decode apps data, passwords, emails, call history, SMS, contacts, calendar, media files, location information, and more.

Annual Dog Warrant

Unlicensed dogs and wolf-hybrids have been put on the annual list for Police Chief Wrinn, and their owners are warned to get them licensed or face receiving a ticket. 

Impounded dogs get taken to the shelter or adoptive home, and after 10 days may, well, you know… but that doesn’t happen much, if at all.

Some dogs on the long list have moved away or passed on in the last year. Of those in town, alive, and unlicensed, “Most get tickets. Rarely are they taken to the Humane Society,” said Police Chief Wrinn.

Police-Fire Facilities Project Future Planning

David Gartenstein opened the topic of what to do about the Police and Fire facilities project by asking for Selectboard comments.

David Schoales said he felt the best thing to do was to ask the Police Fire Facilities committee to explore the suggestion of a combined Police and Fire facility on Elliot Street. He also suggested that the board and committee hold public informational meetings regarding the West Brattleboro fire station. “A public process to decide if West Brattleboro needs a station.”

Patrick Moreland jumped in for clarification. “Are you asking that the fire department defend the improvements, or the facility?”

Schoales said they should “make the case for why we need a fire station in West Brattleboro.”

“They are working on it,” said Moreland.

“My suggestion is to physically go there and hear from people,” said Schoales.

Donna Macomber said “the town spoke loud and clear about slowing this down,” and that “it’s important we move forward and not lose momentum.” She said she was in favor of public informational meetings. “We need to advertise those meetings and people need to attend and speak. We need to move forward on it. We need to find the right course of action on this project.”

Kate O’Connor returns from her mission.

“I agree with some things,” said John Allen, before listing why he didn’t really agree with any of them. “I think this project has been vetted and discussed, and discussed, and discussed. As a builder, last minute changes infuriate me. It’s infuriating to go through this all from scratch.”

Allen reiterated his suggestion to do Central Station and get it out of the way. “Do it completely. Everything is almost ready to go. That’s where I’d like to see this go. We should get one thing done.”

He said that doing work piecemeal is “wasting $4 million dollars.” Noting that the town has already spent close to $800,000, he said “I don’t want to see it go to waste.”

He objected to redesigning Central Station to also hold the Police Station. “I want to see something get done. We can talk this thing for the next 30 years. That’s what Brattleboro does. It drives me crazy.”

Gartenstein said he felt the ability to move forward required another decision by Town Meeting representatives. “The referendum vote was a clear indication, late in the process, that significant part of electorate was dissatisfied with revenue and expenses of [the project].”

“I’m not in favor of focusing on one alternative,” he said to Schoales and Allen. “We need to get direction from Town Meeting and giving voters as a whole a chance to vote the project up or down. We can’t proceed without that sort of process.”

He suggested the committee refine their previous range of alternatives.

“There is a question if West Brattleboro needs to be part of the system. Those things need to be investigated. It’s not the committee’s role to assess the need for the station to remain open. The Selectboard needs to take responsibility. The committee should be looking at scopes of work and present the best options to us.” He said Representative Town Meeting and voters need to weigh in, if they get signatures.

Schoales suggested coming up with immediate next steps.

Robin Sweetapple reminded the board that they were asked for alternatives and recommended the combined Police and Fire facility on Elliot Street. “It would be nice to go ahead with that. It’s hard to understand why it would be coming up for vote again when it has been voted on before.” She said the details of the project are hard to grasp for some without doing the extensive work the committee has done.

Gartenstein said that the political reality, right or wrong, is that the board doesn’t know what the town would authorize. “I’d like to see a range of options from the committee. I have no confidence of what Representative Town Meeting and voters will approve. It’s a bitter pill to swallow.”

Schoales said that representatives voted for three buildings, not two.

John Allen expressed frustration, on behalf of the committee and for himself as well. “I have no idea what we’re asking them to come up with now. I don’t believe it has to go back to Representative Town Meeting. It’s been voted and decided. We’re gonna stall this process. You have a different idea of what the people in town think. I think a small group of people…”

“I was surprised at the lack of information, and misinformation,” said Sweetapple. “We need to inform people better of what we are talking about.”

“That’s the hardest thing to do in this town,” lamented Allen.

Donna Macomber tried to turn his frown upside down. “A diversity of opinion on the board is a good thing,” she said, noting that it reflects the town at large. “I hear your frustration, John, to ask for volunteer time and to constantly redirect. But we won’t be able to move forward unless we do our best at educating, bringing possibilities to the town, and I trust the reason of the majority. If we are patient and show the need and possibilities, we’ll land on something way better than where we began.” She predicted negative consequences for bypassing a public process.

“I feel for the committee,” said Kate O’Connor. “I agree with David and Donna. It’s a needed project, but I’m a realist. A political reality is we have a $5 million bond. To get an additional $9m we need to go back to voters. I don’t like it either, but we have to be sensitive to what we’ve just been through.”

“People chose to do a revote on the budget,” she continued.  “If we push it through, it won’t get anywhere. We’ll get a better result by backtracking. It’s been debated for 20 years. If we don’t bring it back to the voters, we won’t get it done.”

Gartenstein reminded everyone that information is and has been available, for an extended period of time. “Meetings have been public, the project was proposed, there were a range of informational meetings, and the vote was overwhelming at Representative Town Meeting based on full information. There was no recall request after that meeting.  A year and a half later, the budget was rejected because the extra money for the project’s bond. If we have to go through it again, it is unfortunate.

“What will change in a year?” challenged Allen.  “Nothing . The same vocal group will object and we’ll never move ahead.”

“The reality is we have $5 million and voters need to give us something more. We have to get the authority from the taxpayers. That’s the reality. We need a process,” said O’Connor.

“The reality is how do we move forward right now?” responded Allen.

Gartenstein repeated the two next steps proposed: the committee will continue looking at alternatives and the town and fire department can give a clear assessment of the need for the West Brattleboro firs station. “Those two pieces can help us.”

Sweetapple said that a lesson learned is take the full bond next time.

“Less than two months ago, we had a facilities project in place for three facilities. It was tweaked, and we looked at options,” said Fire Chief Mike Buccossi.  “One thing I don’t understand. We had a public outcry that townspeople don’t want services cut. This board supported that. I’m confused why all of a sudden we’re talking of Station 2 being closed. I know you want facts and figures, but it seems like Station 2 is being used as a pawn to move the project forward. It serves an important public safety role. To say we should close it, that’s not right. As Fire Chief, that’s my opinion. I know the budget impacts, but I ask you to consider rethinking that option.”

David Schoales backpedalled a bit. “None of us want it closed, and people in West Brattleboro don’t want it closed, but we have to convince a lot of people that these things need to happen. We all have the information. We need to get out there, present it, and convince people. We’re convinced because we know we need it. It’s how democracy works. Voters say no and we have to convince them to say yes.”

“We can’t go ahead without a public referendum,” said Gartenstein, “and have to lay out the information. Four steps forward, three steps back…”

Sweetapple asked if the referendum was about the budget, or the police-fire project. “It’s just the 50 petitioners?”

“774 voted to reject the budget,” said Gartenstein.

“Only 774” said Allen.

Sweetapple asked, then, if the board was “just inferring.”

“Making our best guess,” said Schoales.

Terry Carter explained that as an artist, she often has to improvise with what she has. “It’s part of the creative process.” She asked if funds for historical preservation would be used for the Municipal Center.

Moreland said that maintaining an old building is costly, especially in meeting grant requirements.

Ace reporter Howard Weiss-Tisman asked if the project was required to go back before Town Meeting representatives. Gartenstein said the board could, technically, go ahead with the project. “We could go ahead and do it. Politically, it isn’t possible.”

A follow up question asked if voters would get to weigh in only if a petition was successfully filed. Gartenstein said there could be a non-binding vote, perhaps.

Committee Appointments

The Brattleboro Selectboard appointed numerous individuals to a variety of committees. There were enough spaces for everyone, so all that applied were appointed.