FROM: Carter Terenzini, Town Administrator
RE: Administrator’s Weekly Report
DATE: October 5, 2017
CC: All Departments
Important Notices
If you are one of the Department’s where your employees got a wage adjustment as of
10/02/17; Please be sure to have completed your conversations with them ASAP.
Positions Now Open: DPW - Highway: Laborer/Truck Driver
BoS Workshop 10/16 to review Draft Warrant. Please plan to attend if you have an article.
As of the requested date of 10/02 for staff articles, we had about 12.
As of today, we do not have any citizen petitioned warrant articles.
Business Meeting or Workshop: The following is intended to supplement agenda items where
a full memorandum may not have been required or updates are needed.
4.i.(1) This is the latest Draft after addressing concerns coming out of your 10/02, a final review
with UMass, and a final re-read. We believe it is ready for adoption as is. That said, do please
understand that we will need to - in the near future - add a section to accommodate some of our
more day to day procedures (i.e. as the Electronic & Bad Check Policy, petty cash, and the
like). Please also understand that while we continue to make great progress some of this is
aspirational given our current state. That is to say that - rather than putting target dates in numerous
places - we simply need to have you - in your adoption vote - get this onto the public record.
Weekly Report: With no changes coming from the participants, I was able to finalize the memo
on our meeting with DOR for you. I’ve been working with team leaders Carol Harris and Mike
Branley (TA of Swansea, NH) on final preparations for the assessment center for our Management
Fellow this coming Tuesday. Work with Alan to finalize a preferred DPW fleet and capital
planning continued as did work with U-Mass Collins to finalize the Financial Policies Draft coming
out of your 10/02 workshop. We received the contract boilerplate for the Police Contract and hope
to have it out to bid by next week. Our "free cash" has been certified for the General Fund
at $1,042,588 and the Sewer Fund at $743,735. With this in hand I can now finalize the several
warrant articles we need for clean-up and FY ’18. With the construction of the school getting ever
close I worked with ODS on how to pay our Inspectors for this extraordinary project which is not
covered by the base annual compensation. We have lost one of our Seasonal Laborers (In Training
to become a Laborer/Truck Driver). We will re-advertise but are very concerned over our
recruitment efforts given our very low starting wages (less than $15/hr for a CDL). The Daymill
remanded hearing will be held on November 1, 2017.
Public Works
Highway Department: Some cold patching done on Royalston Rd. Brooks Rd, Hamlet Mill,
Sunrise and Henshaw Rd. Millings from Rt 68 were hauled to Gilman Waite Field. More sand
brought from the Pit to the bard for use this winter. We are cleaning up, repairing and applying a
coat of enamel paint to the plows in preparation for the winter plowing season. Catch basins were
rebuilt on Red Fox crossing and hot topping added to Ladder Hill and Partridgeville Rd. Some
roadside mowing was done on Carruth, Phillipston Rd and Queen Lake Roads. The mechanic is
installing the new sander in H16. He also repaired a corroded transmission line in one of the COA
vans. Our general use pickup truck has been red lined because the brakes are gone.
Buildings & Grounds: The director attended a School Building meeting, Select Board Work Shop
and a class in Hadley. He is currently working on an audit of all of the playgrounds in Templeton.
The crew cleaned and graded the walking path around Gilman Waite field and trimmed back the
brush. We are working with an intern from Narragansett in the cemeteries and common areas; his
interest is horticultural and landscaping. Grass Mowing at all buildings as well as all common areas
in town. Assist was given in spreading millings @ Gilman Waite field to improve the parking area.
General maintenance was done to the equipment and cleaning. Prepped an area for a burial in Green
Lawn cemetery and placed a bronze marker. Flags put to half Staff for the victims of the Vegas
shootings. Swings taken down @ Otter River playground and the bearing, chains and connections
will be replaced.
Maybe, it's not Floride but Lead in the water? Didn't the interim TA have a careeer 8 miles north of Flint MI at one point in time ? Seems as though Templeton maybe the least vetted Town in Massachusetts.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, when did we, as taxpayers of the Town of Templeton vote to hire a Management Fellow ? I do think the people in this Town want and expect, a Town Administrator. We do not need another inexperienced person running the Town, or taking orders from our present intern TA. It does seem the real problem the town is in once again, is due to people voting for inexperienced people and expecting them to be competent enough to run a multi million dollar business. It is true that the selectmen should be able to run the town, but that also requires a good understanding of the basis of town government, and some realistic vision of what the taxpayers can financially support. It does seem the idea that the people in this town can pay the freight on a school that will be too big for our needs, once the rubber meets the road, along with the years worth of maintenance on our infrastructure, with no increase in revenue is a blueprint for failure. Once again, you get the government you deserve. My opinion, Bev.
DeleteI find it really interesting that in October Alan is doing an audit of playgrounds. Who believes this wasn't generated by Wils comment at the BOS meeting. You know, the one in which DHB interrupted and shut down his concern regarding the playground behind the Town Hall because it detracted from her patting herself on the back to the Gardner News.
ReplyDelete