Current Issues and Thoughts
May 14, 2006

The next selectmen's meeting is tomorrow (Monday, May 15, 5:30pm). We will be continuing through last Monday’s agenda, which we didn’t finish.

Here are some highlights of the remaining agenda items, although it is not entirely clear to me which of these things we will cover.

1. We may continue the discussion of “compensation policy” and whether the town should hire an outside consultant to help review current comp policies and recommend updates and changes. I think the selectmen should do some of the “heavy lifting” on this before we consider hiring a consultant. I think it is up to us to set the major compensation policies. I have a post on this topic on the blog – the link is to the left.

2. The second wave of advertisements/job postings are now out for the new town administrator (TA) position. Several applications have come in. I plan to read them on Monday, and I am hoping we can have a discussion of how the recruiting process is going. I hope we can also discuss and firm up plans for how the TA position will be filled for the interim period after Katie’s departure on June 16 and before a new permanent TA comes on. I favor having a single person appointed as interim TA rather than having individual selectmen try to tag-team this position. Please come onto the blog and make suggestions…

3. There may be further discussion of how to handle custodian and maintenance functions at the new police station. There is a post on this topic on the blog. Thanks for the many helpful comments and suggestions.

4. I am hoping we will adopt the new policy on making emails public when they are used by a quorum of the selectmen or other town boards. There is a post on this on the blog too.

5. We may talk about the 2006/2007 board of selectmen goals (this has been discussed on the blog), as well as, I think, the department head goals. If we also discuss mission statement and general management goals, I plan to suggest that the selectmen commit to, and become accountable for, keeping tax increases in line with the growth of taxpayers’ own incomes.

6. We may discuss the new town purchasing guidelines proposed by the town administrator. I have some substantial changes to suggest – see the post on the blog. In a nutshell, I strongly disagree that department heads should be authorized to go out and make $74,999 purchases without written bids and without any publication of the bid opportunity so that everyone has equal access.

Please email me, call me or post on the blog if you have any questions, comments or thoughts.