by Matt Ristaino
6/4/2019

Tina Hein attended her first meeting as a member of the Board of Selectmen Monday night. She thanked the voters for their support, as well as former chairman Jay Marsden, who she defeated in last month’s election, for his nine years of service on the Board.

“I’m thrilled to be here,” said Hein at the beginning of the meeting. “I have big shoes to fill and I have a lot to learn.”

Mark Ahronian, now the longest serving member of the Board, is the new chairman. John Cronin will take up the role of vice-chair, and Hein was appointed as the Board’s clerk.

Cronin proposed to change the name of the Board of Selectmen to the gender-neutral “Select Board,” and Ahronian agreed. Any formal change would have to be approved at Town Meeting and changed in the town’s bylaws. 

 The new Board of Selectmen. Left to Right: Town Adminstrator Jeff Ritter, John Cronin, Mark Ahronian, Tina Hein.

During the meeting, Town Administrator Jeff Ritter provided a timeline for the rollout of the new trash collection program over the next month. The town will be mailing information flyers about the new program to residents on Friday, June 15th.

The new trash barrels will arrive on June 17th, and be delivered to all residents by June 28th. The town also plans to send out a reverse 9-1-1 message to residents on June 17th, directing them to the town website, where more information about the new program will be posted. The program will go into effect on July 1st.

Director of Public Works Sean Reese provided the Board with updates on a number of projects going on in town. He said that the Mudville water mains replacement will be finished by the end of August at the latest, but they will wait until next summer to re-pave the streets completely.

The Cedar St. water main project, however, is being pushed back to next year. Reese said that they did not receive any satisfactory bids for the construction, so the D.P.W. is voiding all the bids and will re-bid the project in January. Reese also said that the construction on Westfield Dr. would not be finished for another 5 months, although construction crews will only be on-site for 4 weeks during the project.

Director of Public Works Sean Reese talks to the Board.

Ritter gave a few updates on town projects as well. He said that the roof project at 1750 Washington St. is “99.9% done,” and the final inspection will happen on Wednesday. The library project is almost completed as well, with the final inspections there taking place next week.

The Board also heard from Barry Sims of the Cable Advisory Committee. According to Sims, the cable license with Verizon expires in 2021, and the town needs to begin negotiating a new license now. The Board approved $6,000 to be paid to attorney Bill August, who has worked with the committee in the past, to begin the negotiating process.

In other business, the Board approved the installation of a new utility pole by Verizon and N-Star on Underwood St. The Board also discussed the possibility of establishing a number of new positions in the town government, including chief financial officer and facilities manager. Ritter recommended that the Board come up with a 5-year plan to deal with re-organizing and dealing with transition of town personnel.

During the public comment portion of the meeting, Joan Hugenberger talked about the limited hours that the recycling center on Marshall St. is open. Reese agreed that the center needs to be open longer, but he said that is a budgetary issue and some work will have to be done for that to happen.

Finally, the Board agreed to meet every other week in the months of July and August. However, they will meet more frequently if they decide that weekly meetings are necessary.