Board of Selectmen Meeting October 31, 2022
Severe maintenance problems in town buildings. Town’s failure to comply with 2021 warrant article #20. Inflation and employee retention severely affecting budgeting.
Problems with Town Facilities
While the Facility Assessment Committee has not yet finished its assessment of the town’s facilities, as it is budgeting season the committee thought it was important to present a preliminary report on the large amount of bad news they had to deliver. This report does not seem to have been made public yet. Key issues from the report they mentioned to the board were:
High levels of major and minor deferred maintenance
Unsafe, unusable condition of some mothballed facilities
Lack of dedicated maintenance personnel
Outgrown, inadequate facilities
Upcoming need to replace the Recycling Center
Budgeting
Preliminary budgets were presented by the Planning Board, Town Clerk, Library, Fire Department, and Public Works Department. In general, all were suffering from the impact of inflation, especially with regard to hiring and employee retention due to the town’s low wages. For example, the Fire Department lost a new hire to Epping, who lured the hire away after just one month offering a 10% higher wage. The library had a job candidate who turned down an offer, saying that they were earning twice as much delivering pizzas.
Rescinded Town Road Standards Being Followed by the Town
A citizen complained about the Interm Town Administrator’s claim at the October 17 Board of Selectmen meeting that the town should spend many hundreds of thousands of dollars on upgrading the town’s “camp” roads to meet “town standards.” The citizen pointed out that the voters rescinded the town’s road standards in 2021 exactly for the purpose of preventing such expenditures. The citizen also pointed out that the town’s website still lists the rescinded town road standards as town law, even though the voters overturned these standards in June 2021. As of this article’s publication date, November 3, these are still on the town’s website.
The citizen also complained about the town’s recent investment in widening Dolloff Dam Rd and Lamprey Dr. as these widenings encouraged people to drive faster, reducing pedestrian safety on a road heavily used by recreational walkers and children going to their school bus stop.
Library Usage
Library usage is way up, which has historically happened whenever the economy goes into recession. For example, the library recently had 50 kids try to sign up for a 10-person workshop.
Emergency Culvert Work
Total contractor cost for the emergency replacement of the culvert on Birch Tree Lane (Formerly North River Road East) will be slightly above $40k. The road was designated an emergency lane in 1995.
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