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Select Board places special‑town‑meeting articles on warrant; DPW outlines bids, generator emergency and funding requests
Summary
The Select Board reviewed and placed several articles on the special town meeting warrant including a $145,000 water‑budget adjustment, emergency replacement of a failed sewer‑station generator, potential supplemental funding for the Bowman Lane culvert (originally appropriated $950,000), a stormwater bylaw update, $1.12 million for community‑center design work, a $450,000 golf‑club building design borrow, and a $9,000 compensation‑study for nonunion employees.
Select Board members reviewed a set of proposed articles for a special town meeting and voted to place a package of items on the warrant after staff clarified amounts and made small edits.
DPW director Chris (presenting several DPW articles) told the board Article 3 requests a $145,000 adjustment to the water enterprise budget to cover higher electricity costs ($95,000 cited by staff) and to fund short‑term contract operator support while a permanent licensed water operator is recruited ($50,000). Chris said the town is already using a contracted operator for water work while recruitment continues.
On Article 6, staff described an unexpected failure of a 1994 backup generator at an older sewer pump station. Chris said the generator’s control panel and associated hardware must be replaced and the concrete pad extended; he described the unit itself as “in the $45,000 range” while noting the total replacement package — including crane rigging, transfer‑switch work, disposal and other logistics — pushes the overall cost substantially higher (staff cited a figure toward the $95,000 range when accounting for removal and installation costs). Because lead time for the replacement is roughly 22 weeks, staff requested authority to order now rather than wait for the next annual meeting.
On culverts, Chris reminded the board that the Bowman Lane culvert was funded at the 2023 annual town meeting at $950,000 and is now out to bid; he said bids returned in October could exceed the appropriation and that the town may need to seek supplemental funds to award a contract if the low bid exceeds the appropriated amount.
Chris also presented an update to the town’s stormwater bylaw (Article 54), which staff characterized as a replacement of the 2008 bylaw to align with current permit requirements and to move technical rules into regulations while adding clearer enforcement language.
On capital projects beyond DPW, the board reviewed a $1,120,007.13 request to fund additional schematic design and cost estimating for the community center, and a $450,000 proposed enterprise‑fund borrow to develop bid documents, retain architects and an owner’s project manager (and to engage a restaurant/food‑service consultant) for the golf‑club building project. Staff said the $450,000 estimate includes an architect subcontract for the food‑service consultant and $50,000 for the OPM.
Finally, staff presented a proposed nonunion compensation study (lowest quote $9,000) to review market wages for about 40 job titles; the consultant would not perform a full reclassification but would provide a market‑based compensation schedule in approximately 3–4 months.
The board voted to place the discussed articles on the special town meeting warrant; staff will finalize article language (including an explicit clarification that the generator is not operational) and publish the final warrant materials to the town meeting booklet.
