Selectmen Plan To Roll Two Meetings Into One Next Week

The following are excerpts from the Feb. 3, 2015 Westford Board of Selectmen meeting. To see video of the meeting, head to westfordcat.org. For other parts of the meeting, click here. 

9:20 p.m. – The board then approached a charge for a proposed Town Farm Property Task Force, which would look at uses for the Town Farm property at 35 Town Farm Road.

The proposed membership makeup and charge of the Task Force was approved 4-0-0.

9:21 p.m. –  Next was to addressing what warrant articles would be on the ballot for Town Meeting.

There was no discussion for Warrant Articles 2,3,4 and 5. The Finance Committee will provide more information on Article 6 on Wednesday.

Article 7 related to the fire station earlier in the meeting.

There was no discussion on Articles 8,9,10,11,12 and 13.

Selectman Don Siriani asked about Article 14, which has to do with Chapter 90 funds. Jodi Ross said it was an annual matter.

There was no discussion on Article 14, 15 and 16.

There was a brief discussion on Article 17 (creating a disability commission.)

Article 18 allows the Selectmen to research, develop and participate in a contract for lower electricity rates for everyone in town, and would allow residents to opt out of these rates.

This was recently done by Lowell, and this municipal approach would be for all Northern Middlesex Council of Government towns (except for Lowell.)

Assistant Town Manager John Mangiaratti talked about Article 19, which would examine using the former town landfill for solar power panels.

Article 20 is a school matter and wasn’t discussed. Everyone liked Article 21, which was regarding an ambulance billing policy recommended by the Selectmen several weeks earlier.

Selectman Kelly Ross asked Finance Committee Chairman Mark Kost about the Finance Committee’s opinion on their views, which varied slightly.

Kost said that the Finance Committee would likely agree with the Selectmen, but Selectmen Scott Hazelton said the placeholder should be kept in place just in case the Finance Committee doesn’t agree with the Selectmen’s proposal entirely.

Article 21, 22 and 23 had no discussion.

Article 24 was pulled, there was no discussion on Article 25. Article 26 was a citizens’ petition regarding transparency in government.

Article 27, 28 and 29 are Planning Board matters and have not yet been discussed.

There was no discussion on Article 30, 31, and 32.

Deliberations on the warrant will occur at the next meeting.

9:33 p.m. – The consent agenda and minutes for approval were approved 4-0-0. There will be no meeting on the February 24 due to the lack of a quorum. There will be a meeting on February 10, but many people will be out of town on February 17.

Hazelton recommended combining the February 10 and 17 meetings since they had light agendas.

Jodi Ross noted that the Pedestrian Safety Committee would be pushed off the March 3 if this happened, which would not be significant.

9:38 p.m. – Jodi Ross then requested letters of agreement with the Northern Middlesex Council of Governments for two grant programs regarding a development self-assessment tool and a village rezoning study

Then she asked for authorization to seek multiple competitive bids on natural gas and contacts for the Recreation Department to provide programming relating to a tennis program and an appraiser, both $15,000 each.

This tennis program is a new contractor for the tennis programs provided by the department.

The appraisal and NMCOG requests were approved 4-0-0, the tennis issue was postponed pending additional information.

The reading of correspondence was waived. The meeting was adjourned.