##VIDEO ID:7DZf9jK55PY## I will uh I'm Mike mackon chairman of the Sewer Commission uh could everybody join me in the Pledge of Allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation God indivisible with liberty and justice for all with the acquirements of the open meeting law please be advised that this meeting of the Sewer Commission is being recorded and will be available to be found on the lunberg access YouTube channel after the meeting the following information is also provided for members of the public that would like to participate them meeting remotely to participate remotely from a computer please use the link to join the meeting webinar found on the posted agenda or from a telephone dial the tollfree number 8 88475 4499 and enter the webinar ID pound 792 737 0353 if you're not registered with zoom you'll be asked for your name and email address note no participant as uh ID is needed just press pound when asked so now I'll do a roll call uh for all the members um and who are present and members want to call your name you can please respond the affirmative uh Eli Torres is not here Joseph Hurley yes Scott D here gret ramsten here Mike Mackin is here staff when I call your name respond in the affirmative Bill Bernard I am here Jane ramley here okay um do we have any public currently I don't see anybody there's nobody on but I have one public comment the link that was in the agenda was incorrect but um we are on Zoom it is being recorded okay I got it in time yes any announcements um I think it's a good time to just inform the public that uh this is the only meeting for December yes yep um so uh we'll see you guys again in January the 14th 14th y yep okay current business business manager update okay so we interviewed a gentleman uh Andrew I'm not even sure how to pronounce his last name valair and at first I was I was kind of on the fence um Joe was there there was nothing bad about him but I was just on the fence and then um Carter terenzini the interim Town manager said well let's bring him in and talk to him some more so we brought him in again and and Carter and I and and Julie bellie the HR manager um talked with them I was still kind of on the fence so then I think car suggested well why don't you bring him in while pauler is here working on the billing and kind of look over her shoulder for say an hour okay so we did that and he actually sat there well what convinced me to say okay to that was he followed up the the two interviews with a couple of emails and a handwritten postcard so that that kind of softened me a little bit so then um I said yeah let's bring him in so he came in I think it was a Friday afternoon Paulo was here for like six hours and he stayed for five of the hours really watched over her shoulder and was starting to learn a little bit at that point I said yeah he's going to be all right so uh we offered him the job and uh he accepted so um if he's ratified by the committee tonight he will start on January 6 well I had a chance to um review all the documents you sent regarding new candidate um and it you know it looked pretty good he obviously knows and understands sewer right customer service say again and customer service yeah and customer service um but as we've found from recent um people who have um uh applied him showing up and actually spending hours here as opposed to not showing up at all pretty positive start right um but I think the fact that he sat down with Paula with the billing and the condition it's in it's been 5 hours and had a feel for what he's up against there um and getting the feeling you got the same feeling that that says a lot yeah exactly so because he didn't have any experience you know it's working in a town or or with the software we use um again Carter recommended a list of competencies to to come up with so I sent that out to you guys too so it came up I think there were seven total um first one was kind of administrative stuff for the town but then the other ones were directly related to the job um tasks that I thought he should know in in in a certain time frame so there's a couple of tasks within the first month and a couple of tasks in say three months and another one in like five months so you know we're we're keeping an eye on him make sure he's progressing so you know we don't want to find out he's just sitting around doing nothing right we want to make sure he's learning the job so this is we feel is a good way to do that I'm guessing we'll pick up on it too when we're having our meetings yeah have a clue about what he's saying then exactly so after the first month you know when our meeting you know I'll say all right the first couple tasks he did pretty good Adam you know so we passed them on those or no you did bad and uh you know you really going a buckle down or whatever whatever the outcome is but we're going to try to stay on top of it you know try to you know make him into a good employee right away how long will he be with Paul in January if at all um yeah we that out yeah just so the next bill run that's when we really will need uh Paula that's three months from now because we just finished the bill right y but he did witness some of that so that that was good I mean he did have you know invoicing and billing experience and the customer service end so right it seemed like it was a big part of the role so yeah and he showed initiative right well than you can say a lot it says a lot right now question for down the road um all the communties I've been on that deal with Personnel issues go into executive session when they discuss Personnel issues has that been a practice of the commission that's a good question um I will have to look into that a little further yeah um yeah I mean I'm fine with the process right now I just think down the road would want to have a yeah for the reviews yeah exactly good point yeah I look into that okay any questions for the about the cand um how' you feel you s with them the the followup with the his history of work history have you talked to previous employers at all yet yeah I believe truly the HR manager reached out to um a couple of his employers and got positive reviews yeah yeah where where are we with the Corey that's in Julie's hands yeah it takes a while so yeah my experience with Cory is it's not a fast process yeah that background stuff Julie yeah it usually takes a while that's why January 6 you know right us about a month yeah okay so I'll take a motion to um ratify the hiring of uh the candidate I'll make a motion to hire Andrew Valerie is that how you say his last name 100% sure sorry Andrew Val um Andrew as um our our new business manager for lunenberg Sewer Commission I can second the motion okay and this is a roll call vote all those in favor oh I'm sorry we'll take it by it's a roll call you said roll call um Joseph Hurley hi Scott D hi Brett ramsten hi Mike Mackin is I moving on excellent how about that there we go one how's it feel to know that you you're going to have some help it's a off my I I have to tell you that I've really had some real unst over this for a while yeah I've had a lot of long OLS over it well that's what I'm saying I mean there's just you know there's a whole bunch of things that you know just don't make make anything work as well as we want it to right it is a very busy job very busy oh yeah that's so uh yes we're going to have a next discussion about our our our our appointed member that we have not seen at a meeting yeah so I looked at the the town bylaws and there's really nothing there so we can't vote them off there was one committee I think it's the finance committee it's in the bylaw it says they could vote somebody out but this committee it doesn't say anything do we at least send him an email just to see if he said yeah sure I'm out that's the what you have to do you have to contact them and say hey if you if you want to show up come right back if you don't want it send me an email know his personal email yep okay he hasn't responded to and if he does not respond to the email perhaps it's time that we amend the bylaws um yeah sure who can doel that's amending or just adding where we don't have one I assume the commission has the ability to create its own bylaws and I'm sure have to go to town vote yeah say going to have to approve it yeah I think so one car would have to I I would imagine yeah it could it could be the select board there's got to be somebody that will yeah well we can bring it to we can bring it to him and then and then address it next month yeah best thing to do is is Callum I think because he doesn't respond to emails and we're not in a nonvoting situation so no but you know again you know it it make it makes you know puts some pressure on the group that you know you every going to show up I know I felt bad I couldn't I couldn't make it last one and worst case scenario I mean the he doesn't get voted in from election time that that's right he was appointed until May yeah I mean he's appointed at the moment right right right so if he doesn't show up at the carcass right getting on the ballot he doesn't get on the ballot not going to be a member that's the worst case scenario that's worst case scenario because we're month away from that right yeah all right well there there will be an end in sight then yes okay okay I of course would rather have him start showing up to the meetings see that happening I was surprised he seemed so heager yeah that's why we went with him as eager and there was another candidate who's also very eager it was sort of a tossup to you know where where we came down do we have any idea where that did he end up committee I don't know I know Carter was talking to him after the meeting yeah or after we I have to imagine they cored him for something else you know we don't have a lot of um okay uh DPW director updates Bill talk about the billing started talk about it we started a little bit so Paula came in it's been more than a few nights and uh we got the bills out of course during the process um it looked like 15 bills didn't go out uh she printed out a report of all the bills and there was all kinds of Errors it looked like 15 didn't go out now we went back you know a week later and I think 13 of them had gone out so there was only two more or maybe all of them went out we we had to correct a couple there was couple of Errors some weird happenings right one of them it was actually a town building um it miscalculated the use the the use times the rate it had the wrong calculation there somehow so we had to fix that there was a couple of little fixes but we got them out uh wasn't easy we had to bring in a consultant at one point to help us out a little bit um yed us one afternoon but we did it and and this is the continuing Saga of the software yeah so the final piece of the billing is the commitment so basically a letter to the town accountant and to the town Treasurer saying this money's coming at you right it's going to the Sewer so that's one of the documents that I need the four of you to sign tonight there's two of them two documents yep excellent so once we get that that pretty much wraps it up um part of the billing a lot of people call and questions well how come it's this how come it's that a lot of it's just you know then they don't know how to read the bill quite right or some of it is um wow my usage is way high or or you know something like that just try to ask him did you uh leave a toilet running or did you why you Garden a lot this year and you know did you fill a pool yeah and sometimes you say yeah well well that's your extra usage so but a lot of questions so I've been feeling a lot of questions she looking forward to a new oh yes best manager yeah but um yeah one full full-time job is enough that's right that's right yeah okay uh oh so yeah the assistant position yeah that this is now we can actually start thinking about this I think at this point we got to focus on that um I don't think we have any new candidates but I think we we have a good siiz pool candidates we got to reach back out to them see if they're still available stop bringing them in for interviews so I'm thinking that you know we give the uh Andrew a couple of months to get his feet under him before we bring somebody on what do you think no it's probably better to bring them in sooner okay you know because takes at least a month they'll probably be here a month before we get somebody so well I guess also they can kind of like ramp themselves up together yeah that makes sense yeah okay uh manhole repair ifb uh so nothing new there did go out the bid we had a little better um I haven't even talked to them I just been so busy but I assume they're going to come in in the spring and do the work but I have to reach out to him but the contract is in place yeah remind the committee where where where this work is being done uh various manholes we had different reports from couple of years and uh it was actually Paulo took all the reports put it into a spreadsheet and uh found all the manhal that were suspected of inii getting into them so we targeted the worst ones so uh mostly doing Linings um wall repairs patching around pipes so it could be all over town getting Roots yeah yeah yep so we targeted the worst ones okay thanks and the line repairs i m Mass one are complete wonderful yeah yeah so they were in last week uh Tuesday through Friday they went pretty smooth um they were actually in a little bit earlier that was the main bulk of the repair they were in a little bit earlier the week before doing some prep work um was that getting the other cut off installed right the stock one yeah that kind of stuff oh Jane's got her hand up yeah t we going too fast I was trying to find that stupid hand um on the commitment you have to vote on it oh thank you you are right so um let's see we've got two this is the second commitment that we're voting on right second quarter for f 25 sign this one you have to sign this one yes I thought you were looking for something in it yep so um so it looks like the commitment it for the second uh quarterly billing for fiscal year 25 is 325,000 $684 I will take a uh motion to approve this commitment I'll make a motion to approve I'll second motion okay roll call Scott hi Joe hi Brett hi Mike I thank you Jane for bailing me out again okay all right I think somebody's a little over tired overworked so back to the line repair so um yeah we brought in the tankers first dat had a a big tanker the trailer it sucked out the the line and then we had a smaller truck just kind of Stand By grabbing any flow that was coming into the well while they did the repairs um the second day just a just a small truck again then the next day they didn't even need a truck um and the Friday they had the truck in again and I think Thursday went a little longer and whatever work they were doing had to get done that day and then Friday they wrapped it up and I was surprised that there wasn't a lot of I didn't notice any outdoor escavation there was there must have yeah it was right there right at the the station real close yeah real close just a small hole yep of course I went there and they said who we found the pipe after we dug this rock this big off the top of it I don't think rocks that bigger in the spec never fails but yeah yeah it went pretty swol so and now uh now that they have some experience I'll see if I get a price to do basically the same work at the Dana Street Station hopefully the price comes down a little bit now they have a little experience right basically same job so great um any um future agenda items for from from the members I'm glad because uh I was going to I was going to talk about Recruitment and now I don't need to um I had a couple people find out I was on the Sewer Commission and ask so I figured I'd do the due diligence as I couldn't answer their question but they wanted to know with the rates that cost that have been going up between dumping them to the surrounding towns have has the town ever explored its own sewage treatment plant it has right one of the reports over there I'm sure has it huge money oh I'm sure I'm sure but I think there was like well you know what's the potential investment for you know of what the cost might still keep esal the impact on the repair would be beyond the yeah the cost of what we're we're sending to L that's fine but at least we're putting it out there right so I think one of the biggest challenges is where would the outfall go right exactly you know that's a tough one and yeah typically goes into water right and remember it's relative to lemonster and Pittsburg it's a small system yeah it but I think it was just that people really noticed it on there R the last couple bills so that was our budget that we voted last time part part of the increase of the of the cost to fburg Lem yeah right that was a big part of it right yeah we went up a little bit for the capital projects that we have to do yeah I mean the system now needs to be really taken care of because it's reached an age where this stuff needs to be done right right the stations are coming to the end of their designning lives yeah no I don't disagree it just I've only been here a year so is there any sort of transparency into when and what the what the math is when those rates go up to the neighboring towns or are we just sort of at their Mercy for for the race it's it's negotiated yeah we sat down with both of those towns and and negotiated you know a rate okay right but part of that is they can change their rates so we know what fitzburg is doing for the next few years I think we know what lemons is doing for a couple years too okay right yeah but I think the agreement is a fivey year agreement I can't remember 25 year 2 five year agreement right right we shouldn't have to think about that then well but like in the agreement it says they can go up on they can go up right right so you know either we follow Pudo lose money and really lose money no yes okay that was all I had all right old business I think so I don't think so we have no public for public compet um as I said earlier December the 24th we will be having no meeting so that we all can go home and enjoy ourselves and uh be with family and friends the next meeting is January the F 14th which will be here as a hybrid meeting and then January the 28th is a zoom meeting and February 11th uh at 7 pm is another hybrid meeting here so uh I guess I'll take a motion to adjourn a motion to adjourn the I'll second the motion okay and roll call Joe hi Scott hi you bet [Laughter] no Miss GNA Miss thank you all thank you Jane you're welcome oh there she go