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Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=jEq7P4knguY

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Let's call to order the June meeting of the town of Newbury Human Resources Board. Present are >> Diane Doyle, >> Mark Lechman, John Ferrar, Anthony Antico. >> Thank you all. Uh we believe that Chief Fischer will be joining us momentarily

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and not sure about about Lyn. Hopefully she'll be with us as well. No, we have our quorum, so we're fine to go. First order of business is to approve the meeting minutes. Thank you, Diane, and the man for providing these of the April 27th meeting. if folks had an

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opportunity to read through those. >> Those did not get sent out, so they might just need a >> Yeah, take a minute or >> Yeah, this is the same stuff that we just read online. It's everything we discussed in

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all the infusion of new rules and effect of being an expensive town and the cost of training kids. If they don't stay, who pays? Yeah, it's all the above.

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>> Okay. >> Okay. Good. >> Is there a motion to accept? >> Motion. >> Is there a second? >> Second. Any discussion about the minutes? Seeing none, all those in favor of accepting the let me just stop the process here.

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Chief, have you had an opportunity to review the minutes from the April? >> I absolutely have. >> Thank you. Before we take a vote, do you have any discussion on the minutes? >> No. No. I All those in favor of accepting the minutes as written, say I. I.

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Unanimous. >> Thank you. Next order of business, employee issues. Diane, return to you. >> Nothing brought my attention. >> Quiet at town hall. >> Very quiet. >> Chief, anything to report? >> No employee issues.

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>> Personnel actions and job vacancies. Uh Chief, why don't we start with you? I know back in April, you were talking about uh creative solutions potentially to uh staffing issues. You were talking about the possibility of a police academy officer.

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>> So, yes. So, we are uh we're still down two from our 12 allotted full-time officers. We've kind of switched our mindset. We've um traditionally we've been looking for people who are already certified. So, what a lot of people don't understand is if we send someone to a

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police academy in fiscal year 27. We don't they don't actually fill a hole in the schedule in yield of service until fiscal year 28. We've got an academy that's about 6 months long. Then they come out of the academy, they go into field training, which is about

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three months long. So, it's not an immediate fix, but it's a drain on payroll, right? You're paying somebody to be at the academy. So, um, we've gotten to the point where I feel like we've exhausted all of our options for trying to find people who are already

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certified, who would be good matches for the Newbury Police Department. And now we're looking at how do we fill these two positions um successfully with new recruits even though we aren't going to yield, you know, the benefit from them

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for two years. Um so we are currently in the process of um we've got a candidate, you know what I mean, who we may be moving forward with hopefully if everything goes well um with all the pre-employment checks and everything um that we may be moving

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forward with. So for that I'm grateful and optimistic. Um the other creative solutions we've we've done in the past is we created a tax abatement program for the parking attendant down at Plum Island. Um I only have one applicant,

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you know, for that position right now. So that isn't working out very well. But um one of my sergeants also does the scheduling, which takes time away from him being on the road. Um, I'm looking at getting a college intern,

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um, who would work for credit instead of pay to assist with the administrative piece of scheduling. >> Um, good idea. >> You know, so that we could at least free up Sergeant Takuna to get him back out of the road and out of the station. So, we are trying to look at

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>> um non- tax straining ways to free up the limited bodies that we have right now. Um, so I'm I believe I'm getting one applicant for that intern process as we speak. Somebody reached out to me today from Epicott College.

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>> Creative. Um, >> yeah. I mean, we're try everybody in the building is looking outside the box to try to figure out, you know, what can we do, you know, with the resources we have and how can we supplement it without with no control over tax base and, you

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know, what our budget ends up being. Um, so but hopefully, you know, hopefully that will that will be good and hopefully we'll get somebody into this July Academy. Um, >> curious in that regard, have you reached out to colleges that have specific

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criminal justice programs? >> Yes. So, it's posted um they for jobs for colleges they there's a particular website that they used. So, we got an account to be able to post the job um on that. I've also emailed with the heads

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of I think seven different colleges with that people that might be living locally um around here um and heard back from all of them that they've got it posted you know as well what we're looking for we created kind of an internship job description for what the scheduling

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person would do >> is St. Ansome one of those schools >> uh no actually St. was it? But I >> want to think about that. I mean, they're in Manchester, just outside Manchester, but I know that they attract students from from Essex County. >> Yeah. >> Uh, and you know, the greater Portmouth

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area as well. They've got a very highly regarded criminal justice program. >> Yeah. If nothing else with a summer here, you know, you might find somebody there. >> Yeah. These schools offer professional work fairs where you and the exo could

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actually go in and speak face to face. >> So job fairs are interesting because our background has to be so intensive. >> Yeah. >> Um that again anyone who's looking for jobs in law enforcement are are actively

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looking and there's some of the colleges have the pre- police programs you know that people enter into. So, we do a lot of outreach with the schools that have those programs. Every time we have job postings, you know what I mean? >> We're in communication with them for

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that. But we we historically we haven't had a good um result from job fair outreach. >> Yeah. >> You have a sense of the why? >> People are looking for remote. >> Okay. Yeah. It's interesting,

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>> you know, >> it's a new change. >> Yeah. >> Okay. All right. So, you touched on a number of the colleges, which is great. Thank you. >> Anything else to report from? Uh, any other uh new job opportunities available?

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>> Uh, so the only position that I believe other than the police department is the library director um position with Haley resigning June 4th, >> right? Um, and my understanding from Dick Baceri is that they had eight to 10

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candidates, which was surprising. >> They're down to two to three and plan to start interviews soon. And they're very excited about the >> And their board is very independent in in in staffing that position as I recall. >> Yes. And I had offered if they needed support, you know, you're always willing

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to help serve on that. Um, but they have two to three candidates that they're very excited about that have fairly good experience either as a director. Um, so they they're moving in that direction to start their interviews to really get somebody on board. >> Will Haley be there long enough to make

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for a smooth transition? >> She left June 4th. She's done. So the assistant uh director, I believe, is okay. handling all the, you know, the responsibilities at this point, but I know she worked to get everything documented and um and so forth, but she finished up June 4th.

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>> She's a big shoe to fill. >> She is. She was great. >> She was terrific. Thank you. >> Yeah. So, that's the only position that I believe at this point, and I know it's been taken down from the website because they're ready to move forward with interviews. >> Yeah. Great. Okay. I'm not aware of any issues relative to uh workplace uh

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discrimination, ethics issues. >> Nope. >> Nothing. Great. >> Safety issues, chief. Anything to report? >> Nothing to report. >> Okay. How about uh in anticipation of the fourth? Anything you want to share with uh with us and by extension the the

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public who may be watching about uh things they need to be careful about? >> Um yeah, fireworks on Plum Island, you always need to be careful about. Um, you know, we do the best we can with the resources we have right now for staffing, but we know where the 4th is

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on a Saturday and it's also the 250th celebration. Um, we're trying to come up with um creative ways to have messaging um so residents will start seeing a message board um on Plum Island. I'm waiting to hear back for when we can

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pick it up. Um you know, reminding the public of the limited parking and that fireworks are illegal. Um um it's my hope that the fire department might station at Pit Hall just for visibility and a rapid response in case there is an issue with fireworks. Um

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>> where will the message board be located? >> Um hopefully at the airport, you know, as you come on getting on the island, right? >> Yeah. um that's the safest place especially with you know if it's a nice Saturday you know we can get it off the shoulder there safely

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>> um well enough but um so we are trying to use again other means when we don't have bodies of communicated new report has been um great I've communicated our staffing issue with them and you know let them know that they have authority to kind of help us with mutual aid

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immediately normally you wait to hear from a community to co-respond Um, I've let them know on that that Saturday that they if they're scanning us and they hear something on Prome Island that could you please just initiate a co-response. Um, >> Chief, did you say that you were waiting

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to hear about the the ability of the fire department to position staff at P? >> Yeah. Put in a request to the fire chief to see if they could, you know, station people instead of at the um three Morgan AB if they could station to >> Is that is that a fire chief determination or Peter Hall?

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>> It would be a fire chief. Yeah. Yeah, we could we can use the parking lot there. >> Um no, the pit hall is always, you know, wonderful with us. Um even if they have an event going on in the building, they still let us um utilize the parking lot to have a presence. So, um, again, the

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major concern, you know, from a public safety point of view for the fourth is, you know, drinking and driving and those things, but it's also genuinely, you know, fireworks and what happens when there's fires down on down on Plum Island and

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how easy it is for a firework to catch a house on fire. >> Um, >> so we'll hopefully have some messaging coming out soon about that. We request, we don't have a message board for the town. we have to request them through NERAC out of Beverly. So, I'm waiting to

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hear back from um MRA as to when the DPW can go down and pick up that message board for us. But as soon as we're electronic, >> it's an electronic. Yeah, the big kind of orange electronic message. >> What's the cost of that for >> They're really expensive >> for 24-hour period or

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>> Oh, oh, no. Nerra allows us to get them for free. We just have to pick them up and return them from Beverly. Um and it's based on demand. So, I'm just waiting to to hear back when, you know, they'll tell me when we can go down and pick it up. >> Can't imagine there would be many greater demands in Plum Island for July

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250th. So, >> yeah. >> Good. Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Any other safety issues? >> Other business uh happy to report that the uh reserve compensation fund is alive and well. That uh it it passed

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overwhelmingly at time. I don't think we've had official meetings since town meeting, have we? >> No. uh it was presented and successfully passed at town meeting and I know that the uh the select board was appreciative as was Tracy of our efforts in that regard. So, thank you to everybody for

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your part in in the uh seemed like a forever conversation about how to how to create it uh how it'll work. But I think I think the residents saw as we saw that there is a need uh at least theoretically there's a need and if

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there is no need goes right back into where where it came from and uh no how no follow. >> Yeah. >> So you know like life insurance it's there if we need it. >> So great. >> Um anything else in terms of new business? >> No. Thank you Mark for your leadership

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on that. The important thing very hard >> team effort. Thank you. >> Well presented at the town meeting. >> Yeah, not only well presented but with brevity and you get the perfect brevity award

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which which I think is always well received by >> seeing that there's no other new business. Let's turn to the calendar here. We're talking about the fourth Monday in July which would be the 27th. Is that a date that as of now works for

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folks? Monday, July 27th. >> Yes, sir. >> Um 4 p.m. >> Good. >> I will be I'll be sure to let know. >> Okay. >> Did we have a discussion about if there was new no new business that we would

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consider forgoing the meeting since it's >> July meeting >> since summer if we didn't have anything? >> Yeah. >> Scheduled >> for that open for discussion. Right. >> We we typically uh do that in in uh I think we do it typically in the July

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meeting if if there's no business to attend to. Um I guess I'm ambivalent about it. Um I I always feel like we should put it on a schedule with the understanding that if three weeks from

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now >> there is no new business to discuss and it's strictly a proformer agenda, >> I'd be more than happy to move it to August if that makes sense to folks. >> I think that makes sense for July and August. Like if I mean if you look at the you know even the select board

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minimizes in the summer you know. >> Yeah. For those >> Yeah. I just don't want to presuppose it. >> There's no agenda. >> Yeah. I would rather put on the calendar >> pressing just, you know, move it to the next month and

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>> because otherwise what happens is that, >> you know, something pops up 14 days from now and and four of the six of us have already made plans for that week and then all hell breaks loose. So >> yeah. So, let's let's keep it, if you don't mind, let's keep it on the 27th with the understanding that I will send

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out a note 10 days prior. >> Uh, and and stay close to Diane here so that we'll know what what may be happening in town hall and with Tracy as well. You know, there are times that Tracy wants to address us, in which case going to be incumbent upon us to meet. >> Mhm.

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>> So, uh, as of now, the 27th at 4 p.m. with the understanding that we may we may cancel it. There's nothing important to talk about. Good. >> Okay, >> sounds good. >> And with that, uh, is there any other business to discuss? >> None.

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>> See none. Is there a motion to adjurnn? >> So move. >> Second. >> Second. >> Any discussion? >> None. >> Seeing none, we are adjourned at 426 in the building.