all right I hereby call the order this regularly scheduled meeting of the sundland select board the time is 6:30 p.m. our first order of business will be to approve the minutes of our last meeting July 15th 2024 I'm motion we approve the minutes of July 15th second we have a motion made and seconded to approve the minutes of July 15th all those in favor I I I three nothing Jeff thank you all righty first order of business is a recommendation to appoint an interim Town Administrator yes uh um so I'm pleased to rec excuse me to recommend Margaret nardz um she is a former Town Administrator here in Sunderland in Berlin and in Rutland and a town clerk here in amers is that right yeah yeah um so lots of Municipal experience uh recently retired um obviously experience in Sunderland knows the community was here for 10 years um so I I think Sunderland is fortunate that Margaret is available and willing to come in I think that I it would be we' be hard pressed to find somebody short term to that could do a better job so um I have no hesitation whatsoever to recommend her as the inro wonderful and coming from you that is High Praise so thank you very much um does the board have any questions no no I'm at me um all right well I would would love to have you on board um I'm assuming you just need a a motion yeah vote and then Margaret I can work out the details and I'm assuming starting next week is okay oh I will start yes I'll start on Monday yeah and I understand that it's for up to 20 hours a week um and that that shouldn't be a problem at all um I will attend all the select board meetings during this this interim period um and I know you're going to be we're going to be talking about the uh Town administrative search process in a few minutes but yeah um I'm sure you know you want this to move forward expediently so I will I will be working to help you do that wonderful okay so um if do you have like a drop dead date that you cannot be helping us after no I don't I I but I do know that it would be in the town's best interest to get a new Town Administrator on board at starting the budget process with no delay um in fact if the board feels um that it would be helpful depending on who you select um I could I could stay on in a transition period to kind of help that person get their feet wet and things like that so I don't have a drop dead date um I'm going back through retirements yeah yeah no I just you know if you had if you had a cruise that was leaving on the 30th of of October we need to know so we're all that yeah no I just didn't know if you know as well as I do sometimes you start that hiring process and you think that oh we're going to offer it to this person everything looks wonderful and then that person says yeah not interested and I'll stay on to help sometimes you're recreating the wheel when you have to start over again so I'll stay on as long as you need me and until the new Town Administrator is done okay perfect well in that case I would entertain a motion to appoint Margaret the Town Administrator Mo motion to appoint Margaret narts is the uh interim Town Administrator second all right we have a motion made and seconded all those in favor I I I three nothing thank you all forward to working you absolutely welcome yes all right um and in that same vein our next order of business is discussion around the hiring process for our new uh full-time Town Administrator yeah so I guess there the the first major decision point is whether you want to try and do this inhouse or you want to go out and hire a firm there are a couple firms that I'm familiar with Margaret might know more I know the Collin Center at UMass Boston does executive searches um Paradigm Community Paradigm um does a lot of searches and um the former HR director in ammer also can do searches um so depending on what level I mean I Bernie Lynch and Community Paradigm I do a lot I know they do a lot MRI does a lot um and you mentioned the Colin Center they do a lot there is a hefty cost to recruitments depending on what you want done I mean you could C it could cost over $10,000 to recruit a Town Administrator using one of the firms um I but I'd like the boards I'd like the board's thoughts on what I do believe it's possible to do it in house um and uh Deborah radway who is the former HR director in ammer um does some part-time things on the side I know her and could potentially um get her involved um you know in some places in the recruitment process I think there would be a cost savings and I think it would be more efficient than hiring um one of the search firms uh to do one of my concerns is just availability of the search firm of like is it going to be faster or slower in the end to do in-house or not um inous we start right away you know and whatnot we the firms we may or may not be able to engage them quickly so that would be one of the things I would want to have an answer to before we would made the decision is are the firms available is is are they going to tell us oh yeah sure no problem we're booking out in December now or something like that so I would just want to be sure that we're not making the process longer by going in that direction um in general I like the idea of having there be a professional involved uh I'm kind of leaning towards the former um town clerk from HR HR VOR sorry from um because that sounds more like it would fit our circumstances personally but um love to hear what the other members of the board have was because like when you were you hired using a firm or was it in no it was um it was independently I will say that that select Ford uh had been together for 12 years and I think had gone through the search for Sher right they because you had you were with David and um so they had gone through a search before that um yeah but they just advertised I think with the MMA in the local papers um my understanding is they took all the resumes that they got they passed it around to staff staff recommended three or four people and then the select board had two rounds of interviews um I think that one of the advantages of a search firm is they have a broader reach they'll do a community profile um which you know we'll say in the ad town of Sunderland 3,600 people more or less you know this is what our budget is but they go into depth saying hey this is you know a project that they're doing or they this town has a new school or you know they're really focused on capital investment so it can help attract the type of people that you're looking for um but again I mean like you said you can start the process fairly quickly independently and if you're not getting the type of candidates that you're excited about you can always broaden it through another so what did Deerfield use for South County when they were looking for their ambulance director Chief they used an outside somebody might if you MRI is does a lot of the public safety executive position so it could have been MRI or here's another one and I can't think of the name of it but can you just reach out and just even ask you know because by the time I was involved with the South County it was in the interview process but they already had you know narrowed down their candidates and just even just see how happy they were with it what type of cost they were looking at associated with that y because obviously at the end of the day this it has to be something reasonably priced um if we start looking at 10 12 $14,000 for a head hunter I I can tell you that I um having gone through the recruitment process myself a couple of times um I have a community profile statement and challenge statement um that I've kind of Taken it's a it's a template that that I've used and I think that we could and and I could do this in concert with Deb radway um that we could kind of finesse and make it Sunderland so that's something that we could probably save some money on I also think that de Deborah Bradway has um has uh I don't want to say connections but she has the Avenue she needs um that that she's aware of where we can we can post the position as broadly as possible and those things combined would save money there is a part of the recruitment process that is going to cost a little that extra over and above um the HR the former HR Director if she does if she does help out here and that is uh the background search you're going to want to have a thorough background search on your new administrator so the credit check and criminal background history and and all of that stuff and that is a separate we could we could contract that out separately at a smaller at a smaller cost than doing the full recruitment but we're going to want to do that whether we go with a firm or whether we do that in house we going want to do that either way so that's it's going to have to happen yeah right um and we do have so what I want to try to balance is not putting too much on your plate coming in for interim and expecting you to do the whole search I I don't want to add too much to the boards plate because we were all already busy people with full-time jobs and just do a lot of hours for this um obviously I want to do us right fiscally for the town but we do also have some play because we're going from a full-time administrator to a part-time administrator so there is some money in the general Town Administrator budget to be able to pay for maybe not $10,000 worth of search but maybe a couple thousand doll for the former HR um women from ammer and for the other various things we would need to do that um so I just want to kind of find that middle ground that makes us happy um and largely it's going to be what you feel comfortable doing on your end um because a lot of the stuff um I expect to meet with Jeff um this week so I can share with Jeff um the steps in the recruitment process that that I've followed and the draft um kind of a sample uh Community uh the community and challenge statement so we can we can um share that with the select board great sounds good now as far as the background check and only because this is actually something very recent coming up with South County EMS they're in the process of drafting a background check policy so I don't know if I think that that's something the background check has to happen we contracted out with someone other than Deb Bradway or if Deb could actually run that part of it for us I'm not sure that she is an authorized um agency to to do that but that is absolutely something we could look at um and uh I don't know that we need to draft a policy on well no only I guess the reason I'm bringing that up is South County EMS is planning to conduct their background checks internally getting people people you know qualified to do this so I'm wondering would would that be another resource we could use their people if they are qualified to do it if they're authorized yeah as long as they're as long as they're authorized yeah um you know and like I said I can leave you a copy of this just you know to see like what they're planning on doing and if it even meets the needs for what Great Dan do you have anything else no Jeff do you have any questions or anything no no I mean that I certainly a full conference and Margaret Deb's ability to hire somebody it's it's like you said it's a matter of time and priorities and whether or not that's something so Margaret if you're going to be meeting with Jeff starting tomorrow or this week or whatever do you want your start date to be earlier than next Monday I didn't even think about it my start date can be when I'm appointed not when I'm appointed I'm sorry but when I'm sworn in so whenever if if Wendy is around and I'm sworn in then then we cuz we definitely want to make sure you're compensated for this time also it's your time yeah of course um so the two of you can start talking about that as soon as possible um it sounds like what we're saying is start the process talk to Deb start figuring out the sort of In-House plus you know path um and if we get a little ways in and we decide wow we need more help with this than we thought then we can start talking about other resources and that kind of thing that sounds good to the board yeah okay great thank you all right thank you Jeff all right um we have welcome back yeah thank you gosh I love this town this is like full circle this is a lovely town I have to say I love it I love the people through too I can't wait to you know reunite with some of the of the folks in town and there'll be people who who will come back to stop back in CU they remember just to visit cuz they know Margaret's back um yearend transfers we have three transfers is that correct Jeff yep you want to give us a little background yeah so at the end of every fiscal year there are some accounts in Surplus there are some accounts in deficit and the accountants um make recommendations to take some from the Surplus and balance out the deficit okay uh this year there were three accounts um there were some last minute um police expenses including uh the purchase of bulletproof vests that we're going to get reimbursed for but haven't um and there were some vehicle repairs that needed to be done um there was also so police general expense um had a deficit of $3,893 um the cemetery fund had a deficit of $1,237 um and then the frontier out of District transportation had a deficit of $1,625 and um I think the majority of that was because we assumed that they were keep that the busing company was keeping the same rates that they have kept for 10 years which is not have been ass that was a ass but the uh the busing rates went up so yep all right and we're making those transfers from which accounts um police full-time wages Highway seasonal wages and police part-time wages um we did have a a full-time officer who not wasn't full-time the full year so there was some Savings in that account okay and that covers the entire total of what like 33,000 y great so um the finance committee also needs to review this and sign off on it so um you can vote and sign off or vote contingent on the finance committees and assuming okay they're just um trying to schedule their meeting but I haven't heard any questions about any of them okay Crystal Dan any questions on that one no all right okay at this time i' would entertain a motion to um approve the year end transfers contingent on approval by the finance committee I motion we approve year and transfers contingent upon finance committee second all right we motion made and seconded all those in favor I I I three nothing Jeff all right last up is review transition document yeah so I started putting together a transition document that um before I knew Margaret was coming some of this this probably she knows already but this isn't this is guide GL good so just trying to give her an idea um you know some of the timely things that may be coming up um I mentioned North Main Street sewer repair and what we're doing with that um let's see um Personnel the the you know vacant positions uh a little bit about the budget process and when it kicks off the fact that we have new accountants um information about technology how get in touch with our it provider um SharePoint I'll obviously share logins and all that Margaret um a little bit about insurance Highway roads and infrastructure um police fire the schools including the roof replacement um in the windows there's a water district Margaret knows that sorry what was it the windows and everything else at the school um well the windows yeah are those kind of all they're pretty much taken care of good to they're getting they're being delivered I don't think they're installed yet but the asbest a b yeah but we don't know what else we could run into until they're in yeah is true um fact that the wastewater treatment plant is uh run by all states um South County EMS South County Senior Center um Recreation and then I mentioned a few of the capital projects um specifically the highway loader because um we just signed the purchase to own lease um the backhoe and the truck for Highway because both of those are in process and we just need to get our financials and then those will be ready to go um and then the two town office building projects that I haven't been able to get to which is the front step replacement and the town office floor refinishing um I also mentioned pickle ball courts School Street redesign um Trails Grant the trails Grant um congratulations Transportation a little bit about boards and committees focusing on Village Center energy committee and Personnel committee and finance committee have been the most most active um and then just the annual calendar to give Again Margaret probably made the calendar knows it but I didn't know who's coming in so just to give them an idea of what might be coming up and can I assume that you will refer on recent yeah the sessions and and going on and whatnot yep okay y absolutely great any questions from the board on the documents or anything you think of that we should include that Jeff didn't say I don't think so just did you make sure to include your phone number and you address you are going to give her your phone number yes no I long he doesn't change his phone number we all have his phone numberly all right wonderful um I'm assuming you don't need us to vote on your transition documents that was more just an informational kind yeah just to see if I was missing anything major and that you all wanted me to add or Margaret wanted me to add happy to just the part where we're taking over Deerfield and we're going to make it one big town I I do have something I just it's full disclosure I I am on the Deerfield finance committee but I am I've notified my appointing authority the moderator and my chair um and the town clerk that I am recusing myself for any from any in all business relating in any way to Sunderland while I'm serving as inter Town Administrator here I've also spoken with the ethics Commission already on this so I think we're all we're all said I just wanted you to be aware of that no appreciate the the disclosure but I don't see any problem with that I have to disclose something every other week so you know all right uh that concludes our new business um under old business first up we have selectboard updates Dan do you have anything I do not have anything this week Crystal no our South County meeting got cancelled last weeks or postponed so maybe next week I'll have something all right um I only have one thing and that is just that um it was brought to my attention that there was an incident in town recently um that may have been hate motivated um and I just want to remind everyone that the selectboard the town the people of Sunderland are vehemently against hate in all forms um and this is not the town for that um and we fully stand behind any potential victims of any hate um and encourage anyone who feels like they have been a victim of hate to bring that to the select board to bring that to the Town Administrator to bring that to the the police um to come forward and please you know let us know because we want to know we want to do our best to try and prevent it to make it right and to keep it from happening again and that's it for me Jeff uh just one update last week you um awarded a contract for the graves Memorial Library um historic preservation design contingent on um the references checking out and and talking to them references were Immaculate um had a really good conversation with it's Clark green and Beck and the principal I think is his name is Steven mallister and just everybody we spoke to said that they were great they were really helpful in how to historically reuse any material that they weren't using and um just seemed like really qualified in there in great barington so not too too far um lot of the firms are Way East so they ask which which firm is this which green and back uh Architecture Firm um they're just going to be writing the specs for the uh repointing of the greatest great that's all I have wonderful all right um any public comment from anyone I don't think there is anyone on on the line anything Chris did you'd like to ask no I don't think some going talk Jeff at the meeting wonderful all right um in that case I will take this last opportunity to just say Jeff it has been an absolute pleasure I've learned so much from you in the last uh two and a little bit years um I was hoping to learn more from you over the next bunch of years but we understand uh and I hope that everything uh and your new job is wonderful and we look forward to working with you in your new capacity thank you so don't forget that we are here and not saying you have to give us preferential treatment or anything but you know just saying um all right in that case uh our next meeting will be Monday July sorry no it will be August 12th August 12th thank you uh Monday August 12th at our normal 6:30 time at this time I would entertain a motion to adjourn I motion we adjourn second all right we have a motion made and seconded to adjourn all those in favor I I I three nothing Jeff the time is 6:54