Washington Planning Board
Washington Planning Board
Meeting Minutes
September 2, 2014
0.0 Assembly: 6:30PM
0.1 Members present: Crandall, and Schwartz
0.2 Alternates present: Kluk
0.3 Members and Alternates Absent: Cook, Marshall, Dagesse and Terani
0.4 Visitors: None
Schwartz motioned for Kluk to sit in for Cook for the meeting, Crandall seconded and all voted in favor.
1.0 Minutes: Minutes from August 5, 2014, no changes were requested, Kluk motioned to approve, Schwartz seconded and all voted in favor.
2.0 Old Business:
2.1 Bartevian culvert and easement issue: We didn’t hear back from John LaFleur, who is the trustee for Patricia Bartevian this month, after sending the letter to them regarding the plan from DPW for their drainage issue. Schwartz said she would contact Ed Thayer to see if he had any feedback. Schwartz asked if there was a problem during the last big storm and Crandall said he hadn’t heard that there was a problem. We will keep the issue on the agenda. Kluk asked if they had said no to the easement and Crandall said they haven’t.
2.2 Warrant article #29 – Crandall stated that a final questionnaire was returned by the Town of Lempster and he added it to the sheet that compiles the surveys that were returned (Jackson, Bridgewater, Springfield, Sandwich and Washington). Kluk made copies of the compiled sheet for Schwartz and herself. Kluk asked about an end goal with the survey answers. Crandall feels that with so few that answered we should just make it available and let people draw their own conclusions. Kluk asked how the Selectmen are using it, she thought that they were going to use the information at the summer meeting but it didn’t come up. Crandall said he is not sure what they are doing with it.
Kluk said that someone at a WESAC meeting asked what it would cost to preserve the Schoolhouse for whatever it was going to be used for (in the event it is not used for Police). Crandall stated that the cost to bring the school up to standards for office or other uses should be determined, then the additional costs to meet the needs for the Police Department should be determined. That additional cost could then be compared with the cost to have the PD moved into the Fire Station. Crandall asked if there was money to pursue an answer to that question. Schwartz and Kluk felt it was beyond the options that WESAC was asked to look at with the architect but is a worthy question. Schwartz will speak with Barker to see if that could be done.
2.3 Master Plan Update Committee – Kluk reported that the committee met with Dan Reidy in late August to go over his report from the Community Forum. We made corrections with him and we are expecting to get the corrected report at the end of the week. Twelve hard copies will be provided to us and we will give the Selectmen copies and make some available at the Town Hall and the Library for the public. The group discussed starting to work on the Master Plan chapters and decided to work on coming up with a template to use for the chapters. We have had some people offer to help draft the chapters and we will contact them when we have our templates in place.
2.4 Budget expenditures for 2014 – Dagesse provided us with a printout of what we have spent so far this year. Kluk said we are still under budget for the Master Plan for the year. Schwartz said that the MPUC should discuss what we would need for budget year 2015 and let the PB know soon for budgeting for next year. We noticed that the UVLSRPC fee for 2014 dues seemed high. Crandall will ask Dagesse about it and also ask her for a printout of “budget versus actual” for this year.
2.5 Business Permit application and deed restrictions discussion – Crandall came up with a line to add to the business permit application to cover the question of deed restrictions. He said we could add a new question/statement on the application right after #14, that says “There are no deed restrictions that will prohibit this business.” Crandall said that Marshall attended the annual board meeting in LAE last month but wasn’t in attendance to give us feedback from that meeting. Kluk made a motion to modify our existing Business Permit Application to insert the question regarding deed restrictions, Schwartz seconded the motion and all voted in favor.
3.0 New Business:
3.1 Island renaming issue - Frank and Susan Oelslager are requesting authorization to change the name of their island. The Selectmen referred the issue to us to deal with it. Kluk stated that she looked at the deed for the island and there was nothing in the deed refering to a name. Schwartz said that no information was provided to us by the Selectmen and Marshall is not in attendance, so we can’t take any action at this time. We will continue it on the agenda for next month.
3.2 CIP - Schwartz made packets for all that requested items last year that include a copy of last year’s requests, a copy of the CIP budget document, a cover letter and a blank request sheet. She will make a packet for the rest of the departments and deliver them on Thursday. They will be due back by September 30th and we will look at them during our October meeting.
4.0 Driveway permits: None
5.0 Mergers: None
6.0 Communications:
6.1 Copy of letter to Mettler, re. Business permit
6.2 DES, copy of acceptance of permit application for septic system, TM 7-38, Washington Heights Road
6.3 Copy of Drainage Easement Deed for Chad Thurston, TM 16-29, Highland Haven Road
7.0 Meeting date for next Planning Board meeting, October 7, 2014, at 6:30PM.
8.0 Adjournment: Time: 7:30 PM
Motioned by Kluk, seconded by Schwartz, all voted in favor.
Respectfully Submitted,
Nan Schwartz