At tonight's Select Board meeting, The Library Board of Trustees announced that they have hired a new Director of the Dartmouth Public Library, Jennifer Inglis. Ms. Inglis will assume her duties on April 22nd.
Also at tonight's meeting, Executive Administrator David Cressman announced the hiring of a Director Of Development, Deborah Melino-Wender. Ms. Melino-Wender will assist other departments in writing grants and was also appointed as Select Board representative to SRPEDD, the Southeast Regional Planning and Economic Development District.
In other business, the Select Board endorsed a request by Town Clerk Lynn Medeiros for purchase of new document management software. Ms.Medeiros also addressed the need for additional staffing in the Clerk's office, While expressing sympathy for the dearth of staff, the Select Board stopped short of endorsing adding staff citing the need to look at the budget overall to ensure the affordability of added staff.
The Select Board voted to place an article on the Town Meeting warrant removing term limits for members of the Waterways Commission and to place an article adding a municipal wind turbine bylaw to the zoning bylaws. The Waterways Commission bylaw limits members to two consecutive terms. The new wind turbine bylaw would allow wind turbines, which meet all the criteria set out in the commercial wind turbine bylaw, on municipal lands as an as of right use (i.e the installation would not require a Special Permit). I will post the language of the proposed bylaw in the near future. The Planning Board will be asked to weigh in with their evaluation of the new bylaw before Town Meeting.
The Select Board appointed Selectman Mike Watson and Executive Administrator David Cressman to the Charter Review Commission ...
... and will ask the Finance Committee, School Committee, Planning Board and Town Meeting Moderator for appointments to the nine member body. Selectman Joe Michaud and Mr. Cressman were appointed to the Bylaw Review Committee. The Town Meeting Moderator will appoint two Town Meeting members and Town Clerk Lynn Medeiros will serve on that committee. The Town Charter section on the Charter and Bylaw Review can be found at this link. Contact Moderator Steve Sharek if you would like to serve on either of these two reviews. His contact information can be found in this post.
This evening was newly elected Board member Shawn McDonald's first meeting on the Board. Thank you for nominating me to be chair. Thank you to the other board members for electing me as chair. I am honored and will do my best to live up to your confidence.
Monday, April 12, 2010
New Library Director, Director of Develpoment hired.
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17 comments:
Congratulations on your appointment to the chair of the SB. I am sure you will do a good job. What are the salaries for the Directors of the Library and Development?
So any town-owned land is fair game for these turbines to be built upon if the article for the additional wind turbine bylaw passes Town Meeting, correct?
Dartmouth residents, check your neighborhoods. You may be closer to town-owned property than you think!
The AEC may be in YOUR backyard.
Where did Doris Copley go? Does she still write grants too ? or has this position been combined and Ms Copley no longer works for the town?
I believe the LibraRy Director is $70,000 and the Development position is $63,000.
If the municipal turbine bylaw passes Town Meeting, the requirement will be that the installation meet all the requirements of the commercial wind turbine bylaw without the possibility of variance. The 2 times hub height setback must be met and also all other critieria. This severely limits the possible siting.
Reading between the lines, it looks like Doris Copley is gone. In her retirement, she will have plenty of time to contemplate those highly questionable and morally offensive "contracts for life" that she drafted.
I don't think she ever wrote grants.
Bill,
Many people are wondering where is Doris Copely? Is she still on the town's payroll? It sounds as if the new Director of Developement is doing her job. We the tax payers have a right to know.
A new library director and director of development! Dartmouth is moving in the right direction. Thank you to the select board and Mr. Cressman for getting the job done!
To 4:02, ironically, by trying to save herself, she caused her demise!
Is that karma, or what? Well, here is one instance where the adage, what goes around, comes around came around.
Why won't anyone tell us what is going on with Doris Copely?????? Is there some secret conspiracy going on?????
To Anon 9:56 PM
Last spring, on the recommendation of the Fin Com, Town Meeting voted an amount of money that was insufficient to fund the current Grant Administrator's position for the entire year. Those funds are running out in the next few weeks. At our last meeting there was a Reserve Fund Transfer request made of the Fin Com to fund the remainder of the years salary for this position .. it was denied on the grounds that there is no authority given to the Fin Com to override a decision of Town Meeting. That position will cease to exist when the funds run out. An additional sum of $10,678.70 was requested to buy-out the sick days and other benefits costs due the current Grant Administrator .... this was granted.
Concurrent with all this was the need to hire someone to both administer and write grants to better position the town to take advantage of available grant monies.That position was advertised, candidates interviewed and a person hired for the newly formed position of " Director of Development " . That person will assume those duties in early May. On 4/8/10 the Fin Com was asked to fund $11,954.02 to fund this 'new' position for the 9.6 weeks remaining in FY10 ... and it was granted. This sum calculates to a yearly salary of $64,751 and is on a par with the budgeted amount for the current Grant Administrator position.
Article 'T' in the upcoming Town Warrant will ask the Town Meeting to add the position of "Director of Development" to the Dartmouth Personnel By-Laws .
Greg Lynam
Fin Com
Can you tell us who made this request?
To Anon 8:44 AM
You asked : Can you tell us who made this request?
All these funding requests were made by the Executive Administrator. In each case it was his required duty to make those requests.
Greg Lynam
Fin Com
Mr. Lynam
I've been informed that our Fincom, select board members and school board members have agreed to put all surplus money from the school department budget into some FDK account. This unused surplus school department $$$$$ is being earmarked to advance the FDK program. If true, how much of this is legal? If legal, how much of this act took place in open session? As in most rumors this one falls into the category of I've got a bridge I want to sell to you.
To anon April 23, 2010 5:11 PM
Re: FDK account / surplus money
There will be no additional Ch 70 money as a result of the increased enrollment resulting from FDK for a variety of reasons too complicated to explain here.
When looking to fund the schools portion of the FDK program using existing and future school appropriations it is fiscally prudent to insure money will be available in good times and in bad. On the General Government side we have the Stabilization and Reserve funds. Regional school districts, such as Voke, have what's called an "Excess and Deficiency" fund in which money unspent at years end can be carried over into future years for use if and when needed. Local school districts can do neither. In order to insure sustainability of the schools side of FDK funding we have examined several methodologies to get around this apparent limitation; the FDK revolving fund and a separate Stabilization fund among them.
DOR tells us that town meeting can not appropriate funds directly into the existing FDK Revolving fund but we can set up a Stab fund on the General Government side for 'a' specific purpose and appropriate money into it. What is being considering is to ask Town Meeting to form a separate Stab fund within the General Fund designed to hold a sum of money capped at a certain amount that would guarantee FDK funding in the event of a shortfall in the school budget.
Nothing has been agreed to. There have been discussions during regular Fin Com meetings [ and I assume School Committee as well ] about how to stabilize future FDK funding on the school's end. School and Town management, with representatives of the school committee and myself from the Fin Com, have been working to hammer out the details. I know the S/B is aware because I personally made them aware as most likely did Mr. Cressman - of course Shawn would have been aware as well. When a proposal is ready it will be brought to the S/C, Fin Com and S/B for proper discussion and a vote.
Where would the money come from ?
Normally there is very little money returned from the schools at years end - one year it was all of $15.00 :) What there is are tailings from the thousands of line items covering $47,843,805.00 (FY09) in school spending. It is not uncommon or unreasonable to have a couple Hundred Thousand dollars left over after reconciling all the bills at years end. These monies are usually used over the summer to accomplish various repairs to the school buildings, purchase needed materials, etc. In order to build up this 'FDK Stabilization fund' the schools would have to skip or otherwise reduce the level of these activities and return some of these funds to the General Fund. The Town Meeting would then be asked to re-appropriate that amount of money to the FDK Stab Fund, allowing it to build to the 'cap'. If the schools needed those funds in any year to help stabilize their budgets a 2/3 vote of town meeting would be required. All this insures that there will not be a sudden and unexpected demand on the General Fund for additional monies in support of FDK, and that Town Meeting is always aware of the magnitude and reasons.
In short : I allows both the Schools and the General Government to PLAN longer term.
Greg Lynam
Fin Com
Could someone please give me a straight answer. Is Doris Copely still employed by the town of Dartmouth? Mr. Lynam gave an explanation about the funding for her position but we still do not have an answer. DOES SHE OR DOESN'T SHE WORK FOR THE TOWN? Her life time contract says that if her job is eliminated she should have another position at the same pay rate.
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