Tonight (2018-02-12) was a meeting of the Mendon Town Board.
Sheldon (Town Attorney) was absent tonight. Primarily of note in that he wasn’t able to discourage questions during comment time. Which I took advantage of to get some clarification. Apparently the Town Highway Department was a tank with 1500 gallons of ‘Magic’ in it. Or 5000, replacement for 2000? Many tank sizes mentioned, which isn’t important. The important part is they have liquid ‘Magic’. Which is an abbreviation for ‘magnesium chloride‘, used to keep ice off the roads.
Recognition of an Eagle Scout was on the agenda. Unfortunately, he was sick and could not attend. Hopefully he will recover well and this can be rescheduled for next month. So if you know Zachary Sequeira, reserve March 12 to Observe him be honored by the Town Board.
Sounds like there will be a meeting on April 11, at the school, to discuss the ‘Opioid epidemic‘. Doubt I’ll be there, but should you care, keep your eyes open.
The old library building at 15 Monroe Street will be getting a new roof before too long. Tonight the contract was approved. The town has been expecting this expense for a while, so almost all of the $116,250 cost will be covered from reserves. $115,000 from reserve, $1,250 from this years budget. While the total cost seems high to me, good job planning ahead here. Will be interesting to see what the space will be used for once the repairs are complete.
Continuing on a recent solar assessment opt-out, the Town is looking at another opt-out. This one covering a plethora of energy providing methods. Hydroelectric, fuel cell, etc. If you’ve got one of those, you don’t get to ignore it on the property assessment. One of those double negatives, opting out of the exemption. Assuming the assessor even changed the assessed value. While I can understand the desire to lower your personal taxes (especially I was filling out my income taxes today), a collection of tweaks and exceptions just pits us against each other. Better to make it as flat as possible. Assess value, divide by x, pay results. No exceptions, no special cases, all equal before the law. Or so we can hope, reality is rarely that straightforward.
A very interesting discussion on the Historic Preservation Commission occurred. Bottom line: the Board doesn’t want to, in the name of preserving history, prevent a property owner from using their property. Some back and forth with some of the commission members who were in attendance. Sounds like they feel their group is underutilized, and are trying to update Chapter 121 of the code (the part authorizing their group). I’m leaning on the side of ‘governs less, governs best’, which would lead to either disbanding the group (and Chapter 121) or having the group only meet as needed (which might not happen some years). Either way it will be interesting to see where this goes.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the February 12, 2018 meeting of the Mendon Town Board.
Link to agenda on Town website until they update it, losing the past.
Link to agenda stored on this site, for when the town lose their copy.