Select Board Meeting 01/17/2024 Recap
In attendance: Vice Chair Tina Hein, Clerk Ben Sparrell, Assistant Town Administrator Kathleen Buckley – In John’s absence, Tina is running the meeting
Discussion of Implementation of Road Name Change to “Fawn Road” which impacts section of Lowland Street from Intersection of Woodland Street to Upper Charles Rail Trail Crossing. The name change was approval on December 11, 2023 at the Select Board Meeting (3 – 0 vote) (if the road has a name for more than 25 years, DOT requires an appeal process)
Kevin Rudden, principal Assessor from Assessors Office: This is a joint effort, and the process is followed when there is any new change. The assessors change the address, and we notify the mapping company. Once we do this then the GIS is notified, and they notify the state’s E911 program. In this case, we’re not changing the parcel number, only the road name from properties numbered 17 – 21 (addresses are not changed). The road signs (which can be seen on the image below which shows where the new street signs would go up:
The signs have been ordered by the highway department and the residents will be notified by mail that they need to contact the Post Office, utilities companies, and all other companies which use their address. Town Clerk and Water Dept will be notified but there does have to be other paperwork completed BY the residents. Voter registrations will also have to be updated.
Tina: Do any of the changes affect MA GIS? Kevin: No, this will be done by 5pm as soon as approved.
Public Safety will be notified by Kevin’s office via Email! No need for residents to be concerned about public safety issues.
Tina is opening this up to the board or to public comments.
Ben: No comments/questions, thank you for putting this together so quickly. I am assuming that there are no contests – Tina: that’s correct. According to MA DOT there were no complaints.
Tina: the new signs will be up in the next week or two and you won’t see any real changes. Residents of Fawn Road will receive notification of anything they need to address as well.
Kevin: he will notify Google because while the state does do notifications, we will do that because it’s often more challenging when the changes do not come from a town official because Google Maps because they don’t always wait for changes from the state.
No vote is needed because of the prior vote.
Public: Sarah Berube: 21 Lowland – soon to be 21 fawn Road – we really appreciate this and thank you for your time and effort. Thank you because that list of changes that you’ve promised to mail to us is going to be helpful.
Because we have Kevin here we’re going to move to Senior/Veterans tax work off program
State law has allowed the towns to allow Senior and veterans tax write off law. It has been dormant for a while in Holliston. We have been in contact with Lisa from the Senior Center about getting this going again. We looked at the last set of guidelines and there are two changes:
Governor Healy raised the ceiling to $2K from $1.5k for seniors while there has been no change to the veterans which remains at $1.5K. There is also a “proxy worker” option (if a disabled person is unable to perform a task which qualifies then someone else may step in on their behalf) we’ve added this for both seniors and veterans. We want to help everyone we can and by using proxy workers we can give more people a break, which we think is important. Currently we have four people working actively right now in various programs.
We currently have someone who has been clearing up our paperwork for example and we’re more than happy to have them use these hours to “clean up” our work and help defer their taxes.
Ben: No questions and we’re happy about the progress..
Kevin: we have given a seminar to both the Senior Center and the Veteran’s breakfast where we discussed these programs. We try to make sure that we do appropriate outreach. Kathleeen has been very helpful.
Tina: How did you become aware of these changes to the state regulations?
Kevin: as we modernized the program, we had to look at our 10 year old guidelines and we found there were several changes which we could include in our program. We needed to verify that these programs were still valid.
Kathleen: This allows us to help people and helps us fit people into tasks which they can handle.
Tina: so you are looking for approval of the changes?
Ben: Motion made to increase the number of seniors and to include the proxy server. – Motion passed.
Warrants – Ben made a motion to approve the warrant – motion passed
Public Comment – Ben: None
Tina: Habitat for Humanity held an event for a home on 172 Concord Street and the 2018 start was completed. Dedication was yesterday and Deacon Barry was there. The keys were handed over to the new owner. Lot of praise was handed out for all help from various town boards and committees. Habitat also praised the Senior Center for their efforts for helping seniors stay in their homes.
Comments from the Town Administrator – None
Board Business
- Notice of Award I.W. Harding Construction Inc. for 2023 Complete Streets – Central Street project (most of these funds came from the state)
- Senior Center Donation from Nancy Deursch $150.
- Donation to Fire Department from Colantonio, Inc. $500.
- One day Liquor Permit Walker Wedding May 4, 2024, 2:00 p.m. to midnight bartender Bon Fete, Inc (upper Town Hall)
Motions made by Ben – all passed.
Veterans District Agreement (moved to next week)
Not additional business. Meeting Closed!
1 Comments
I don’t object to the idea of the name change from Lowland to Fawn, but I’d like to share a suggestion that Joanne Hulbert had that I think would deter trucks even more. Why not call it Rail Trail Way?
I understand it’s late in the game, but it’s also not impossible to make a change at this point. Just thinking. It might even deter GPS from suggesting that as a way for people to travel. I understand it’s late in the game, but it’s also not impossible to make a change at this point. Just thinking.