Bethany Towne, Berlin\u2019s new assistant town administrator and zoning administrator, capped off her first day on the job July 13 by attending that night\u2019s select board meeting. She replaced Tom Badowski, who retired in June.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Town Administrator Vince Conti introduced Towne toward the beginning of the meeting. Towne said she was happy to be back in Berlin after spending several years in Nevada, most recently working as a staff attorney for the Supreme Court of Nevada. She said she is looking forward to working on such issues as natural resources and property law in the town of Berlin, where she grew up as a fourth generation Vermonter. She wants her office to be open and engaged with the public.<\/p>\n
Select Board Secretary Karla Nuissl said she envisions having ambassadors who represent different neighborhoods communicate town initiatives to their neighbors. Towne also said she could envision herself going around to the different neighborhoods as well, and dubbed this idea \u201ctravelling office hours.\u201d<\/p>\n
Board Chair Jared Felch noted the change in Berlin\u2019s top officials, saying, \u201cWhat is unique about Berlin is we have had a complete change of leadership in every aspect.\u201d He noted new people taking on roles in the select board, zoning board, and planning commission. He also said the new leadership seems to be \u201cpointed in the same direction.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The board had earlier set its sights on choosing contractors for the town\u2019s mowing and paving needs from a handful of bidders. After discussing the rates offered by respondents, the board voted unanimously to accept the mowing bid submitted by Hill House Estates, LLC. Board members then chose Pike Industries to take for town paving projects. Conti said the town has gotten \u201cextra money\u201d over what they anticipated from the local options tax by about $300,000 to help with some of the paving projects.<\/p>\n
Felch suggested the board organize a public hearing before moving forward on paving and other projects proposed for town. Select board member Florence Smith agreed, saying she does not want it to appear the board is \u201cslipping something by\u201d without public input. Conti also agreed, saying it is important to make things very clear to residents to avoid that perception.<\/p>\n
The 31-page personnel policy then came up for discussion. First up was a question on how often to check the driving records of town employees who are required to drive for their jobs.\u00a0 Nuissl asked if they should check such records anually, although their policy calls for checking the records at time of hire.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Additionally, Felch said some town employees are required to have a physical fitness test if it is appropriate for their job description. The policy further states that the town will pay up to $350 per year for employee memberships at a gym or fitness center.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll new full-time and part-time employees who are hired into positions where health or physical abilities are important for the performance of the essential functions of the job may be required to have a physical examination at the expense of the town after an offer of employment has been made. Appointment to a position may be conditioned on positive results of the examination,\u201d the current policy states. Exactly what a person has to demonstrate is not specified. All it says is, \u201cThe specific criteria will be determined by the Board but will be based on the specific requirements of the essential functions of the job as defined in the applicable job description.\u201d<\/p>\n
Issues such as unused vacation pay, sick leave, and personal time came up as well. For example, employees can choose to either take a vacation or get paid for unused vacation time over 80 hours at the end of the fiscal year. Unused sick and personal time are forfeited each year. Conti cautioned about being unprepared about the vacation pay situation, since paying out unused vacation time is not in the budget.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf someone retires and then they get a big payout because they bank all this time, it is not in the budget. We need to put it in the budget,\u201d Conti said, noting that an employee who works for the town for five years but never takes a vacation could have up to 500 hours \u201cin the bank.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nuissl said it is at the discretion of the board, and that employees need to apply for either vacation time or a payout by May 1. She said it should depend on the circumstances, such as a road crew employee who can\u2019t find the time to take a vacation due to weather. Select board member Kris Hayward said this could open claims of discrimination.<\/p>\n
The policy currently states, \u201cAny unused vacation over 80 hours at the end of the fiscal year will be paid out. An employee may only accumulate up to a total of 220 hours unused paid vacation time at any one time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nuissl suggested consulting a lawyer or other expert before finalizing the policy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have got lots of policies to revise. The direction I have been getting is that this board wants a complete revision review,\u201d Conti said. Someone made a brief mention of using artificial intelligence (AI), which caused a ripple of comments. Conti said the town should have an AI policy for the staff on what you can and can\u2019t do using AI in town documents. Nuissl said using grammar and spell check should be sufficient for the personnel policy, but noted AI \u201chas its purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The board then reviewed the Capital Improvement Plan, and discussed where a new police building might go to replace the current one, where a new municipal office could go, and other matters. Nuissl said there are benefits to creating a multi-use building to house the municipal offices as well as a housing project, so the expense of building a new town office could be offset by the rent paid by occupants. But should the municipal office be on the ground floor with housing above, or the other way around? Hayward said he did not like the idea of having housing either over or under a municipal office.<\/p>\n
Conti said the selectboard should start the Capital Improvement Plan at \u201cground zero,\u201d by doing a study, then a survey, and then holding public hearings. Nuissl said someone needs to explore the programs available from the state for such projects. Felch said the planning commission should take the lead, but (former longtime planning commission member) Nuissl noted that the commission does not always take on researching state programs. She said Towne should work with the commission for information.<\/p>\n
Conti said it is important to keep the public engaged in the process.\u00a0 \u201cIf they want it, we can move forward. If they don\u2019t, we can stop talking about it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bethany Towne, Berlin\u2019s new assistant town administrator and zoning administrator, capped off her first day on the job…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[99],"tags":[112,64678,19315,190,50375],"class_list":["post-132997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-berlin","tag-berlin","tag-berlin-selectboard","tag-berlin-vermont","tag-germany","tag-zoning"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116960369540242965","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}