Coordinator Report  Feb. 4, 2010

Mary Williamson had conversations with Inspector General's office and
with Andrea Woods, FRCOG procurement officer and determined that no
appraisal is legally required for the town to purchase the beach. Mary
contacted Les Black regarding a Realtor appraisal and he agreed to
conduct an appraisal at no charge and as well to assist the project with
pro bono legal work. He could not locate any comparable sales.  The Open
Space committee met and agreed to support the acquisition and to raise
funds by donation to pay for an appraisal by Levitch Associates in
Greenfield, a firm I am familiar with and who have done work on grant
funded acquisitions.  The goal is to have the appraisal by very early
March.

This next item is a bit of financial housekeeping. The Warwick Library
received an unrestricted bequest of somewhat more than $5000 from the
estate of David Engman. The gift names the Library and does not name the
Library Trustees.  The town accountant has asked for a vote by the
Selectboard formally designating governance of these funds with the
Library Trustees.

I sent out broadband bills and signed up Kevin Cooke as installer
trainee. Sourced and ordered some higher gain antennas. System is quite
stable and only one real problem which we will fix or refund.  We have
closed two trouble tickets and have two open at this time.

The U.S. Census Bureau is hiring for the 2010 Census.  These temporary,
part-time positions offer good pay ($14.50 per hour and 55 cents per
mile), flexible (make your own) hours up to 40 hours a week, and the
chance to work near home.  They want neighbors counting neighbors. 
Folks can call toll free 1-866-861-2010 to schedule a test and check
documentation requirements. This census worker training is beginning to
get traction. Five individuals took the test this week and two the week
before. Testing is Thursday mornings at 10am in the town hall.

We have a pole hearing 6:30 pm at the 8 Feb meeting for relocating two
poles on Richmond Rd near Wayne and Tracy Kirley's place. This petition
reflects the agreement worked out between the Kirley's and the utility
and gets the pole out of their line of sight to the mountain.

Tim spoke with Chief Peters who doesn't think we need additional signs
saying speed strictly enforced as they will do that when they are out
patrolling.  Brian and Tim feel we should not add the signs due to
un-needed expense and maintenance if damaged or stolen. The signs would
cost the town $700. - $800. plus labor to install.

We have contracted with Athol Window & Doors to replace 21 storm windows
in Town Hall offices. It will take a couple hundred dollars from the
town hall annual appropriation plus all the rest of the money we have in
town hall improvements to fund.

Between the TH improvement account's residual balance and two Annual
town meeting appropriations from 2009 (one painting, one insulation), we
got the building painted, insulated, plus the culvert replaced, winserts
made and now 21 storms windows in the offices. The latter are ordered
and installation starts as soon as they arrive.  That is a lot of
forward progress.

Last week we started taking delivery on fuel oil under this fiscal
year's contract. We bid half of last year's amount (1/2 of 6500 gallons)
expecting to buy some at market price as needed.

We got the check for the solar electric grant and can proceed on that
project when the weather breaks. There are now new incentives to use
other people's money for solar electric so we may be able to increase
the project from the 1.1 kW project procured, meaning another
procurement process.

A number of residents in the village center are upset about the practice
of using the front end loader to clear snow at night because of noise
and presented Tim with a petition to end the practice. The combination
of the machine engine noise, scraping, and the back-up beeper are
causing folks sleepless nights. Chris Ryan, Tim and I met. Tim agreed to
offer noise mitigation accommodation as much as possible by timing their
activities.

My opinion is this loader use is a poor use of a very expensive piece of
road machinery besides being an annoyance. We have four workers. We
should have four trucks with which to plow. I have developed a town
meeting article to consider purchase of a second small truck with a plow
for our fleet. Tim is pricing trucks.

If the truck purchase idea fails we could make this clean-up part of
somebody's hired plow route, part of the work of the ton truck we own,
delay plowing parking areas until daylight hours, or find some other
accommodation for the neighbors. After 10 pm the loader should stay at
the highway barn and the drivers could load their own trucks with it.
It seems ridiculous to have a machine operator to load two sand trucks
and not much wiser to plow with a pay loader.  Finally I note that Tim
has done a lot to cut costs in snow and ice overtime, has a hard working
crew and they deserve a lot of credit.

Good news on the cell phone front for town residents who subscribe to
Warwick Broadband. There are now hardware devices on or coming to market
that stand between a broadband connection and cell phone to provide cell
phone service in your home or business. Verizon's device is widely
available and costs $250. The Sprint device is called the Airwave and
costs $100 to buy and starts at $5 per month. With the right plan it
doesn't use you minutes.  ATT's, not yet in production and called
MircoCell, is testing their device in limited markets.  And Magicjack
says they will have a device on the market in the second quarter priced
at or under $40. The UBIQUISYS G3-MINI is a third party device and may
not work until the cell carrier enables it for their network.  All but
the magicjack device require a 3G phone. All of these plug into your WAN
/ Internet connection and use VOIP to connect to the publicly switched
network. See  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femtocell