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Messages - David Shea
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31
« on: September 24, 2014, 08:38:31 AM »
This would be right up your alley Chris!
32
« on: September 14, 2014, 08:32:25 AM »
Lisa,
I've always wondered who the person was behind your alias. It now makes sense to me why your post are so well composed, defended and written.
33
« on: September 14, 2014, 08:24:59 AM »
Dave,
How will the funds be used this year?
34
« on: September 07, 2014, 09:14:07 AM »
They say, It takes a community to grow a child, but it takes dedicated volunteers like Tom Fontaine to provide the environment for the growing to happen. A big thanks to Tom and his family. Click on the link below to see the video of the story. http://www.wcax.com/story/26460382/celebrating-volunteers-tom-fontaine
35
« on: August 27, 2014, 03:35:29 PM »
Henry,
For Nomination for Republican State Rep was an interesting battle:
Chris Santee 66 votes
Write in votes 67. The poll does not specify if all of the write in votes were for the same person, so the verdict on this one is still out.
Dave
37
« on: August 12, 2014, 08:43:06 AM »
Chris,
My understanding is that you are running for state office. It is great that you cut and paste these news events and post them for all to see on VT Grandpa, however it would be enlightening to read your personal commentary and proposed solutions. By doing this we voters could better know your position on the issues. I encourage you to preface these enlightening post with your thoughts, insights and solutions to the topics at hand.
Dave
38
« on: June 03, 2014, 10:21:02 PM »
During my two year tenure on the Select board we never approved an award as you described. To my knowledge there is not any language in place to handle this type of program. My suggestion would be to write a sample protocol and ask to be put on the agenda for the next board meeting to discuss the option. In my opinion this sort of responsibility would be left best in the hands of a committee vs under the jurisdiction of the select board.
39
« on: April 16, 2014, 06:58:42 PM »
While on the selectboard we had at least one situation where there was a tie vote, when the chair recused himself due to a conflict of interest. The outcome of the vote was, no action was taken.
40
« on: March 13, 2014, 05:03:03 PM »
On my way to St. Albans i stopped and spoke with DJ and Pat. Pat had just unloaded the sand from the back of the truck with the backhoe. They were both waiting for a wrecker to show up to pull the truck out. They had considered pulling it out themselves but decided to hire a wrecker vs damaging the truck. According to DJ and Pat the visibility this morning was next to nothing. The backup driver Stan was driving the truck that you see off the road. This particular part of Wagner Rd is very narrow and has deep ditches. He had trouble seeing the road with the blowing snow and wind, his right front wheel got close to the edge and it pulled the truck into the ditch. Nobody was hurt and the truck is ok. Stuff like this happens.
41
« on: March 04, 2014, 05:14:57 PM »
Mr. Langelier,
It's nice to see that Chris Rogers came to your rescue on this topic.
Dave
42
« on: March 01, 2014, 05:26:02 PM »
Good question Trevor. Katrina is correct he town owns two pieces of woodland that I am aware of. One parcel is the 100 acre woods in North Fairfax, the other parcel is on Fletcher Road just past Claude Rainvilles' Farm on the rh side of the road as you travel toward Fletcher. The money I am funds I am referring to came from the Fletcher Rd parcel.
43
« on: February 28, 2014, 08:12:58 PM »
Josh, I am not sure where you are getting your information finacial's of the water department? In my two year tenure on the board I have not once seen you at a select board meeting, nor have I ever seen a public records request with your name, requesting information. It troubles me that you know the names of water users who have not paid their water bill. When the the topic of water delinquencies come up the select board uses account numbers and not user's names. You are correct in stating that the selectboard authorized the spending of money to drill 3 wells this past summer. The cost of the first two wells was approx 19,000.00. The second well drilled at the former Milton Bradley plant yielded 32 GPM. At the recommendation of Randy a third well was drilled on Wheezy's Way at a cost of appox $9500.00. This well yielded approx 34 GPM. Before either of these wells can be connected to the water system they need to undergo a 72 hour pump test, to verify that the water taken from these wells does not interfere with other wells in the area and is of good quality. The last quote the town was given for this service to test one well was approx 22,000.00. The selectboard can only make decision to spend money with a quorum of votes, that is 3 or more votes yes. When you get the chance please review the Lake Champlain Public Access TV taping of meetings or the minutes of the selectboard meeting. Drilling of wells was achieved by a majority of the board. If this was not the case the wells would not have been drilled. As for your comments on reserve funds, the reserve funds that the department had came from one of two sources. In 2007 Green Mountain Senior living came on line and paid 55,000 for water connect fees. Monies were also earned when the town forest on Fletcher road was logged, I do not know the amount for that project. I do not have the town report for that year. Both of these revenue sources have been depleted. Approx 29,000.00 was spent on drilling wells this year, that does not make up for the fact that the additional surplus's have been depleted since 2007 for various operational cost deficits. The current water system as it is now governed does not have capacity to add new users. ( Currently the department is compiling unit usage data to see if demand is significantly lower than the states require allocation amounts. This data will be submitted to the State of Vermont, if the demand is very different from the states mandate, the state can grant 10-20% of the daily pumping from the current well as new allocations. This could amount to 4000 - 8000 gallons of water that could be sold. By using the data the department connects already and analyzing it the town could add several new users without spending any money on drilling.) Once new users are added the department can collect connection fees. Until that departmental spending needs to equal or be less than monthly billing. You mention well drilling as being a major expense, yes you are correct. Can you find the line item in either of the departments budgets showing the expense for drilling the wells? Can you also find the line item for revenue source by which the drilling was paid? Deposit vs expense = 0. The majority of municipal departments have a capital plan that set money aside for large projects like water drilling or a new fire truck. Before I came on the board, I didn't realize that the Water Department and sewer department both fall under the utility department. Each of them generate revenue separately and accrue dept separately. Both department have a shared checkbook. The sewer department on the whole is in ok standing, however this particular year a $56,000.00 equipment reserve fund was deposited in the operational checkbook. This bond was money set aside to pay for major equipment failures. Since this money was deposited much of it has been spent in anticipation of 1st quarter water / sewer revenues and has been supporting operations. If there is a major equipment failure like a pump, lift station computer ect the department will be challenged to pay for it now that this money is no longer in reserve. This sewer plant and equipment was build in 1980 and is now over 33 years old. In addition to paying for plant repairs for both departments, the sewer department needs to clean the lagoons as regular maintenance. The cost of this maintenance is not budgeted for on a yearly basis. The lagoons are cleaned on a rotating basis and the cost to clean one lagoon is approx 18,000.00. Since money is not saved each year for this expense out of user fees, reserve funds have been depleted to pay for maintenance. Since the selectboard is oversees the utility department just as we do the recreation department, fire department, emergency management, constable, ect and is not directed by an independent commission, the towns people have every right to ask any question they want at town meeting. This is all I have time for now, but would be happy to speak with you directly sometime. I think you have my phone number or can access it..... The Water Department has or had surplus funds to cover losses from the years they ran a surplus. These funds from what I understand have covered the deficit already and the Water/Sewer Dept is back in the black as of now. Remember that the Board minus Randy Devine wanted to explore a new well which ran around $10,000, I also believe the sewer pump had to be fixed which was pricey. This is why things went into the red.... **** happens and unexpected costs do occur. Like I said though reserve funds were used to cover this deficit and as far as I know the Department is not in the red any longer.
Also last time I knew there was about $7,000 owed by people who have not paid for water and sewer. That is a huge amount!! I find it funny that some of the people in this town that are always talking trash about the water/sewer department, are either on the nonpayment hit list or have the same last name as someone on it. Sometimes it is worth looking into things and making a phone call!! Not just taking a pissed off user or user's family members word for it.
Also just so you know, whether you agree or not the water department is a separate department of the town. I would not be surprised if water department issues were not allowed to be discussed at town meeting tomorrow. The proper place to discuss your issues would be at a selectboard meeting not at town meeting. I could be wrong though that is just how I understand the rules of town meeting.
Sin
44
« on: January 22, 2014, 03:57:50 PM »
Yes, you are right, thanks for catching my error, I have made the correction.
45
« on: January 22, 2014, 03:04:45 PM »
Duffy's submitted an invoice for trash removal for the first two weeks of January. Joe the owner has indicated that the first two weeks were extremely heavy weeks with lots and lots of trash. He has not given us an invoice for the third and fourth weeks yet, but he has seen a significant reduction in the amount of trash that is being put at the curb now that the holidays are over. Here are the amounts: January 1 - January 12 1) 66.11 Tons of Trash multiply by $71.58 per ton: $4732.15 2) 8.75 Tons of Recycling multiply by $10.00 per ton: $87.50 3) 1584 stops multiply 2.75 multiply by 2 weeks (monthly 11.00): $8712.00 Total Cost for the first two weeks of service: $13,531.65 Divide by 2 for weekly cost: $6765.82 Multiply by 52 for yearly cost: $351,822.64
Cost savings with Duffy's VS Casella yearly: $416,117 - 351,822 $64235You will notice in this contract the cost of disposing of recycling is a lot less, $61.58 per ton less. Fairfax has an opportunity to save a lot of more money on our solid waste disposal cost if we concentrate our efforts on recycling everything that we can. Currently we are only recycling 9% of our solid waste. If we could bump that number up to 25% or even 50% the savings to the town would be huge. The question is, how would you like to use your hard earned property tax dollars? On better town roads, increased recreational opportunities, reduced taxes, or trash removal. Taking a little time to sort bottles, cans, paper, plastic and cardboard pays big dividends on reduced taxes. Let's all see if we can do our part to recycle more and throw away less. David Shea Nick Hibbard asked me to summarize the potential cost savings of accepting the new trash hauler contract. These are estimates since Casella would not provide actual monthly tonnage figures to Fairfax for trash or recycling.
Here are the simplified details of the contract we had with Casella:
1) Per month flat fee per parcel of land whether there was a house on it or not $20.69 times 1676 = $34,676.44 per month
( This fee included the cost for landfill and recycling )
Casella Total yearly cost: $416,117.28
Fairfax was not given a monthly tonnage breakdown of recycling and trash from Casella for 2012-2013 so we have no way to know what our actual disposal fees are. Casella's representatives stated that Fairfax Disposes 2000 tons of trash per year ( We are unclear if this includes recycling.), the figures for recycling are unknown as they were not reported to us.
Here are the simplified details of the Duffy's Contract:
1) Per month Flat fee per Household ( not parcel ) of $11.00 per month times 1584 = $17,424.00 per month
2) Monthly disposal cost of trash based on 2000 tons per year / 12 = 166.66 times $71.58 per ton = $11,929.52 per month
3) Recycling numbers were not provided by Casella so I do not have this figure to provide estimates
Based on what we know, estimated cost with Duffy's will be: $29,353.52 per month
Recycling is not included in this number but we will have figures at the end of January to use for estimating purposes to project the rest of the year.
Total yearly labor cost paid to Duffy's: $209,080.00
Estimated disposal cost based on 2000 tons: $143,160.00
Recycling: Estimate 1000 tons * 10 per tons: $10,000.00
Duffy's total Yearly estimated Cost: $362,240.00
Yearly Estimated Savings:
Casella Yearly: $416,117.28
Duffy's Estimated: $362,240.00
Difference: $53,877.28
Less Cost Casella Charged for the recycling bins: $13,001.00
Total estimated first year savings: $40,876.28
Total estimated second year savings: $53,877.28
Estimated two year savings: $94,753.56
This first year savings of $40,876.28 amounts to approx: 3.4% of the 2013 municipal budget. Our municipal budget increase for 2013 was over 4% in order to control tax increases cost savings measures are necessary.
I can keep you up to date on savings as the numbers roll in.
David Shea
Copies of both contracts are available at the Fairfax Town Office for those that would like to see them.
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