BOS back to business

The dust has settled following an interesting few post-election weeks for the Board of Selectmen. New member Rick Atherton has had his first regular Wednesday night meeting. Michael Kopko was elected as the chair, with Patty Roggeveen as vice chair. Brian Chadwick retained his seat atop the County Commissioners, with Atherton as vice chair.

Now the business of running the town and county can begin again.

The selectmen took a break from tradition and waited two weeks after the election to choose officers. After his nomination of Roggeveen for chair was defeated, Chadwick proposed a slight rule change to allow the vice chair to sit in with the chair and town manager when the agenda is being set. The rule change was embraced by all five members of the board at a special Wednesday morning meeting last week.

The election of Kopko as chair was passed on a 3-to-2 vote, with Atherton and Allen Reinhard casting their votes for Kopko. Chadwick and Roggeveen voted against.

Roggeveen and Kopko both said they are looking forward to getting down to business and listed common goals for the upcoming year when asked what their priorities were.

"I am personally encouraged by the dialogue that I have had with the other selectmen," said Roggeveen. "None of us were elected to be more important than anyone else. I think (having the vice chair sit in on the meeting) will lead to a fuller agenda with more views expressed."

"I think the vice chair should sit in on the meetings, I think it's a great idea," said Kopko. "I'm totally comfortable with Patty sitting in on the meeting with myself and (Town Manager) Libby (Gibson)."

Both listed the increasing sewer rates and the town's catching up on its audits as being at the top of the list of their concerns.

"I want to make sure we are keeping up with the audit and getting that up to date," said Roggeveen. "I'm also very concerned about the sewer rates."

"We need to bring the audits up to date," said Kopko.

The town is lagging behind on its mandated annual audits, and it almost cost them grant money that is used to pay for a town employee's salary.

"It has caused some problems," said Kopko. "We got a little bit too far behind, but it is an absolute priority to get caught up."

Both agreed the budget is something they would like to get to work on as soon as possible in order to prevent an override, which was accomplished this year.

"It's never too early to start working on the budget," said Roggeveen.

For taxpayers, the issues of sewers, budgets and audits are extremely important to their wallets, but do little to draw people into paying attention to the inner workings of town government.

"Unfortunately, most of what we do is distinctly un-sexy," said Kopko in response to a question regarding any bold ideas he has for the upcoming year,

"but it is all very important." I