Above: Among the Select Board’s goals is looking at options for transitioning from local dispatchers to a regional center. But they are also supporting the chiefs’ plan to look into properly staffing/supporting the Town’s department. (photo from Police Dept Facebook post)
This summer, the Select Board came up with the list of issues/tasks they are looking to tackle or make headway on this year. It jives nicely with my to-do list of topics to update readers on. So, I’m combining them in a series of posts by goal categories.
This one focuses on “Administration/Operations”, which includes next steps to deal with Fire and Police Dispatch issues, plus six other items.
Goals and Categories
On June 13th, the board agreed on 24 goals and 15 additional tasks broken into 5 categories.* I didn’t make it to the in-person only meeting and minutes don’t give context/discussion around the list. But members did add more details for some in last week’s meeting.
The first is category is “Administration/Operations” with five goals and two additional tasks. (Other categories that I’ll cover in future posts are: Finance; HR & Organizational Development; Community Development; and Infrastructure.)
Public Safety Dispatch
(This one wasn’t first on the list, but given the discussion at the board’s July 11th meeting, it’s the one that readers may be most interested in.)
The goal states:
Develop plan for Regional Fire and Police Dispatch including cost benefit, town forums and surveys. Educate residents about cost-benefit and optimum efficiency of all options
Last Tuesday, Police Chief Newell and Fire Chief Achilles explained a memo to the board about their short-term plans for moving forward. The chiefs are focusing on studying non-regional options.
The board was very supportive of the plan. But indications were that the majority thinks regionalization is a likely outcome — after better educating the public. And the chiefs didn’t disagree.
Chief Newell reminded that the Town’s pursuit of regionalization had been based on the departments making clear they needed help with their dispatch/Emergency Communications Center. The Select Board decided to investigate regionalizing rather than increasing their internal investment.
The regionalization effort wasn’t supported by Town Meeting. So, the chiefs will better vet what is really needed to fortify the current dispatch department. Once they have more details, they will present their recommendations to the Select Board and Advisory Committee and seek public support.
The board focused on the chiefs’ plan as providing a cost comparison of internal improvements vs regionalization.
Chief Achilles highlighted that if there isn’t support for internal investments needed, they will want to revisit the RECC model they previously worked on rather than starting from scratch.
Select Board member Kathy Cook said that she also wanted “all forms” of regionalization to be “on the table” as options, not just the specific model they investigated last time. Member Al Hamilton agreed — both in terms of cost and “performance standards” expected.
Hamilton noted that fully staffing the Town’s dispatch center alone would be the single biggest increase to the “municipal head count” in over 20 years. That appeared to be based on the staffing model that officials used last spring to explain what staying local would require. It called for doubling dispatch staff and adding a supervisor.
Member Sam Stivers suggested that the best way may not be to double the staff but figuring out how to better staff during hours with higher demand.
Chair Andrew Dennington also brought up the capital needs associated with dispatch. He said the technology gets outdated quickly. He noted that a consultant to help them identify grant opportunities said that funding for dispatch technology improvements is weighted towards supporting regional centers. Stivers countered he believed the technology issue is separate. He suggested that using online services/”clouds” could reduce some of the local tech costs.
As for the regionalization options — Dennington said that if the RECC gets built in Westborough with Grafton that once people are working there the public may see that it’s “not as scary as people made it out to be”. He also noted that whatever path they take will be with “somewhat imperfect” data and projections.
Member Marguerite Landry said the path forward wasn’t clear, but she wanted to work on educating the community before they vote again.
Cook later clarified that regionalizing is up to the Select Board and wouldn’t need a Town Meeting vote (the petition Articles were only advisory.) But she agreed it would require convincing the town, including through public hearings and working with the dispatchers. As part of that, they need specific plans for going dark at the station.
Committee Simplification, IT, Communication, and Project Tracking
There were four additional goals under the Administration/Operations category.
Committee Simplification and Streamlining
The goal to “eliminate overlap and moot committees” doesn’t provide any examples or context.
On the 11th, the board did discuss plans to abolish the controversial Public Works Planning Board — at least as it is currently defined. But that was a specific goal under the category HR & Org Development. So stay tuned for more on that in a later post.
Information Technology Updates
This goal covers:
IT updates, leveraging the expertise of the MTC (Municipal Technology Committee). Website update completion, Cloud operation transition, Enhance cyber security, and Additional senior IT hire
On the Website update, I previously wrote about the initial budget not having covered migrating over all of the board/committee minutes and agendas from the old website. Last month, the board approved using $27K of ARPA funds to cover migrating the remaining documents.
That was slated to begin mid-July and is not yet complete. (For example, the Select Board’s materials only go back to 2022. And the MTC’s materials don’t even include their April agenda.)
Enhance public communication
This goal includes use of “newsletters, approved social media etc.” On the 11th, Dennington said the the newsletter idea came out of employee surveys.
A quarterly newsletter had been on the board’s FY21 goal list at the recommendation of then-Chair Marty Healey. At that time, they discussed including it with tax bills. (I can’t say if there was a public discussion on why it didn’t happen, since there aren’t any minutes posted from that year!)
Find a better way to track ongoing projects
The goal is for all Select Board members to be able to “access info timely without making separate calls”. (“Agile” was listed as a method example.)
Additional tasks
The following were listed as tasks under the category rather than goals:
Compliance — HIPAA compliance review/updates (federal requirements for handling of confidential medical/health information), ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliance
On the ADA item — In 2021, the Town completed its “Self-Evaluation” of ADA Compliance issues and a Transition Plan to address them. It is ongoing work with a list too long and expensive to complete in one year. So far, the board has committed $70K in ARPA funds for some of the work. $50K was for fixes to Town buildings by the Facilities staff and $20K for improvements at Recreational fields.
Deal with Oak Hill truck issue
In 2021 residents on the road asked the board to help improve safety on the road after a string of bad accidents. They also asked for something to be done about the nuisance of loud “Jake Braking” on their street by large trucks.
When the Town conducted a wider study of town-wide traffic issues with trucks, consultants from VHB came back last summer with a list of options to consider, including seeking a Heavy Commercial Vehicle Exclusion on Oak Hill Road. Last fall, the Town followed through on voting to pursue an HCVE on Flagg Road (the original request that prompted the board to pursue the traffic study).
The board assured residents that they would continue to look at the other roads on the list. A couple of weeks later, DPW Director Karen Galligan gave her notice. The new DPW Director doesn’t start work until July 24th.
On the 11th, Cook said she put Oak Hill Road on the task list. She referred to 51 trucks flying up and down the hill and the complication of traffic directed onto the road from Ashland as an alternate route for trucks excluded from another road.
The board discussed the need to keep the issue on their radar with someone giving an occasional nudge. They referred to the town-wide study but not to adding any other specific roads to the “task” list. Cook said she would reengage with VHB on what they can do.
Updated (7/19/23 10:35 am): I meant to link the full list of goals here.
