After revealing that the towns of Rochester and Mattapoisett might already be working on a resolution, Rochester’s Select Board acted on Monday to table discussion of the Rochester Planning Board’s recent letter requesting the town take further action against the 241-acre regional Conservation Restriction plan that gives Rochester no rights to the water at Red Brick Farm East within that CR.
As Select Board Chairman Paul Ciaburri motioned to table the issue, he noted the aspect of the new Tri-Town-area Conservation Restriction that the Planning panel references “is still in discussion … We’re having discussions,” he said.
Ciaburri would not elaborate, but Select Board member Adam Murphy said a joint meeting between the select boards of Rochester and Mattapoisett should be set for a date not too far in the future. Town Administrator Glenn Cannon agreed to work on scheduling that joint get-together.
The regional Conservation Restriction agreement that the Rochester Conservation Commission recently signed gives Mattapoisett the water rights to the Rochester parcel, including possibly digging up to four new wells, under a co-ownership agreement with the Mattapoisett Water and Sewer Authority. But it makes no guarantee that Rochester would have any rights to the groundwater there, which sparked the town’s Conservation Commission to prod the authority to agree in writing that it would “make every effort” to transfer the conservation land in Rochester to the town.
Town Counsel recently told the Conservation Commission that this promise of making “every effort” is not a legally enforceable one. Both the Conservation Commission and the Planning Board have written correspondence to the Select Board to ask the members to intercede.
In other action, the Select Board appointed a new full-time police officer on the recommendation of Police Chief Robert Small. He’s Andrew Bumpus, a Carver resident and current campus police officer at a Massachusetts police academy. Bumpus was immediately sworn in by Town Clerk Marjorie Barrows after the board met him and his family.
Next, the Select Board met with the Personnel Board and the town’s Labor Counsel, Jan Friedman, and revealed the progress on developing a new Personnel bylaw for town employees. The biggest reveal from the discussion was that the new Personnel panel is considering creating a policy manual that will place certain rules and requirements there instead of into what would otherwise be a larger bylaw. Both the Select Board and Labor Counsel agreed this separation should happen.
Personnel Board Chairperson Kristine Nash said, “It would make the bylaw a hundred pages” to keep the rules and requirements that might be a better fit in an employee policy manual. “But our stand on bylaw versus policy manual has not been voted on,” she said. “We’ve held off our vote.”
Friedman said Rochester’s current Personnel bylaws are unusual. For instance, she said, the Personnel Board is the hiring authority, but the town’s Select Board should be the hiring authority. Personnel would be the board to set policy, compensation rates and hear grievances. All parties in the discussion agreed these changes should happen.
Nash said the Personnel Board is working on a draft bylaw to include more specific job descriptions and pay classifications. Friedman suggested a consultant be hired to create the policy manual and that Cannon should work on cost estimates to hire one.
Nash said the Personnel Board will be working first on the compensation plan for the 17 employees under the new Personnel bylaw and requested counsel review the draft bylaw when it is ready.
The Rochester Select Board set its next meeting for Monday, November 20, at 6:00 pm at Town Hall, 1 Constitution Way.
Rochester Select Board
By Michael J. DeCicco