Manager’s Report – October 23, 2018:

Fire Department

The Fire Chief (Jason) noted that over the past month we have been very busy with a variety of calls that seem to be happening mostly nights and weekends. He reports that they are 44 calls ahead of the same point last year.

He was busy during fire prevention week visiting schools.

As it is the season the Volunteer Fire Fighters will be doing a chimney fire training class to prepare for the winter heating season. Good news! I no longer have a wood stove inmy house so I won’t be calling the fire department this year.

The ladder truck is being moved again to a winter location and will be shrink wrapped to protect it.

Police Department

The Police Department has been fairly busy with more than 100 calls a week as well as a number of agencies assists. The two departments (Camden and Rockport) seem to be working very well together the cooperation is almost seamless.

They have completed another listing of street light’s that are out. There are 7 lights still out that have been previously reported and 11 that are newly reported.

Assessing

Our Assessor (Kerry) noted that the insert in the tax bills seemed to be very effective. He (we) had very few calls considering the size of the mil rate increase. While not a sign that everyone is happy about the increase, at least they understood the reason for the increase.

He attended the annual Vision Conference and is working with the Assessor’s organizationand the town office staff on a “Thanks for Giving” program to collect food during the election to donate to the local food pantries during the election.

Kerry has started the assessors’ training that is being hosted by Rockport. This week’s session was a legislative update done by Kate Dufour. It was well attended from assessors as far away as Biddeford and Farmington.

Town Clerk/Tax Collector

The Town Clerk (Linda) reports that rapid renewal has gone live, after a few glitches with Trio. It seems to be working well and, on the day, we were closed to attend the MMA

Conference, residents that showed up to register their cars seemed really pleased to be able to do it online.

The printer was late in getting our absentee ballots to us and requesta are coming in fast. It seems that more and more people are using the absentee ballot as a way to early vote. Linda has been very busy with taxes coming in.

Planning

We have submitted a grant to the ConnectMe authority to help with business planning and marketing plan to develop a broadband utility district.

Harbor

The Harbormaster (Abbie) has been working with members of the Harbor Committee on the polystyrene proposed ban.

The extension of the pump-out system has been completed.

The repaired fisherman’s ramp has been completed and is waiting to be installed byRockport Steel. The access to the dock that goes down to the Schooner Heron has been improved and made safer.

The Holiday on the Harbor Committee has begun meeting and planning for this year’ sevent, which happens on December 8. It is a great event that people should really try and attend.

The docks will be coming out on October 29. Many boats are still in the water so we are trying to leave them in as long as possible.

Public Works

The Public Works Director (Mike) reports that the crew has been doing a lot of ditching out at Clam Cove drive. This has been a problem for many years.

They are starting to get the ball fields put away for the year and are working with the school to get them over seeded and prepped for the winter.

They repaired the handrails at the library. The back door still needs work. The cemetery road has been repaired and trees cut.

Paving has begun and will be completed next week.

The Oshkosh is done and was on display at the MMA Conference in Augusta. It is going back to the factory though to have the frame sandblasted and repainted and undercoated as Mike and Jimmy found that it was not done to their satisfaction. It will be back in service soon.

The new cemetery road at Seaview Cemetery is nearly complete, we had to stop because of all the rain it was too muddy.

Devin Field and Mike Gagne finished their day long chain saw training class at the highway department. There were 35 people who attended from all over Knox County.

The mini-high sidewalk will be started on November 12 and will take about a week to complete.

Library

The Library Director (Ben) reports that he attended a “tabling” session at an event at the school where he was at the school with the boards and information about the new library and comments seemed to be very positive.

The Library staff is working with the High School again to keep the school library open after school and get kids to use the Rockport Public Library. We do this in conjunction with the Camden Public Library and it has been very successful.

They are trying two new experimental programs “baby story time” and “therapy dog story time” (not for the dog)

They taught a virtual reality class at the high school and are teaching an iPhone class.

They are in the middle of their Halloween programming and had a Frog Town Puppet show at the Opera House that drew over 100 people.

Finally! Keith Drago will be running in his first Boston Marathon qualifying run. If you see him training around Town cheer him on.

Finance

The Finance Director (Megan) has spent a lot of time getting prepared for the audit, which is nearing completion. They have finished with the in-house part of their work and are closing out a few outstanding issues. It is expected that Ron will do a review of the audit results with the Select Board at the December 3rd meeting.

We have been working on the budget schedule and had to do some rearranging so that all board members would be available for the consensus votes. The plan is to get budgets out to department heads the first week of November so that department heads have plenty of time to work on them.

We have also been working on updating the CIP in preparation for tonight’s meeting.

Megan and Molli attended the GFOA Conference in Hartford and got a lot of good information and ideas to improve out of the conference.

Other

The generator bids came in about $20,000 higher than our $25,000 budget. Mike is working with the engineer and the low bidder to see if we can get it down enough that we can budget a small amount this year and get it completed. The bid spec called for a 50 KW generator which would be enough to run everything in the office. We would need to run all at the same time. The reality, in an emergency we will not likely be staffing the office with full staff for an extended period. We could cut back and use a generator that was smaller, and run a good portion of the office functions and meet our need and save a great deal of money.

Staff recently completed a stress awareness training presented by MMA. We have other MMA Health and wellness training scheduled for December.

Finally, unless there is a major objection, I will be closing the office on December 24th for the whole day for Christmas. Every so many years, the half day holiday falls on a Monday and it is foolish for us to open the office on Monday for 4 hours, close at noon and be closed on Tuesday the 25th. The half day is normally very quiet anyway and it will be even quieter on a Monday. We did this about 5 years ago and it was really appreciated by employees and did not seem to cause any problems for residents.

The Report it Fix it program is up and running and being used by residents and staff to report issues to the Town. So far it is being used in a positive manner and is very helpful.