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Selectmen's Update - April 15, 2024

Selectmen’s Update April 15, 2024

The Board debriefed the recent winter snow/ice storm with the Fire Chief, Assistant Fire Chief and  Road Agent during the work session last night. We deeply appreciate their efforts and would like to emphasize the workload such lengthy storms place on our small crews!

While we strive to address incidents as soon as possible, there are several situations where we rely upon outside organizations (NHEC, Eversource, Consolidated) to arrive on scene. The Board will be conducting outreach to those organizations to emphasize concerns raised throughout the storm – namely limited communication with residents and lack of access to critical services such as landline phone service.

Scenic road designation on nearly all our town roads restricts the town’s/utilities’ ability to proactively address problematic trees. This presents a challenge as our utilities and the town seek to address routine tree trimming and right of way maintenance. The NH Dept. of Safety is currently assessing damage statewide to determine if it will meet declaration standards as a major storm; doing so would enable the town to receive FEMA funds for eligible work/activities due to the storm.

We ask residents to please refrain from contacting our department members directly during storms and instead ask you to use our on-call or department numbers available on our website. Emergencies should always be reported by dialing 911.

In the regular meeting, the Tax Collector provided an update on outstanding property taxes due for tax liens and/or deeding. A tax lien is placed on any property with an overdue tax balance for more than 6 months. After a lien has been outstanding for more than 2 years, a municipality may begin the deeding process. Related information can be found here. We are fortunate to have only approx. 1% of property taxes outstanding.

The Board reviewed and approved a home occupation questionnaire for a plumbing and heating business; home occupations as defined by the Zoning Ordinance are required to submit a home occupation questionnaires. As detailed in the Ordinance, certain home occupations/home-based businesses may require Site Plan Review and/or a special exception from the Zoning Board of Adjustment.  See section 150-7 of the Zoning Ordinance or reach out to the Selectmen’s Office for more information.

The Board reviewed and approved several items:

  • Accounts Payable and payroll manifests.
  • A technology agreement for the new Town Hall copier machine.
  • A Municipal work zone agreement for upcoming state road paving work (a portion of Rt. 25 and Wentworth Hill Road are slated for paving this year).
  • Timber tax warrants – as a reminder, a report of cut for all timber cuts April 1, 2023 – March 31, 2024 are due by May 15, 2024.
  • An updated purchase and sales agreement for the 2024 John Deere Excavator, as approved at town meeting.
  • Transition to VOIP for the Town Offices’ phone systems. The town hall phone system is antiquated with limited functionality as well as noticeably diminished call quality over the last year. We anticipate no disruption to our phone system during this time. After the transition, the town will save approximately $1500 annually. The Alfred Quimby Fund has generously offset transition costs. 

In other business, the Board discussed several topics:

  • The Board will move forward in convening a Police Chief Selection Advisory Committee for assistance in the Police Chief transition with a kickoff discussion in their work session next week. Chief Varney will retire from full-time service on May 30th.  Chief Varney has been a member of our Police Department since 2009!
  • The Board received correspondence from the Domestic Names Committee of the US Board of Geographic Names requesting local government recommendation for renaming Eastman Cove (formerly Sq__ Cove). The proposed new name is Senskwa Cove. Due to the lack of advance notice, the Board will discuss the request in their next meeting.
  • The NH Electric Coop (NHEC) has sent a notice regarding an upcoming herbicide application for portions of Sandwich (mostly North and East Sandwich). Related materials can be found at the Town Hall or on the NHEC website. Property owners may also opt-out of NHEC’s herbicide application here.
  • The Town’s fireworks vendor is fully booked for July 3rd and cannot accommodate Sandwich’s display! The Board is exploring alternative dates/events.
  • The Board will move to bi-weekly meetings only as of their May 6th meeting (no April 29th meeting).

As always, we strive to keep our website up to date with agendas and meeting schedules. We are excited to announce our new website should be live this week (Thursday/Friday hopefully)! A follow-up notice will be provided once the website is officially live. We anticipate minor updates needed after its implementation and encourage users to reach out to us with any issues or questions.

The Board will reconvene for a work session and regular meeting next week.

Board of Selectmen