The Select Board met Wednesday, July 26 at Abbot Hall. This meeting came on the heels of a more than three-hour convene two weeks earlier that consisted mostly of the volunteer appointment discussion. Two resolutions of that discussion on July 12 were the decision to elicit feedback from current volunteers and the development of policies and procedures for the board to follow. Board members recapped their progress on both those objectives last Wednesday, but not before approving the funding for three projects.
The board heard the details of the three projects from Town Administrator Thatcher Kezer, and voted to use American Rescue Plan Act funds on them at the end.
The first project concerned the next phase of the rail-trail master plan. Town Planner Rebecca Curran Cutting last provided an update on this at a Select Board meeting on June 14. She was present at the meeting Wednesday, and assisted Kezer in presenting the latest details.
Marblehead has worked in cooperation with Salem to improve the quality of their linked rail trail in “safety, aesthetic, and accessibility.” Curran Cutting told the board why the bridge on the rail trail is currently the most important priority of the project.
“The bridge is not accessible, it has a lip and the bollards are difficult and dangerous when you’re riding a bike,” Curran Cutting said. “Some strollers don’t get through. I’ve had to help people through with strollers.”
Kezer explained that this project was selected instead of others because others are expecting funding from various avenues. The rail trail falls under the “infrastructure” category of ARPA usage.
The second project was the upgrading of school and town financial software. Kezer explained why the update was necessary.
“The current software that we’re using, Softrite, is outdated and inadequate software,” Kezer said. “It is no longer supported by the company that owns it, so it is an obsolete software platform… We need to replace it.”
The program the town plans to replace it with is an enterprise resource planning and cloud-based system that consolidates all transactions into one place. Kezer listed off the categories the new software will have, including accounting, accounts payable, budgeting, cash management, project and grant accounting, purchasing, and employee payroll access.
Board member Moses Grader put a large emphasis on updating financial software during his pre-election campaign, and is looking forward to it being addressed soon.
The final project that fell under the ARPA umbrella was the “municipal fiber loop,” which would electronically connect all the important municipal operations in town.
“It would be a looped, upgraded, higher-capacity fiber,” Kezer said. “What we’ve done is we’ve mapped out all of our buildings, utility, infrastructure, pump stations, and other type facilities. And we’re asking them to design the loop to be able to basically go by all of those facilities to give us the capabilities to connect everything that we have into this municipal fiber loop.”
Kezer lamented that the one limitation of the loop is that the Marblehead Neck will not be included presently.
Board Chair Erin Noonan made the motion to approve ARPA funds for all three procedures, totaling $2,390,003. The board voted unanimously in favor. The remaining balance of the town’s ARPA funds is now $968,585.
The board then pivoted to policies and procedure discussion, and noted how it received 50 survey responses regarding the volunteer reappointment procedure. Member Alexa Singer expressed her gratitude for the feedback.
“I am super thankful for the responses that we’ve gotten so far,” Singer said. “There’s been ideas and thoughts and things that hadn’t even occurred to me yet.”
Noonan then reviewed the initial policy and procedures draft, and member Jim Nye pointed out a few instances where he thought the wording could be adjusted. The board hopes to vote on a final policies and procedures document, and to have gathered more volunteer feedback to review, at its next meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 16.