Town Manager’s Update
May 4, 2012

Greetings,

In the Public Works Department the Highway Crew has begun summer work including road patching, ditching, culvert replacement and grading. The crew changed to summer work hours 6:00am-2:30pm this week. They are hiring a crusher for a few days to process the material collected over the last several years which will replace the stockpile consumed by Hurricane Irene repairs. The Solid Waste Department reopened the brush dump on May 1 and it will be opened until Thanksgiving, weather permitting. The next household hazardous waste and unwanted medicine collection will be at the Lebanon Landfill Saturday, July 21, 2012 check out www.uvhhw.org or pick up a flyer at Whitney Hall or the Transfer Station for more information. The Water and Sewer Department is flushing hydrants during the month of May around Enfield Village. If you experience a loss of pressure it should return to normal within a couple of hours. The Ground Crew planted a tree at the Shaker Rec. Park to celebrate Arbor Day and installed some plantings at the Public Works Facility. They have started mowing lawns and cleaning up cemeteries this week.

We want to remind motorists to drive with respect and care. As warmer weather arrives we will see an increase in pedestrian, bicycle and horse traffic on our highways. Specific laws require motorist slow down and provide adequate room before passing.

We had our pre-construction meeting this week for the Route 4 Water/Sewer Extension. We went over a number of key details that will impact our lives as this project progresses. The contractor, R.D. Edmunds, will begin May 29th and they will work from 7am to 6pm Monday through Friday. There is no plan for any Saturday work. The work area will be paved at the end of each day. Route 4 traffic will be impacted, and there is a detour that has been established. (I have included a map for the Rt. 4 detour) Each morning traffic flowing towards Lebanon will have priority until 1pm, and then traffic flowing towards Canaan will have the preference. Truck and bus traffic will always be allowed on Route 4 and will not use the detour. Regular vehicular traffic will flow both ways throughout the day, however, those going against the designated direction (West in the morning and East in the evening) will have to wait a bit longer. There will be flaggers on-site for the duration of the day, and the normal impact area or construction site will be in the 500’ to 600’ range. R.D. Edmunds is the same firm that did the work in downtown Lebanon last year; it was an active construction zone that moved traffic through there in a reasonable fashion.

The Shaker Bridge project will also create a few traffic flow hiccups when that project picks up later this month. Route 4A will be re-paved this year, and the section from the bridge to Lower Shaker Village will receive an enhanced construction. The new road way will incorporate all the drainage work that was done last year. Traffic will not be detoured off Rt. 4A, but there will be delays.

Have a great week – Thanks

Steve Schneider

April 27, 2012
Town Manager’s Update

Greetings,
It was a busy week in Town with much to report on, first though Police Chief Crate offers the following:

• On April 28 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. the Enfield Police Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) will give the public another opportunity to prevent pill abuse and theft by ridding their homes of potentially dangerous expired, unused, and unwanted prescription drugs. Bring your medications for disposal to the Enfield Transfer Station on Lockehaven Road. The service is free and anonymous, no questions asked.

Also on the Police front, this week we interviewed several qualified candidates for our Patrol Officer vacancy. We plan to make an offer and introduce the new officer at our next Selectboard meeting on May 7th.

Keeping on the emergency services tack, FAST Squad Chief Richard Martin and Asst. Chief Sam Provenza and I met with a representative from Comstar to discuss ambulance billing. We have been directed by the Selectboard to develop an ambulance billing process for our FAST Squad. Comstar will handle the billing side of the process. The Town is seeking to obtain those available funds from insurances and Medicare/Medicaid. We will not be seeking payments directly from individuals. The goal is to have our billing process begin June 1st. As changes are made with the billing, updates will follow.

The Recreation Committee met this week and is preparing for our Summer Season. We will be offering a camp in July and two sessions of swimming lesson. The camp is for children entering Kindergarten up to entering fifth grade. There are no age requirements for our swimming lessons. As a reminder the Recreation Commission sponsors our Farmers’ Market. The next market is at the Community Building on May 12th from 10am to 1pm. The outdoor market season will start in June, with the weekly market starting after the July 4th holiday.

Finally, we have made progress with our Rt. 4 Water/Sewer extension. We have signed the contracts and issued the notice to proceed to the contractor, RD Edmunds. We will have a pre-construction meeting next Tuesday, May 1st. We will discuss start date (right now scheduled for May 29th), daily start time, daily finish time, staging areas, signage, detour route, and probably a hundred other details that are equally important at this meeting. This project is going to impact our community for many years to come, and we have to keep that fact in mind as we deal with the daily impacts of the construction. The Town is going to work closely with the effected property and business owners to make sure that the impacts of living or having a business in the middle of a construction site are minimized. It may take a little longer to get to our favorite business on Route 4, but we all know it will be worth the wait.

Have a great week. Thanks

Town Manager’s Update
April 13, 2012

Greetings,

I have included a picture of our new emergency generator that is attached to Whitney Hall. The generator was delivered this week and installed by Defiance Electric. By the way our own Will Shoemaker and Norm Ruel built the pad for the generator. Those are the same two gentlemen that were instrumental in the construction of our Huse Park Ice Rink. A big thank you goes out to both Defiance and our guys for getting this project done.

Whitney Hall has an emergency generator because our communication systems are located here, and we need them to be powered when we have a Town-wide event like a tropical storm or ice storm.



I was able to attend a conference, called Disruptivate, this week with businesses that are focused on innovation and new technologies. I was able to promote that the Town of Enfield is one of two communities in New Hampshire that will have a very dynamic fiber optic cable network; FastRoads. FastRoads will connect Enfield with several of our upper valley neighbors like Hanover and Lebanon as well as communities like Claremont and Keene.

Route 4 Water/Sewer extension – I met with our banking partner this week and went over the financing, and everything is fine and on track. We met with NHDOT last Friday to discuss a traffic issue. At the McConnell Rd./Lovejoy Brook Rd. intersection with Rt. 4, the new water/sewer lines will be deep, close to 25 feet down, and so we needed to come up with a solution on how to manage the traffic while they are so deep. I believe we have reached a solution and should be able to share that with everyone soon.

The Town signed a new agreement with the City of Lebanon for Ambulance services. I have included a copy of this agreement with this report. There are no major changes with this agreement; the only change is the amount we are charged each time the City is called to Enfield.

Town Manager’s Update April 6, 2012

Greetings,
I have asked Jim Taylor, our DPW Director and Police Chief Richard Crate to give a brief update on some of their departmental activities

Chief Crate offers the following:
On Monday April 9, our department will join law enforcement from around the state in Operation Safe Commute. Police will be out in force on our highways during the morning and evening commutes. The focus of these patrols will be on distracted and aggressive driving. Our patrols will continue throughout the year.

Jim Taylor offers the following:

1) Highway is grading and raking gravel roads
2) Water bills going out first of the week
3) Grounds crew beginning on spring cleanup first of the week
4) Water crew flushing hydrants in April
5) Highway truck bid package almost complete

The Route 4 Water & Sewer extension project is moving along nicely. We are firming up the details so that we can start the project. Details like, finalizing the pump station easement, coordinating with the contractor, RD Edmunds, to review start-up scheduling, meeting with NH DOT to review Rt. 4 impact, meeting with our financer to figure out when and how we will receive the funds. The Town will be working with the Enfield Village Association to develop an informational plan for our Rt. 4 businesses and their customers. We want to let everyone know that each and every business will be accessible for the duration of the project, although there may be times when it will take a bit longer to get there than usual. I would encourage everyone to check our website often for information concerning this project. We will be constantly updating traffic information and progress of the project.

Do not eat too many jelly-beans and have a great week.

Thanks

Town Manager’s Update
March 23, 2012

Greetings,

As we enter Spring officially I want to pass along a couple bits of information that may be of assistance. First – how do we deal with the mud. In a normal spring thaw we, as an organization, are able to address our trouble spots in an efficient fashion. We know which roads thaw first and can spend the necessary time to make them passable. As we know, this is not a normal spring, and it seems like all of our roads are thawing at once. Because of this we may miss a spot or two, and may need to rely on our residents to point out those areas that need extra attention. You may contact my office at 632-5026, or the Public Works office at 632-4605. If there is an emergency, please contact the Hanover Dispatch center at 643-2222. Thank you in advance for your patience with our progress in making the roads usable.

Second – what can we do with our yards debris. For those of us that remember, we did at one time have a stump dump out on the Bog Road that accepted most of the yard waste that appeared over the winter season. That stump dump is closed, but we still accept most yard waste (leaves, brush, tree limbs up to 12” in diameter) at our DPW facility on Lockehaven Rd. We do ask that if you have a large load that you contact the DPW to arrange for the drop-off. (Limbs greater than 12” in diameter and stumps can be taken to Hammond's on Route 4 in Canaan.) One of the by-products of this operation is that we have several large piles of brush and mulch that are available free of charge for our residents. I know several of our residents take advantage of this resource to help start their spring plantings. If your winter debris pile is too large to transport, you may burn the brush, but only with a permit. Those permits may be obtained through our Fire Wardens. Permits can be obtained from David Crate 632-7004 (between the hours of 6:00 pm & 7:00 pm), Richard Chase 632-9376, Rick Bean 632-4936, Tim Taylor 632-5452, Richard Crate 632-7530, Donald J. Crate, Sr. 632-5851, Jeff Densmore 632-4182 and Robert Pollard 632-7058.

Finally I would like to say thank you for all those that participated in this year’s Town Meeting – we had close to 1,000 voters turn out for the Tuesday session and close to 150 for our Saturday session. My next update will focus on the next steps of how we implement the changes that were approved at Town Meeting. We are lucky to live in a place that affords such direct involvement in how our local government is operated.

Thanks

March 9, 2010

Folks,
I would like to take this opportunity to give everyone a brief update on what is happening within the Town of Enfield organization and community.

Our big focus is Town Meeting. At our last Selectboard meeting it was suggested that Town Meeting is a lot like a play, and to some extent that is true, the meeting is structured, with the individual warrant articles serving as the acts, and we do provide many of the people sitting upfront with a ‘script’. The prospect of having to speak in front of a large group has taught us that the more support we can provide, in this case identifying who will be making motions, etc., the smoother the meeting will run.

This year’s Town Meeting will feature much discussion about how we prepare for our future. The first article is the TIF article. TIF stands for ‘tax increment finance’, and the article is seeking approval of a water/sewer extension. The TIF district was created in 2005 and this project was the first one identified. The extension will be approximately one mile and will cost $3.2 million. We have secured a bid and identified a lender that meets our financing capacity. TIF funds will pay back the loan over a 30 year period, with no impact on our tax rate. The TIF committee has spent well over a year working on the construction plans as well as preparing for what happens after the lines are extended and development begin. More on that at next year’s Town Meeting.

The second article will deal with how we fund our capital projects and equipment. The CIP, Capital Improvement Program, committee has developed a program that identifies not only the capital needs for our community for the next 15 years, but also a way in which we can fund those needs without creating spikes in our tax rate. Lee Carrier, former Budget Committee chair, leads these efforts and will make a presentation at Town Meeting. There are several articles associated with the CIP, including the creation of a general CIP Capital Reserve Fund, as well as capital lease articles for Police cruisers and Public Works trucks.

The budget for FY 2012 will be presented by Doug Pettibone, the Budget Committee chair. Overall, the budget will increase approximately 1.6% or 10 cents, resulting in a tax impact for the average Enfield homeowner of $20. Mr. Pettibone’s presentation is the culmination of close to six months of work by the Budget Committee, Selectboard, and Town employees. We all recognize that we need to do our best to ensure that we do not place too much of a burden on our residents.

Hopefully everyone will take the time to review the Town Report that has been mailed. The year’s edition is one of our best, starting right off with the cover. In 2011, we secured a NH Moose Plate grant to restore the Whitney Hall Grand Drape, and the results may be seen on this year’s cover. The drape will be displayed from time to time, especially during voting at Whitney Hall, perhaps another incentive to come vote.

I do plan to make these updates a regular feature on our website, so please let me know if there is anything you would like to know about how we operate or why we do the things we do.
Thanks