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This meeting involved a number of topics, some of which were expected to be quick and weren’t and others that might have been contentious but went fast. The public portion of the meeting ending with a surprise recommendation from the Advisory Board, just prior to the Selectmen going into Executive Session.

Skipping to the end of the meeting first, Ken Burstall, Chairman of the Advisory Board, came into the room just as the Selectmen were preparing to go into Executive Session to discuss a legal matter, and announced that the Advisory Board was unanimously recommending that the town not purchase the two properties on South Street that were no longer required to be purchased to redo the South Street intersection. He stated (paraphrased) that he knew it might not be something the Selectmen would want to hear, but the Advisory Board felt it wasn’t in the spirit of the austerity of the times to make this purchase at this time.

According to Keith Harding, who made the motion at the Advisory Board meeting to reconsider the purchase, the reasoning behind this recommendation was primarily procedural. When the article was presented to the people at Town Meeting, the purchase of this land was presented as being required in order to get state funding to move ahead with the intersection reconstruction. Recently, the Public Works Commission informed the Selectmen that this land is no longer required to move forward with the construction. The Advisory Board feels that the town should go back to the people, explain what happened and ask if they want to vote to proceed with the purchase, knowing that it is no longer required for the reconstruction of the intersection. The people may well decide to proceed with the purchase, but it seems they should be voting with their eyes wide open as to the reason for the purchase.

Three things to consider regarding this purchase are:

1.       What obligations should we have to the landowners who have made plans to sell their property to the town based upon the vote of the people at the last annual Town Meeting?

2.       What will be the related demolition, cleanup, or other costs related to acquiring these properties, including any possible environmental issues?

3.       Given the tough budget climate, would the people rather allocate those funds to something else or not spend it at all?

Now back to the beginning of the Selectmen’s meeting.

First on the agenda was the budget for the Assessors Office. A fair amount of time was spent on this, but the end result was that the Assessors Office was asked to review their budget to make the 2% cuts asked for by Selectmen, mainly by eliminating stipends and cutting the budget for in-state travel by $200 annually (which is markedly in contrast to the cost of purchasing the South Street property mentioned above).

Next there was a brief discussion about the excise tax on farmers in Westminster and their equipment, like tractors and such, which ended up with the Assessors Office checking into getting comparable rates from other towns. Apparently this excise tax on farmers in Westminster has been rather sporadically enforced, and Westminster is looking to formalize the process, although I’m not sure comparables are relevant. By state law farm equipment and farm animals are subject to an excise tax of $5 per $1000 of value, but the town can elect to not charge farmers excise tax if the town government wants to not do so, and if 2/3 of the voters approve this change.

There then followed some general discussion of what would happen with taxes for the upcoming fiscal year. The Advisory Board seems to want to hold down town tax increases as much as possible, and suggested “drawing a line in the sand” at about $.07 per $1000, which is extremely low in percentage terms—a fraction of a percent. John Fairbanks suggested maybe make it a little higher so to not tie their hands if something unexpected happened (like a cut in local aid), and suggested $.10 per $1000, again very low. The line in the sand ended up being somewhat smudged, but overall everyone seems on board with trying to hold down spending and taxes, at least as a general concept.

One part that got some laughs is that we received our final “ice storm” reimbursement check from the federal government. It was for $391,XXX.01. I don’t remember the exact amount but do remember they had it so precise that we got that extra penny. The joke was the government might have the penny correct, but is probably off on the $400,000.

Next up came the long part of the meeting, which fortunately was also interesting. It involved the cell tower that Wachusett Mountain Associates would like to locate in parking lot number 3 at the ski area. Donna Brownell of WEST (Watchdogs for an Environmentally Safe Town) and Dave Rooney, described by Donna Brownell as a telecommunications expert (he did seem to be very knowledgeable), came to make the case to the Board of Selectmen that this was not the ideal place for Westminster to build a cell tower, and that what we needed was a ‘telecommunications infrastructure plan’ so that we don’t end up with more cell towers than necessary while covering the most amount of the town. Joe Macchia was also in attendance, making the case that he uses AT&T cellular service and doesn’t have service where he lives on East Road, and would sure like to get it soon. His opinion, which he forcefully stated, was that this presentation was one big delaying tactic by the people who “oppose everything.”

Overall, Dave Rooney was quite well spoken and did a good job convincing the Selectmen to at least consider developing a telecommunications plan for the town, which of course makes sense, regardless of whether the tower goes in at parking lot 3 or not. He also raised some other objections which appeared to be valid. John Fairbanks had about twenty questions for him, and Dave generally knew the answers immediately. The questions and answers follow, paraphrased, but one thing to keep in mind is that the authority to deny or approve this particular cell tower rests with the Zoning Board of Appeals, not the Selectmen, and all the Selectmen can do is ask the ZBA to consider their concerns.

Prior to the questions, Dave Rooney discussed his view of the cell tower. Objections he cited to putting the proposed cell tower in parking lot 3 were:

• It is only 150 ft. high and a monopole—that’s low and skinny, and therefore is ‘uncompetitive’. There is only room on this tower for 3 service providers meaning if a fourth provider comes to town, they’ll need another cell tower to cover the same area.
• If we put the cell tower where it is proposed, it won’t provide the maximum benefit to the community because it’s uncompetitive—this differs from the previous point because we cannot go any higher at the lot 3 location, because of, among other things, the “viewshed”, which means the view from the mountain and of the mountain.
• Safety is a big concern, particularly since it’s located in an area that gets a lot of snow and wind. That’s a reason why the proposed airport wasn’t located in the area some years back, according to Dave. The weather conditions are too severe. Note that the safety concerns aren’t so much that the tower will blow over—rather, the concerns he noted were that ice chunks and snow could blow off the top into the parking lot below (I’m not sure how far away the tower is from the lot).
• There is a better site, in his opinion, to locate a cell tower—that’s on the Rambler property in Hager Park. Another possible site is on Wachusett Lake in Fitchburg. These sites might be more difficult, but there are fewer safety issues and they are more competitive.

Here are some of the questions asked by John Fairbanks and answered by Dave Rooney. These are just the major points:

• How many service providers are there? Answer: about 8-10. Verizon and AT&T are tier 1 providers, and companies like Sprint, T-Mobile, Nextel, and Clearwire are tier 2.
• Why is it bad to provide skiers with cell service? Answer: It’s not, but needs to be “community centric”, meaning not just to benefit people on the mountain (my note: regardless of whether or not there is a better location, it seems this cell tower would benefit people along Wyman Pond and route 140).
• Could a cell tower on Hager Park property be higher? Answer: could be. The Massachusetts Historical Commission stepped in on this proposed one, which is why it has to be tall and skinny.
• Is this NIMBY driven, since you live on Bolton Road? Answer: No, I’m a big advocate of the town doing it correctly.
• Are these other sites are fully explored?—who’s supposed to do it—tell AT&T to check out the other sites? Answer: it has to come from the ZBA rejecting the application and telling them to look at other sites. We have to say, “not here but look at alternates”.
• My note: I’m not clear who mentioned this, but it was noted that this (cell towers) is big business and big politics, and we need to worry about being sued if we don’t have a superior site. It was also noted that there is about $2billion in stimulus money out there for this type of infrastructure, so this most likely won't be the last request to build a cell tower.
• Will the alternate areas care if the tower is situated there? Let’s face it—we’re here because the neighbors near the Mountain don’t want it. Answer: it doesn’t seem like it. They’ve approached both Fitchburg and people around the Hager Park area, and people do not seem to mind.
• At this point Joe Macchia spoke up, making the points that it’s just going in a parking lot, route 140 has no service, the police and fire departments have problems with the lack of service, but some groups keep coming in and fighting everything. At this point the engineering is all done, the ZBA has done a good job, so let’s let this one new thing get done. This is all just a delaying tactic, and they’ll just fight the next tower too, wherever it’s located.
• Dave Rooney responded by saying that “everything relating to science from this guy is 100% inaccurate" (some science was probably discussed by Joe, but I do not have it in my notes).
• Should AT&T consider putting it at the summit instead? Answer from Donna Brownell—not possible. Homeland Security will not allow any more towers on the summit.
• If we put it in Hager Park, will the Massachusetts Historical Commission still object? It seems it will still be in the view (or "viewshed") if further away but higher? Answer from Donna Brownell: probably not as the Hager Park site is not DCR land, which is maybe why the MHC is involved.

This ended the Q&A session, and it seemed the Selectmen were impressed by the presentation. John Fairbanks then asked Karen Murphy a few questions—Karen had spoken to Town Counsel, and confirmed that this is really the ZBA’s decision, but the Selectmen can suggest that we need a telecommunications infrastructure plan or that we consider alternate sites. As an FYI, she also noted that when a cell tower was denied on Davis Road, the Hager Park property was considered, but not accepted, because some sort of site work was required, but she didn’t remember exactly what it was.

Karen also brought up that there is a timing issue—the ZBA can’t wait until a infrastructure plan is done.

In summary, there was wide agreement that the town does need an infrastructure plan for telecommunications—if we continually just respond to requests as they appear, we’ll end up with many more cell towers than are necessary. Doing a infrastructure plan will be somewhat expensive, as it requires engineering studies to determine the best placement for these towers--Westminster is very hilly, so it's not especially easy to determine the best sites to cover the town with good service.

However, the fact we need an infrastructure plan doesn’t necessarily impact the feasibility or approval process of the proposed parking lot 3 cell tower, as apparently the ZBA is very close to approval, and much time and effort has already been spent, and the development of an infrastructure plan takes at least six months, and we haven’t even started yet. So, basically this appears to be an issue that needs worked out by all concerned, with valid arguments on both sides. Selectman Nick Hay, at the end, did state that the Board of Selectmen will send a letter to the Zoning Board of Appeals.

Next up on the agenda was more on the Memorial Committee, which the Selectmen are still trying to nail down. This episode involved the Forbush Memorial Library trustees, who claim that by state law they have the right to memorialize within the library. This turned out to be correct, so this part of the meeting was very short. John Fairbanks asked them to consider adopting the same policy as the rest of the town, which is to involve the Memorial Committee, and that seemed fine with all concerned.

Selectman Laila Michaud brought up that there is overlap between the Planning Board’s and the Selectmen’s meeting, both falling on Monday night, and she sometimes would like to attend both. John pointed out that historically the Selectmen didn’t always meet on Monday evening, and he had no objection to meeting a different evening. It was decided to just ask the Planning Board if there was any particular reason they had to meet Monday evening, and if not, would they change their meeting dates. If not, the Selectmen would change theirs, as meeting on Mondays isn’t important.

Then, after hearing from Ken Burstall, the Selectmen went into Executive Session.