LONDONDERRY, Vt.— The April 19 Londonderry Selectboard meeting saw Andy Dahlstrom hired as short-term rental (STR) administrator, and the appointment of Martha Dale and Tom Cavanagh as the selectboard representatives to the STR Working Group.
The selectboard also discussed which projects to apply for funding through the Municipal Technical Assistance Program (MTAP) mini-grant, approved an amendment to the architectural services contract for the town office renovation project, awarded Boulder Excavating a contract to repair storm damage to Memorial Park, appointed a town representative for the Deerfield Valley and Southern Vermont Communications Union Districts, reappointed parks board members, and approved several liquor and tobacco licenses for a few local businesses.
Chair Tom Cavanagh said that after Londonderry had been approved to qualify for an MTAP mini-grant, he and town administrator Shane O’Keefe discussed a list of projects that might be eligible for funding from that grant with Gretchen Haverluck, a contractor working with the Windham Regional Planning Commission. O’Keefe said Londonderry is only able to participate in the program because of last summer’s flooding. Towns that normally qualify for the grant were given precedence in the application process, and as a result, the money in the grant pool was smaller than the town had expected. “The funding’s drying up,” said Cavanagh, “and we’ve got to have something big…that we’ll actually get funds for – that can compete with everyone else.”
O’Keefe had developed a list of flood-related projects, and of these, Haverluck suggested that the town submit a proposal for a scoping study for alternate access to Cobble Ridge Road and Stone Hollow. O’Keefe said that building a connection from Derry Woods Road could be a “much less expensive and sooner-to-occur” project than rebuilding the Cobble Ridge Road Bridge, and a scoping study could determine if this was feasible. The selectboard approved submitting the application for this project.
O’Keefe said that in the process of renovating the town hall, the architect had discovered two unexpected services necessary to completing the project: structural engineering for installing solar panels on the meeting hall roof, and fixing some structural deficiencies in the meeting hall floor. However, the town had also budgeted $5,000 for site permitting, which turned out to be unnecessary, so reallocating those funds meant that the additional funds needed “would really boil down to only $1,400,” which O’Keefe said was “not a big deal – in the grand scheme of things, it’s nothing.” The selectboard approved the additional $1,400. O’Keefe said he does not know how much of the initial budget has been spent so far, a figure selectboard member Melissa Brown suggested he bring with him to the next meeting.
The Londonderry Selectboard meets on the first and third Mondays of the month, at 6 p.m., at the town office (Twitchell Building).