Monthly Archives: January 2016

The Selectmen Association meeting is all about public building. Lexington had is Public Building Facilities Department lead the process, and is Building Committee is advisory. Medfield has no such facilities department, and has only just hired a facilities manager, so our Building Committee had to actually lead more of our projects. We are fortunate to have talented and experienced individuals on our Building Committee, but working them as hard as we do may not be the best model for the future.

It is really a policy question for the town whether we continue to run so much of the town on the backs of volunteer residents, or whether we need to hire more staff. Especially on expensive building projects it may well make sense to have more staff, to have more detailed oversight.

Selectmen Association annual meeting just starting. Fast trip in.

Idea#4 from the last meeting yesterday on COA issues = plan for large percentage increase in seniors. Quoted figured were that seniors will increase from 20% to almost 30% of population.

One specific idea was to switch to LED streetlights for safety reasons for the seniors.

Interestingly, our Energy Committee last week heard a presentation from Fred Davis on the cost savings benefits of buying, owning, and converting to LED streetlights and the better light quality.

Iron Mountain representative says that they store data, including the for the movies, which create vast amounts of digital data. He says the movie data is searchable, so individual scenes can be retrieved, and people can buy a picture of the scene they want.

If we stored a digital copy of a town meeting, one could search for the particular discussion of a particular issue. For example, what was that actual ATM vote on siting assisted living facilities on residential zones in 2012? You would not have to listen to whole meeting to check what was said on any one issue if the data was created and stored so it could be accessed on this way.

Trade show vendor had material for trails that was about as hard as asphalt, but less expensive. Could be a great application for surfacing the Bay Colony Rail Trail. Better for biking than stone dust.

Afternoon session on Riding the Days Wave.

IT budgets rising incrementally, while amounts of data rising geometrically. Cost issues for storage and how to store.

First step for town should be to know what data it collects, and what it does use. Then look at what else you might want to use from what you already collect. Only then look to what new data you might want to collect.

Just had good conversation with town’s consultant for the MSH Master Planning Committee from VHB. Good chance for a one on one discussion of the status.

Rule = locate senior housing next to transportation.

This makes the two town owned lots next to The Center ideal for senior housing, because we already run vans from The Center to connect that area to local destinations, so we could use those existing transportation systems for any new housing located there rather than having to build new transportation systems for me senior housing located elsewhere.

Governor Baker tied the increase of local aid payments from the state to cities and towns to the increase in state revenue. This year the state revenue concensus number is increasing 4.3% so the local aid to Medfield will go up 4.3% in the Governor’s budget.

In the first speech by Guy Raz at the Massachusetts Municipal Association annual convention today I got a great idea about online maps of firehydrants being adopted by residents to be kept shoveled out.

I think we can also use the same policy to have residents adopt and care for town trees.

Governor Baker receiving warm reception at the moment.