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Date: 9/15/2021
WILLIAMSBURG – During the Williamsburg Board of Selectmen’s Sept. 9 meeting, the board discussed vacancies on the 250th Anniversary Committee and agreed to request the rest of the CARES Act funding available to the town to pay for the repairs for the HVAC system at the Anne T. Dunphy School.
After Board of Selectmen Chair Dave Mathers announced at the Special Town Meeting on Aug. 31 that the 250th Anniversary Committee was looking for new members, which went on hiatus in March, Town Administrator Nick Caccamo said some residents expressed interest in joining the committee.
“We are getting some community response from those announcements, which is great. Hopefully that committee can meet again soon to establish a framework and a timeline,” he said.
Board member Bill Sayre said while there was energy to volunteer for the celebration and people were willing to volunteer, there was nobody to lead the committee.
“My impression here is that what we are lacking is leadership and once we have someone there then things will happen. Without somebody there just nothing happens. I think the sooner the better, we just need to get people on board and find someone to lead them,” he said.
To fill the leadership void, Sayre suggested reaching out to Daniel Nye, the vice chair of the committee before it went on hiatus, to serve as the chair for the time being.
Caccamo said he would reach out to Nye and the other remaining members to see if they could organize a meeting to get the planning process started again.
“We’ll reach out to Dan and see if they can convene something so they can figure out if they want to do a schedule of meetings. I think the most important thing is picking the date and working with a fireworks company to make sure it is available. There is also a pretty good amount of money that we can spend on this, and we want to make use of that,” he said.
Once the committee is up and running, board member Denise Banister said she would help with planning.
“I think it has to be determined how much volunteer energy we are going to get. There is a lot we can work with the committee on, and I will work with the committee to determine how much energy we have to tap into,” she said.
Residents interested in applying for the committee can reach out to Caccamo via email at townadmin@burgy.org.
After discussing the committee, Caccamo said the town had additional CARES Act funding that could be used for the repairs for the HVAC system at the Anne T. Dunphy School.
“Originally Williamsburg was awarded $219,000. To date the town has received $132,000, we have gone through five reporting cycles and on hand we have $86,000, which is the number committed for the Anne T. Dunphy HVAC. However, we still have about $87,000 we can still request,” he said.
Caccamo said the only hurdle in applying for the rest of the funds and a potential waiver to extend the deadline to use the funds to Dec. 31 is the timeline for the project.
“The tricky part with the HVAC is the timing because of the contractor, the materials availability and installation. In a memo sent out to communities you can apply for a waiver that carries you to Dec. 31, but the state will not entertain that until we have a clear timeline and right now the big question mark is material acquisition,” he said.
By acquiring this extra funding, Caccamo said the town would put back the stabilization money appropriated for the project at the Special Town Meeting on Aug. 31 through an article at the Annual Town Meeting in 2022.
The board unanimously approved the request for the rest of the town’s CARES Act funding.
During the meeting the board also agreed to continue to use a single precinct for all elections.
The Williamsburg Board of Selectmen next meets on Sept. 23.