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Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Live reporting - Incident summary 1/1/09
Mike D'Angelo, Facilities manager
provided a brief overview of the incident over New Year's weekend
Kennedy School
McGann - questioning the presence of a sensor that could have caught the problem.
D'Angelo - yes, the sensor would be valuable, it would not have tripped due to the temperature level in 2 of the 3 buildings as the temp had not dropped enough
Bartlett - I lost power and when it came back, the heat kicked in as well, why not here?
D'Angelo - These motors are protected by circuits and code to protect it from severe spikes in power. Normally, when the power returns, they would have come back. When the power did return, it only came back with 2 of 3 phases. Sensing that, the motor required a manual restart.
Nutting - The motor is about the size of a full keg of beer.
Doak - clarification on what the problem really was, temperature monitors are not going to solve this problem. Why couldn't we get notification from the power company?
Whalen - I am focused on how we can try and avoid this going forward. Anytime the power goes out we have to be notified?
D'Angelo - yes, we should. The boilers were sitting with hot water but it wasn't circulating.
High School
McGann - generator at the high school?
D'Angelo - generator was on and ran all the time
McGann - with the generator on, how did we get the freeze up?
D'Angelo - motor starters did trip, likely because of the 2 of 3 phase power return
McGann - with the money we paid for those generators at the high school and senior center, we should not have had this
D'Angelo - they were in the trip position when we arrived. The heating contractor reset the trips.
Doak - is there a test we can do to see if everything is running properly?
D'Angelo - I think if there is one leg off, this would happen.
McGann - on the power side yes, on the generator side, that is three phase power, this should have come right back on
Zollo - 2 high level principles that I am looking at here. There are experts in these areas, yourself and others, let's get a plan to solve the problem for these extreme contingency events. There will be capital required, and I understand that.
There needs to be monitoring with call outs to multiple points so that when something else comes up, we'll at least have been alerted to address something sooner rather than later.
Pfeffer - if it seems like you are being picked on, you are. You are the Director of Facilities. People are not happy with what happened. The Senior Center was 38 degrees on Friday. Some seniors are dependent upon the center for their food. That is unacceptable.
D'Angelo - getting to the actual root of the problem will help us prevent this in the future. The eyes and ears of a person walking in to check a building will be done over long weekend and other periods going forward.
Doak - will we get a break from the insurance company for putting these other monitoring devices in?
Nutting - Not sure, our out of pocket is $5,000. The insurance will cover the repairs.
Senior Center
Heard about it first on Friday with the Fire Department picking up an alarm.
McGann - Do you have the generators on a cycle?
D'Angelo - yes, they are run once a week, I don't remember the day of the week.
McGann - When all things are back and ready, I would suggest that some time, off hours, we do a test. Make sure that all things are working as they are supposed to be. It doesn't seem right to me.
Pfeffer - Do we have to worry about mold?
D'Angelo - with what we are doing, I don't expect to but if necessary we will.
Feeley - would it be reasonable to come back in 2 weeks with a plan?
D'Angelo - It would be better to do it a little later. Early in February would be better.
Gym floor will be a big one to replace. It really crimps the high school to ahve the gym out. All the recreation programs are already taking space in the other gyms in town.
Live reporting - license transactions
F. HEARINGS - none
G. LICENSE TRANSACTIONS –
. Cottage Street Pub & Grill, Inc. – Pledge of License approved 7-0
. Franklin Lodge #2136 BPOE., Inc. – Change of Manager approved 7-0 as amended
. Applebee’s Northeast, Inc. – Change of Manager approved 7-0
Live reporting - Town Council meeting 2
Absent: Mason, Vallee
A. APPROVAL OF MINUTES – November 19, 2008, December 3, 2008, December 10, 2008,
and December 17, 2008 Regular & Executive Session
approved - 7-0
B. ANNOUNCEMENTS none
C. PROCLAMATIONS/RECOGNITIONS none
D. CITIZEN COMMENTS
Robert Dean, Chairman of the Cable Advisory Committee, talks about the new live feed of the Town Council meetings. Chapters will be available in the archive.
Live reporting: Town Council Meeting
Go to the Town home page, and click on the first announcement to get the streaming feed.
"not all the projects can be ignored even when money is tight."
Town Administrator Jeffrey D. Nutting is recommending spending nearly $1.5 million on capital items this fiscal year, but that number would likely shrink if the state cuts local aid.
Finance Committee members started their review of the recommendations last night with the increasing possibility of cuts in mind. Chairman Jim Roche, for example, said he wants to avoid spending on items that would sit idle should officials have to cut staff.
He said it would be "foolhardy if we spend money on things that may be sitting empty or be better spent elsewhere."
The money for the capital items comes from the town's "free cash" account, essentially comprised of higher-than-expected revenue and unspent money last fiscal year, which ended June 30.
Some of that money could be used instead to cover deficits if Gov. Deval Patrick makes midyear local aid cuts, which he has said are possible. Cuts to next fiscal year's aid are even more likely.
Read the full article in the Milford Daily News here
"It's an opportunity to advance her career"
After a little more than a year as the principal at Franklin High School, Pamela Gould is preparing to take a step up the career ladder in another school system.
Gould has been hired as the new assistant superintendent of human resources for the Plymouth School District, a job she will begin later this month. Her last day in Franklin will be Jan. 23.
Gould said that although she is moving up, the decision to leave Franklin so soon after she arrived doesn't come without some regret.
"I feel like there are a lot of things that we started here, some good things, that I'd like to see through on the one side," Gould said, but she has "absolute faith" the colleagues she leaves behind will take up her charge and carry it forward.
Read the full article in the Milford Daily News here