Notes From Today's Sherborn Board Of Selectmen Meeting

The Board of Selectmen held a matinee meeting this afternoon, with some budget reviews of the Elderly Housing Committee and the Council on Aging, as well as, the appointment of two members to the Historic District Commission.

Members of the board voted to tentatively support the proposed budget increase brought to them by the Elderly Housing Committee, which oversees and maintains the Woodhaven elderly housing complex on Village Way. In the budget, are plans to repair and re-stripe the parking lot of the facility, and a project to install an emergency back-up generator in one of the buildings in the complex, as Woodhaven has electric heating in their units currently with no back-up power.

"You've got several residents at Woodhaven that are ninety-plus years old and in terms of a risk management perspective I foresee the strong possibility of several of those residents being oxygen dependent and we really need to be prepared for that strong possibility," said Sherborn police chief and emergency management director Richard Thompson. 

Woodhaven currently has nine residents who are over ninety-years-old, three that are over eighty-years-old, and seven that are over seventy-years-old.

"It seems like that is a clear public safety issue," said selectmen chair Paul DeRensis.

The board also supported an increase in salary for the director of the Council on Aging, Karen Juhl. The board heard testimony from Juhl and several others at the meeting that her current salary was the lowest when compared to towns in close proximity to Sherborn whose directors' have a similar work load.

The selectmen approved the appointment of two members to the Historic District Commission. Alycia Goody who was an interim member of the board last year and serves as the attorney on the committee and MaryAnn Clancy who is a realtor will and fill the requirement that a realtor serve on the committee.

Both will serve three year terms which expire on June 15, 2013.