Mansfield Selectmen Roundup: Lights, Fincom and VFW Sign

The Mansfield Board of Selectmen voted 5-0 to appoint Michael O’Brien to the Finance Committee. There are now six people appointed to the committee.

Selectmen voted 5-0 to raise town manager William Ross’s town salary by $10,000 (or about 7 percent) for his current contract before his presumed new contract has been negotiated.

Ross said that the canopy repair at the DPW refueling station has begun and will be completed in the next week.

Vic Leemon was appointed 5-0 by selectmen as the Mansfield selectmen’s representative for the Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic Development District.

Mansfield will start turning the street lights on starting July 1. Main Street lamps and posts will also be getting a new paint job for maintenance and appearance purposes.

Selectmen voted 5-0 to accept the new Veterans of Foreign Wars sign (to be put on the utility pole at Chilson and Chauncy) to the Mansfield location for one month for the VFW convention. A permanent sign may be erected later once a standard is reached for town signs in Mansfield.

Ross said that the Bird Road Substation construction is moving along and National Grid will be coming in in the next few weeks to make final connections to the substation.

Correspondence was received that both Norton and Foxborough support the imitative (sponsored by Rep. Jay Barrows) amendment to the Tri Town Sewer District that would allow each town to separately determine yearly rates for service.

Ross said that seal coating on Balcom Street was  completed last week.

The first Finance Committee meeting since the mass resignations will be June 14. The meeting will be an organizational conference.

Ross said that the step repair on the east side of the town hall is underway.

Ross said that an evaluation of the Winthrop Street Parking lot has revealed that many of the spaces in the lot are too small as per state regulations. The evaluation also revealed that the lot is short two disabled access spaces. All told, the lot will loose 11 spaces- seven compact car spaces and six loose-standard truck and car spaces- to get to the state standard.