Mansfield Special Town Meeting Sept. 13 to approve projects totaling $263,000

Mansfield Community Center. One of the items voters will be asked to approve at the Sept. 13 meeting is purchasing and installing ventilation units for the community center's locker room, estimated at $20,000. Image from LaRosa Building Group Web site.

A Special Town meeting has been called to ask voters to approve funding equipment purchases and maintenance at $93,000, as well as facilities improvements totaling $40,000, and roadway-related projects totaling $130,000.

Those qualified to vote in the town of Mansfield are asked to attend the meeting at 7 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 13. It will be held in the council chambers at the Audrey P. Beck Building , 4 South Eagleville Road (off Route 195, next to E.O. Smith High School).

Voters will be asked to approve a resolution adopted Aug. 9, 2010 by the Town Council to fund specific equipment purchases and maintenance, and related costs.

These include:

• refurbishment and chassis changeover of two Ford F-350 trucks (estimated cost $30,000)

• upgrade of hydraulic rescue equipment (estimated cost $18,000)

• purchase of a pickup truck (estimated cost $45,000)

If approved, the funds will be used for purchases, maintenance, legal fees, financing costs and other expenses related to these projects.

Voters also will be asked to authorize the issue of bonds or notes in an amount not to exceed $93,000 and to allow temporary advances of available funds which the town expects will be reimbursed from the proceeds of the bonds or notes.

Facilities improvements

Voters also will be asked to approve another resolution adopted Aug. 9, 2010 by the Town Council to appropriate $40,000 for a number of town facilities improvements.

These include:

• purchasing and installing ventilation units for the locker room at the Mansfield Community Center (estimated cost $20,000)

• town park improvements including playground equipment, picnic areas, ball fields, trails and facility improvements as to be determined by the Town Manager (estimated cost $20,000)

The appropriation may be spent for design, construction and acquisition costs, materials, equipment, engineering and other consultant fees, legal fees, net temporary interest and other financing costs, and other expenses related to the project.

And voters will be asked to authorize bonds or notes not to exceed $40,000, and allow temporary advances from the town budget, which are expected to be reimbursed through the bonds.

Road work, bridge maintenance, sidewalks

A third item is a resolution adopted Aug. 9, 2010 by the Town Council for transportation-related improvements.

Voters will be asked to approve appropriating $130,000 for:

• road drainage capital maintenance (estimated cost $50,000)

• large bridges capital maintenance (estimated cost $20,000)

• transportation and walkway improvements such as bus stops, walkways and bikeways (estimated cost $60,000), all as to be determined by the Town Manager.

Voters will be asked to authorize the issue of bonds or notes in an amount not to exceed $130,000, and to approve temporary advances of available funds that are expected to be reimbursed from the proceeds of borrowings.

In each case, the Town Manager is authorized to reduce or modify the scope of these projects.

The full texts of these resolutions are on file in Town Clerk’s office and can be reviewed there by the public.

Posted Aug. 30, 2010

(Information for this story was compiled from the town’s email notification.)

They’re back – 2010 Census is conducting ‘quality assurance' operations

Long before the Census forms were mailed, approximately 140,000 Census Bureau employees checked 145 million addresses from March through July 2009, walking virtually every street in the United States along the way. Photo Credit: U.S. Census Bureau, Public Information Office

The 2010 Census has had one of the best return rates in years – about 72 percent of Americans returned their forms.

Recently, Census workers completed the process of visiting the homes of those residents who did not return forms.

Now begins the phase called “quality assurance,” where the accuracy of the data collected is checked .

This process began Aug. 14 and is scheduled to continue through Oct. 2, 2010.

Census workers are visiting a small percentage of households to ask a few brief questions that help measure how completely and accurately the 2010 Census counted the population. Some quality assurance work is being done via phone calls.

One of the important uses of this data concerns our legislative districts.

According to the Census 2010 Web site, the first data released are the official national and state population counts, which are used to apportion seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

As mandated by the U.S. Constitution, this data must be delivered to the President of the United States by the Census Bureau on or before December 31, 2010, the Web site states.

The Census 2010 Web site also  includes a video that explains a little more about the quality assurance operations:

http://2010.census.gov/mediacenter/2010-census-timeline/nrfu/quality.php

Posted Aug. 30, 2010