Question raised about appointments

CORNWALL — Selectman Heidi Kearns at the Feb. 4 Board of Selectmen asked if a request for proposals was sought each year for town attorney.First Selectman Gordon Ridgway said Perley Grimes has been the town attorney for about 30 years, with no complaints. He noted the value of having years of records at hand and a memory of issues. He is currently working with Planning and Zoning on various issues and is expected to present a draft of a revised ordinance for the Region One Board of Education representative.That proposal would be put to a town meeting soon, mainly to decide if the position should continue to be appointed by the Board of Education or be an elected one. Selectman Richard Bramley and Ridgway said there may also be a decision to amend the four-year term to two years. However, preliminary findings sent to the board by Grimes last September were specific about four-year terms in the 1937 state statute that created the Region One School District. In the mid-1990s, only one change was part of an amendment to the statute, written by then-Falls Village Selectman Louis Timolat. It gave towns the option of establishing an alternate to the regional board, if a town ordinance was passed that specified if the position would be appointed or elected.Current representative Phil Hart was at the meeting. He asked that the ordinance include a job description, and that it be specific that the representative must attend local school board meetings in their entirety.“The job is not just to report to the local board what happened at the regional board meeting,” Hart said, “but to know what’s going on locally so they know how to vote on regional issues.”