12/11/2007 COMMUNITY PRESERVATION ACT COMMITTEE Minutes

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2 Community Preservation Committee Minutes December 11, 2007 Deborah Dani—Town Clerk: Vital Records Preservation: Deborah I ami discussed the importance of preserving and protecting the Town's historical records. The oldest book in the Town Clerk's Office dates back to the 1800's and many pages are in tact with adhesive tape. With long term usage,tape causes ink to dissipate. It is a high priority o the Town Clerk to protect all of the Town's records including records from the Town Assessor's Office. A price quotation was received from Brown's River Records Preservation Services in the amount of$32,570 for vim records preservation. The price includes conservation of the Town records, $27,700 which includes assessing records relative to land records, mortgages and valuation lists dating back to the early 1800's, microfilm at a cost of$3,205 and CD's for $1, . Ms. Darni indicated that some of the information remains a protected public record. She is therefore,unable to scam the material to place the information online for public dissemination. It was noted that documents become public record after a period of 90-95 years. Records Retention/Consolidation: petition article approved by the voters at the May 2004 Town Meeting requires the Town Clerk to retain both tape recordings and hard copies of minutes. The tapes are required to be retained by the Town Clerk for period of three years. The minutes are required to be maintained as a permanent record. The vault located M the Office of the Town Clerk is presently storing the tapes and minutes that are bound. Ms. Dami explained the vault needs to e utilized for more important uses such as storage of vital records, Town reports, assessors records, election ballots and supplies. Approximately 10,000 ballots are stored prior to an election. Town election ballots must be retained for a period of thirty days after an election. Mate ballots require a retention schedule of twenty-two months. The records retention consolidation proposal, a cost of$7,299 would support the purchase of a seer with related hardware, $1,899, a vital records recording system, $900 and the initial base set up at a cost of$4,50o to establish and design the site,train the employee's and allow for hosting support.