1993-Annual Town Report - Laserfiche WebLink

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Boards, Committees, and other Town personnel. We Report of the look forward to working with the members of the Town Counsel Town government in the future. Respectfully submitted, Leonard Kopelman, for the To the Honorable Board of Selectmen Firm of Kopelman and Paige, P.C. and the Citizens of the Town of Mashpee: Town Counsel The year 1993 involved a number of significant legal activities for Town Counsel. In addition to ren- dering numerous legal opinions, approving contracts as to form, and meeting with the Board of Selectmen and various other Boards, Town Counsel handled a Report of the number of unusual matters, as well as some signifi- Library. Mash ee Pu�li� cant litigation. We have worked with the Board of Selectmen and the School Building Committee regarding the issues surrounding location, design and eventual construc- To the Honorable Board of Selectmen tion of a new High School. Thus far, we have assisted and the Citizens of the of Mashpee: the Town in the designer selection phase,have worked Mashpee Public Library continued to row in col- with the Town's appraiser and have advised Town P � g Pp lection size and usage by the residents of Mashpee. Meeting. There will be significant additional work to Circulation for theear totalled 65,827 items. During be done as this project moves forward in the upcoming y g p � the year,44,773 people used the library. year. h Town in connection with The library spent eighteen months barcoding its We have also advised the a number of em collection in preparation to convertin to the CLAMS employment disputes, some of which p P g P automated circulation system. In March, library have generated litigation or action in such state agen- cies as the Massachusetts Commission Against patrons were asked to begin registering for new library Discrimination. We of course vigorously defend the cards which could be used throughout the CLAMS Disc g y libraries. B June, 90% of the library's collection had Town in such matters, as well as provide counsel as to y methods of minimizingthe threat of such claims in the been converted and the switch was made to the new system. future. Mashpee enjoys many environmentally sensitive Public reaction to CLAMS has been very positive. Library users are able to search for locations of books resources, and the need to protect such resources has and materials on a p ublic access terminal located at the caused us to be asked to bring enforcement actions against several individuals whose actions have threat-- library. Patrons may travel to the owning library and g ened or damaged wetland or coastal areas. We are borrow items directly or the library will do an elec- p p J leased to report that the Town has enjoyed ed much suc-- tronic inter-library loan request for the patron and have cess in these actions over the past year and we trust the item delivered to Mashpee for pickup. that the Town's evident determination to preserve its able resources will cause the need for such constant ether improvements to service include being enforcement to diminish, to tell a patron what items are still chargedm .out to hi or her, and being able to place requests on items elec- We have on numerous occasions advised the so- tronically. Patrons receive information about the sta- called land use authorities of the Town the Buildingtus of their cards and about the availability of items ' Inspector, Conservation Commission and Zoning other patrons have charged out. Request items also move through the system much morequickly. None of Board of Appeals in the areas of permitting , legisla- g y tion and enforcement. This will no doubt continue to this information was available under the manual sys- be a significant portion of Town Counsel services. tem. We extend our appreciation to the Board of Many thanks to the Friends of the Library and to the pp volunteers who have donated time and money to Selectmen for their confidence in retaining this firm, many well to and appreciate the assistance and cooperation received the library.The library volunteers have adapted w pp P the new technologyand are available to assist patrons on all matters from the Board of Selectmen, Town Department Heads have never used (PublicMeeting, Executive Secretary, p who hd thPAC Access Computer) terminal. The Friends of the Library have 82