Hey folks, this is your Town Manager Alex Torpey here with a bit of a late update for December and Happy New Year, and January 2024. How it's 2024 already I have no idea, but we'll have to save that for a different podcast.

A lot has been happening in the last month, though much of that has been really on the staff side, both working on turning the data and feedback from our retention and recruitment study into proposals and then budgeting them out and working with our collective bargaining units and staff and selectboard to move forward, so with that and a few persistent vacancies in some key positions, we've all been a bit flat out and probably will continue to be like that until we get the budget adopted by the Selectboard in March.

Here's some of what we covered in our meetings in December and January:

• We discussed some budget, finance, and audit updates, which I'll come back with an up to date summary as of January 23rd
• We held the final public hearings and finished some cleanup on a bunch of easements that had been sort of floating around for years, using the RSA 41:14a process that was approved at Town Meeting last year
• We discussed and the Selectboard, as well as Planning Board, reviewed and sent letters to the state legislature regarding the religious-use exemptions
• We discussed some election requirements for the primary, appointed volunteers, and then had our election on January 23rd
• We completed a bunch of other logistical business which you can find online if so interested, the 2024 calendar, minutes, donations, unanticipated revenues, banners, and the like
• We did finally grant the tax exemption to the Friends of Hanover Crew, if anyone was following that, where they updated their bylaws to be in compliance with the advice our attorney gave us as what was needed to grant such the exemptions.
• Proclamation for retiring employee
• Plus my Town report, including
  
  • HR Numbers in/out
  • HR Retention and Recruitment
  • Fire Chief hiring
  • Flex schedul...