HUDSON — The Select Board has decided on the law firm to represent the town as town counsel.
It voted on July 10 for Brooks and DeRensis to succeed Town Counsel Aldo Cipriano.
The law firm was a previous finalist in a search for a new town counsel last August. It began to serve as town counsel for Hudson on July 1 after the 4-0 vote to approve and sign a contract with it.
The board also approved the contract for Barrett Planning Group to do an update on the Housing Production Plan for Hudson. The contract is for $15,000. The firm is based in Hingham, and it is owned and managed by Judi Barrett, who has 33 years of planning and community development experience as a consultant, according to the official website for the group.
Select Board member Shawn Sadowski said as a member of the Affordable Housing Trust, he would be able to answer questions on the matter.
“We did solicit three different quotes for this, and it was a unanimous vote to go with Ms. Barrett,” said Sadowski.
He called her the “leading authority in this field.”
A departmental revolving fund was also unanimously approved to provide the training and equipment necessary for a police department response to an active shooter or hostile event.
Executive Assistant Thomas Gregory said as part of a renewal contract that the town negotiated with Patriot Ambulance, there is an emergency dispatch fee that the company pays to the town of Hudson annually. For July 1, the amount of this fee is $33,190.
Gregory added the fee has been collected as a general fund receipt with no specific purpose currently, but the request was to get the Select Board’s initial approval with the understanding that ultimately approval at Town Meeting will be needed. The goal was to create a revolving fund so that they could “capture those dollars into a separate account.”
He noted that they could then be used for the training and equipment for hostile event responses. An article would be placed on the warrant for the November Town Meeting to amend the general bylaws to include a new revolving fund for “this particular purpose.”
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