HALIFAX‑ Christina Moore told the selectboard on Tuesday evening that she planned to resign from the planning commission and zoning board, and that she would like to represent the town on the Rescue Inc. board. Moore suggested her husband, William Moore, as her replacement for planning and zoning.

Selectboard chair John LaFlamme urged Moore to reconsider. “I’d hate to lose you in planning,” said LaFlamme, referring to Moore’s leadership role. The planning commission will be spending at least the coming year on writing a new town plan. Moore was finally persuaded to stay on both boards when LaFlamme said he would sit on the Rescue board for the coming year and then revisit the question.

There is already a vacancy on the planning and zoning boards due to Paul Placentino’s recent resignation. Greg Marguet volunteered to fill that vacancy, but LaFlamme and Mitchell Green said they would prefer to wait, as the notice of vacancy had only been posted for a few days.

Marguet asked the selectboard if he could serve as an alternate representative to the Windham Solid Waste Management District. LaFlamme told him that the town already has a representative and an alternate, Green and Cliff Inman. “They don’t show up at a lot of meetings,” said Marguet, “and (the district) is discussing some interesting things.” Marguet hoped he could represent the town when neither Green nor Inman attends, but was told that is impossible. LaFlamme recommended that Marguet contact the representatives with any concerns he has about WSWMD business.

Andy Rice presented a complaint to the board about the recent tree cutting along Thomas Hill. “There are some people who need to get a personal apology,” Rice said.

According to Rice and road commissioner Bradley Rafus, an unnamed town employee had cut trees which were not among those designated for removal as potential hazards and had damaged other trees. Rafus was on vacation when this happened, but is now “monitoring the situation more closely.”

“I haven’t heard anything first hand as far as one of my guys being rude to anybody,” said Rafus. “It’s hard to deal with it until I get a personal complaint.”

Rafus pointed out that there is an ordinance requiring all trees within 18 feet of the center of the road to be removed. Green insisted that the town has the absolute right to remove all trees in its right of way and that they should all be removed. “It looks better anyway,” he said, adding that people had told him they liked having the trees cleared from the sides of Deer Park Road.

Rice urged the board to see that the stumps along the road are removed. “It looks like crap!” he exclaimed.

Rafus assured him that the stumps will be pulled. Rice wondered whether having the road commissioner serve as town tree warden is like “having the fox watch the hen house.” LaFlamme said he thought it more useful to combine the posts, adding that he himself does not have the knowledge to judge which trees must be removed.

The next area scheduled for roadside tree removal is Pennel Hill.

LaFlamme announced that the planning commission has recommended that the lapsed town plan be readopted. The commission also recommended that the vote on readoption be put off until Town Meeting, reasoning that the low turnout at last week’s public hearing signals a low sense of urgency on the part of voters. The selectboard’s public hearing on readoption will be held on Tuesday, September 1, at 7 pm.

In other business, the board approved the extension of an underground power line on Moss Hollow Road near the Marlboro town line.