Session Laws

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

SECTION 1. There shall be established in the town of Duxbury a department of public works, hereinafter called the department, which shall be under the jurisdiction of the board of selectmen. The department shall have all of the powers and duties now vested in or exercised by any of the following departments, which are hereby renamed divisions and included within the department of public works: cemetery, land and natural resources, highway and water. No contracts, obligations or liabilities in force on the date when this act becomes effective shall be affected hereby, but the department shall in all respects be the lawful successor of the departments now included as divisions in the department of public works.

SECTION 2. The board of selectmen shall appoint a director of public works, whose qualifications, powers and duties shall be determined and prescribed by said board, and who shall be responsible to said board. The director shall have full authority for carrying out the policies of said board and over the operations of the department. The director shall appoint and remove such staff assistants and employees as he deems necessary, subject to available appropriations and with the approval of said board. Such staff may include a supervisor for each division, and a town engineer. The position of assistant to the board of selectmen for engineering services is hereby abolished. The director shall hold office subject to the will of said board. Said director shall not be subject to the provisions of chapter thirty-one of the General Laws.

SECTION 3. The board of selectmen shall prepare and provide proper job descriptions for employees of the department of public works.

SECTION 4. Upon the effective date of this act, the offices of cemetery trustees and water commissioners shall be appointed by the town moderator for three-year staggered terms, and water commissioners renamed the water advisory board. The present cemetery trustees and water commissioners shall continue as members of said boards until the end of their current terms. The cemetery trustees and the water advisory board shall serve said town as advisory boards and as specified in the by-laws of the town; provided, however, that the cemetery trustees shall also control the care and expenditure of perpetual care funds as provided in section twenty-five of chapter one hundred and fourteen of the General Laws.

SECTION 5. The town of Duxbury may after the expiration of three years from the effective date of this act vote at annual town meeting to revoke this act and the question of revocation shall be submitted to the voters in the form of the following question, which shall be placed on the official ballot used for the election of town officers: "Shall the department of public works established by an act passed by the general court in the year nineteen hundred and eighty-five, entitled 'An Act establishing a department of public works in the Town of Duxbury', be discontinued "

If a majority of the votes cast in answer to said question is in the affirmative, then at the next annual town election held after such vote, the town shall elect such officers as are necessary to exercise and perform the powers, rights and duties transferred to the department of public works by said act. Such action shall not affect any contract or liability then created or existing. All general laws respecting town administration and town officers and any special laws relative to said town, the operation of which has been suspended or superceded by this act, shall then be in full force and effect. Any by-law inconsistent with such special or general laws shall be revoked thereby. Any subsequent vote to revoke this act shall not be taken more often than once in three years.

SECTION 6. This act shall take effect upon its passage.