It’s an annual rite, as predictable as the arrival of midsummer’s eve. As Harvard’s fiscal year wanes, so do the appointments of the nearly 100 volunteers and employees who staff the town’s committees, boards and departments.

And so it was that with the 2010 fiscal year about to become history, the Harvard Board of Selectmen (BOS) devoted nearly a third of its meeting this week to discussion of its boards and committees, and the reappointment of currently serving members and town employees to positions whose terms would otherwise expire at midnight on June 30. Inevitably, there were also vacancies to be filled, as well as new Town Meeting-approved teams to be created and policies to be discussed, approved, or deferred to a future meeting. And the BOS even managed a vote on a new date for Town Meeting.

Working from lists prepared by Executive Assistant Julie Doucet, the BOS unanimously approved the following appointments:

• Reappointment of 40 current town employees to Town Hall assignments managed by Town Administrator Tim Bragan, whose own contract is not up for renewal this year
   
• Reappointment of 54 volunteers to more than two dozen town boards and committees
   
• Appointment of members of the Municipal Buildings Task Force to the new Municipal Buildings Committee, with three new slots to be filled later this summer
   
• Appointment of selectman Ron Ricci to the open selectman’s seat on the Municipal Affordable Housing Trust
   
• Appointment of new town center resident Ken Swanton as an alternate member of the Historical Commission. Swanton held multiple positions in Bolton before moving to Harvard, including chairmanship of that town’s Planning Board
   
• Appointment of Deb Pierce, a biology teacher and head of Bromfield’s science department, and Mark Hardy, a biochemist and former School Committee member, to three- and two-year terms, respectively, on the Pond Committee
   
• Appointment of resident Leslie Neville to the Fourth of July Committee

The BOS provisionally approved the members of the town’s ambulance squad only through July 31. BOS Chairman and ambulance liaison Peter Warren said he was concerned that some members of the squad were missing regular meetings and not sticking to squad rules, and asked for time to vet the list with Director Steve Beckman, who is currently vacationing. “If members are not meeting the rules,” said Warren,” why reappoint them?”

As for the Economic Development Committee (EDC), selectmen Bill Johnson and Tim Clark asked to defer discussion of its charter and membership until the next regular BOS meeting. The warrant article that created the EDC was more or less crafted by members of the BOS and Planning Board in the hallways of Bromfield School at Town Meeting this May, amid calls for supervision by both bodies, but the Planning Board has not yet assigned two of its members to work with Johnson and Clark.

Some vacancies remain. The recent death of Ken Harrod leaves an open seat on the Town Center Sewer Building Committee, and other vacancies will be created by plans to add new members to the Municipal Building Committee and the Devens Enterprise Analysis Team. Positions also remain open on the Montachusett Regional Planning Commission (MRPC) and the Montachusett Joint Transportation Committee.

After two failed test votes, the BOS also agreed—with selectmen Sobalvarro, Clark and Warren voting in favor, and Johnson and Ricci abstaining—to move the date of the next Annual Town Meeting earlier in the year, to April 2, 2011. March 26, Harvard’s traditional date was deemed too early; April 9 is a major soccer date. Ricci wondered, “What’s wrong with May?” But Warren said he was convinced that sunny weather and an abundance of town events led to the low turnout this year. Johnson argued for giving the Finance and School committees more time to lock down their budgets, but Warren noted that neither committee had raised objections to an April date.

In other business, the BOS:

• Approved the application of Amy Bernhardt to be designated as the manager responsible for liquor sales at the General Store, replacing Lyn Horowitz, who will move to London to be with her husband Adam. “Everybody is waiting for this,” said Bernhardt. “We’ve given lots of assurances to the town…and we take our responsibilities very seriously.”
   
•   eferred a decision on whether to support an initiative by the Nashua River Watershed Association to have the Nashua River designated a federally protected Wild and Scenic River, in order to give the many Harvard residents who live within a quarter mile of the river a chance to respond.

Selectmen will meet again in a month, on July 22.