Scott can you hear us I can hear you excellent thank you e e e e e no okay uh noting they are in the presence of the Quorum I call this meeting to order uh we do have a member who is remote um so I have something to read um first of all please note this meeting is being recorded it is viewable on Acton TV uh please note that under 940 CMR 2910 P 5 Scott suan will be participating remotely during the meeting due to an illness or injury Geographic distance greater than 20 miles via video conference please note that a quorum is physically present a roll call vote is required for any and all votes involving members participating remotely Scott as long as you are available can you please take those roll call votes for us yes thank you we're going to have a bunch of them today with our various votes that we need to do um our initial first item presenters are not currently available oh I'm sorry first of all citizens concerns uh seeing no citizens present that's uh we're just going to assume that everything is wonderful um jumping ahead uh we'll start with the ALG item our next ALG meeting is coming up on one second is that may 1 it's it's it's a placeold holder meeting we only going to have it if the override fails yes so in case of the override uh we have a meeting for May 1st for ALG nothing has changed since the last time we talked about ALG meetings um we as a committee have a tentative meeting for 7:30 p.m. on April 2nd that will be held if the case that the override does not pass May 2nd thank you um if the meeting does not the override does not pass at the ballot we have a meeting currently scheduled for 6 o'clock on April 17th which is before the special town meeting although if the special town meeting starts at 7 we can make that be 6:30 I'll send out the details about the room when I post the agenda I believe y it's in the high school we will similarly have a meeting before the first day of regular town meeting I do not have that location yet um we presented under public education being the next item Jason and I presented at the school committee our point of view discussing the importance of the override and how as you've all seen it if it didn't happen now it was going to happen next year and hopefully driving home the idea that this isn't a if it doesn't pass this year everything's all set it's even without the a request for increases if the B budget requires an override going forward so I think that was very well received I got very good feedback on it everyone ask good questions okay and two agenda items we yeah actually can we start an item and then pause it okay um I'd like to start discussing the annual town meeting articles then as we all know there are a whole bunch of them um actually no I was very pleasantly surprised this is a much shorter agenda uh list of warant Articles than I have seen before yes please Maran uh just a quick question is as I was walking in there were folks in the hallway regarding the um Tiff so I didn't know if you wanted them to wait um oh they I have asked them to come in oh okay right they said they are still waiting for someone oh okay um do you want to start with the um the annual time meeting or do you want them to come in because I can get them now uh if they are ready I would love for them to come in okay I will I'll start discussing the annual town meeting and we can pause it um I'm wondering if so there are a number of consent items on here I believe everyone who has one is present okay Christine is not here to discuss the ambulance Enterprise budget apart from that I'm looking at items 18 through I'm sorry 17 through 35 would anyone like to hold any of those items for discussion do we think they can be voted as a block a block um 17 and 18 are placeholders for collective bargaining agreements that have not yet been agreed to okay so we should not discuss those we should not not vote on those because we should also not I'm sorry there's nothing to vote on yeah uh same with article 20 which is about the land gift although I have not we just got the updated warrant but I I don't think we have enough details uh Jason that's you 38 Piper Road is that worth discussing or should we just I do not have I do not have details to say okay how about how about we actually Che like a consent article well last time there were no details so I'd rather not vote on it as I also have an outstanding question on 25 which I don't have an answer to okay how about break this down further articles 30 through 35 are simply things that allow the town to get money we like that these are really basic like what plate the state makes us put it in there as they to do with easements and um variety of other ways the town gets money would we like to vote on this I think it's a great idea wonderful um could I have a motion please some motion to recommend 3335 uh would you like to make that a second Greg second all right um all in favor please say I'm sorry roll call vote Scott would you lead us through that sure uh Dave all Greg yes Christie I Jason I Roland I Steve I um is Adam or Christine there I can't see them no they're not uh no they're not and I will agree as well wonderful thank you um so that motion passes uh Julia are you guys ready okay we're going to take a pause there on our warrant list and invite um some people up to discuss the tax increment financing warrant article number 15 15 awesome so I'll just briefly introduce myself Julie Pierce town of act and economic development um so here to introduce Kevin curos from the Massachusetts office of Business Development to speak to you about tiffs in general really quickly and then Troy Gunther from um Stonewall solutions to speak about his company and I have a few handouts um which I'll hand to you while Kevin comes up good evening everybody uh as Julie mentioned my name is Kevin Kos I'm the Central Mass Regional director uh for the mass office of Business Development uh for those of you who may not be familiar with mobd we are uh the technically the state's official Economic Development agency so we are part of the heale drisol administration and our office uh reports to secretary yavon how who is the Secretary of Economic Development so um there are a number of regional directors spread across the state U uh supposedly seven of us but uh we're a couple people short right now so there's five of us who cover the state and uh our primary responsibility is to manage the economic devel velopment incentive program or edep and uh there are two components of the edep program one being local incentives that you know take the form of a tiff and then on the back end of the program uh are uh edup credits which are State credits so uh essentially the process it's a single application that the applicant makes uh through our system to both the municipality and I know you all have your own uh process as well but from a state perspective it's a single application for both uh local incentives and the state credits that would follow on and I guess the the important uh thing to note at this time is that um our board has made a policy decision quite some time ago several years back um which actually predates mine me even joining mobd I've been doing this for about five years now but our board has made a policy decision that they won't offer State credits without municipal involvement okay so um you know we want a three-way partnership you know the business brings capital investment and job creation uh the municipality you know offers you know some form of incentive typically a tiff you know other things are are possible as well but that's that's the most common and then the state comes uh to bat with uh credits towards the business's corporate excise tax okay and and in many cases and uh based on projections I've seen uh for what's proposed before you all and then I think what the way we're looking at the project um the state incentives would probably be significantly larger uh than the municipalities incentive uh for this particular project and that's pretty common in a lot of uh projects but again just underscore that you know without some local involvement um you know we we're not in a position at this time to to offer State Credit so um happy to answer any questions either about the mechanics of a tiff um or just general questions and uh you know I'm here to answer any questions so thank you does anyone have any questions Greg yeah I I I think one of the key concepts of the Tiff which will help help the town understand why this is a good idea because I think it's a good idea um is how you come up with the increment this is not just a um tax break across across everything it is over the growth over the period of of the agreement yeah you ra a great Point interrupt right there um we have a number of people out here watching who don't know what um we're talking about yeah could you please give it just a high level Des sure and I'm going to use some hand Graphics here if that's okay so um you know right right now that the parcel that we're talking about is essentially a green field okay that's you know it's more or less an open field with not a lot on it um and as a result the tax revenue that is being generated on that parcel is at a certain level fairly low because there it's not built up right the applicant uh is going to invest um several million dollars to put a building on that facility and then upon completion of that and issuance of an certificate of occupancy the assessed value from that parcel will go from you know fairly low assessment because it's just an open Greenfield to uh now a parcel with a a uh a building on it okay so the tax increment financing agreement uh does not in any way shape or form impact the Baseline taxes that the town is already collecting so you'll never you know collect less taxes on that parcel than you are today okay um what the Tiff agreement is is a way of the municipality to offer relief on that incremental tax that came about as a result of the capital investment Okay so if the tax liability on that parcel goes up I'm making numbers up here $40,000 year because I don't remember this the spreadsheet but if the tax liability on that parcel would were to go up by $440,000 per year if the municipality were to offer a 50% Tiff on that the municipality would still be collecting $20,000 additional tax revenue um on that parcel you know uh in that in that year and then at the end of the duration of the Tiff um it is if no Tiff ever occurred so the applicant pays you know full Fair uh on on their property tax liability as as everybody else does okay so hopefully that addresses it I we have a Graphic I think that we can make available if if you need to see it was passed around yeah K first of all uh it says that copies of the Agreements are available on the town page I'm not finding that at all even though I'm staring at the page am I reading this properly that you are going to be getting a 18year tiff no that's not my understanding at all I I believe it was a five five no that that was in an early draft that's what this sheet says and that's why I'm confused as as the leaz on to this group I I just got the spreadsheet so this is new news so what's so this is Article 15 yeah and at the very end of Article 15 says copy of the agreement right I'd like to know what the agreement says and what how many years this is a how many years of Tiff this is It's a five-year agreement okay and it starts at 50% and I can share the um spreadsheet which I just got I definitely would like to see that now Greg I I believe you had a question for our speaker nope no okay is there anything you I feel like we jumped around a little no no um you know this is new to a lot of people and we're just here just to you know try to you know help explain the process you know we don't Advocate either for or against uh you know a tax increment financing agreement it's it's you know what's right uh creates a win-win for both you know the town and the applicant you know um again I'm just just here to reiterate that we would love to to help at the state level um but right now our hands are tied that we we wouldn't be able to do that without you know some participation from the community so um for the sake of people listening out there what I understand you to be saying is for some period of time it's as if nothing happened with this piece of property we're getting the same income in and then it sounds like potentially over five years we will get up to what the normal tax level so so if the Tiff agreement is is five years in duration okay for those five years the town would not be um collecting all the taxes it potentially could on that parcel including the new development piece of that right right but at the end 5 years it's as if Tiff never happened and it is like every other paral in town and given that um our general General philosophy on the committee has been that commercial development is beneficial for the town in part because they use fewer resources there less service demands from having commercial properties um in spite of having a delay on the tax income for us there is a win for letting this happen later versus an immediate building houses and getting yeah and and the second piece that that most communities do take a look at is you know he's going to create additional jobs which means people coming to town you know filling their cars up at the gas stations stopping at the restaurants doing the dry cleaning that kind of stuff so so there's those secondary benefits to to the community as well anytime you have a job Creator expanding in your community uh this is on KNX tril yes U Julie is there anything you think we should know about this um I think we should hear from that would be lovely great any other questions I'm sorry um you you probably can't answer it um so the the original draft we got this article is totally different now yes okay so so it's a 5e not a 20 and it's 50% is it 50% for five years or does it build up I believe it's a declining schedule starts at 50 and it gets uh lower each year of the agreement is that correct yes and spreadsheet that I've just shared with everyone will uh give them that data but the uh the answer is it is it does decline right okay and and just historically um I've been doing this five years almost every single one I've ever done has a declining schedule where the community you know recognizes you know the applicant has come out of pocket for a lot of capital on the front end and they can soften the landing just a little bit on the front end of the agreement that's almost every single one of these tends to be front loaded with a you know fairly rapidly declining schedule so da yes thanks for coming and discussing this um you know if I could just do a quick example so like if the piece of property would normally have like a $10,000 tax on it and let's say there's to use your maybe your numbers is let's say there was a bunch of improvements to the property and investment where that tax would go up to be 50,000 so an incremental for ,000 are you saying that um just so maybe your spreadsheet details this but like 50% of that additional $40,000 would be we exactly so even in year one of the Tiff in that example the community would be collecting $30,000 in taxes rather than the 10,000 before the Improvement yeah yeah and so maybe my question for you is is as you look across the state um at these sort of programs is what is what is a typical said 50 is sort of is sort of the norm like what is the average or aggregate percentage that is saved by the the the company or whoever is investing so so the parameters of the program are pretty broad uh they allow Tiff to be anywhere from 5% reduction up to 100% reduction on that increment again we're just talking about the increment um for anywhere from 5 years for up to 20 years okay so the least generous Tiff possible would be we'll give you 5% break for 5 years years most generous Tiff would be 100% break for 20 years okay you're never going to see one at either either extreme um most that I've seen are probably 10 years and often times if there is a a common it would be 190 80 70 6050 kind of declin schedule that way okay so so you know this is is a fairly conservative Tiff you know is as far as what I've seen okay and and just again you know T typically they'll average around 50% you got starting around 50 so yeah okay that that that was that was I think the answer is that um and then is a pretty fine-tuned question but for this type of property and investment would this be more the normal Tiff sort of step step rate down um because there could be a large variety of huge Investments and it's it's really you can't really ballpark you know or or everyone is different you know and as long as you create what becomes a win-win for both the community and and the applicant I mean we're we're happy okay yeah great thanks does anyone remember the insulate Tiff do we remember that do we remember the numbers on that Tiff yeah yeah they uh the um I think they were talking um 20 years no no way 20 years no way yeah well the answer is yeah this one is five starts at 50 goes to 40 goes to 30 goes to 20 goes to 10 and the total value is 22,5 okay so I'll repeat what I said the last time these tiffs come um this is the this is the right kind of Tiff this is the only kind of Tiff we we've wished to entertain uh about six years ago we had somebody come in and just ask for an outright forgiveness right from the start with a promise that we going to hire more people later sure we will never fall for that again y so thank you for not bringing that type of Tiff to us well I don't bring it to you that the applicant does but just discussing it making sure I reiterate my position and I'm consistent over the years yeah so and uh yes I'm definitely happier that this is a five-year Tiff than a 20-year Tiff and then just as a point of reference as well um the actual agreement between the applicant and the community um is reviewed by our Council as well just to make sure that there's you know it beats all you know chapter and verse of Mass General law um you know sometimes communities fall into the practice of hey we did a tiff 10 years ago we use that as our Baseline uh Tiff agreement and there's sections of of M A lot it might have changed that type of thing so our Council will be you know part of the review process for the Tiff uh the Tiff agreement we have received a draft it's in our council's hands right now I've not yet received any comment back from it but it'll be ative process we'll work through you know any questions uh that your Town Council has that the applicants Council may have and then M mes it all together so that it you know it's it's legally very sound and if I if I may Madam chair a question for Maryann for the town um it says in here that the agreement will be is posted at a specific page it do maybe I'm not seeing it has it been posted yet and if if not when we'll it get posted so you said I apologize the agreement is on page and so in the particular Article 15 you're reading in the pamphlet that we have handed out tonight Article 15 says at the bottom copy of the agreement and related information is available at the page on our town website oh correct yes um so this as you can see this draft is the April 7th so even though just only two days ago is that um a group of us just only about 2 three hours ago we were updating this and as Mr noon said is that there is a uh paragraph where we obviously need to update as well and so we will need to update that site to reflect that when you go to it the copy of the agreement is there so we're updating the agreement okay you I I might suggest that um prior to posting a draft Tiff agreement you know for for everyone to prise that maybe and and we turn these around pretty quickly as far as our internal counsel it might be you know good good practice to wait till it's almost finalized that way you know no one reads something that might have been proposed by the town that you know by Town Council that might be out of out of uh compliance with state law or something like that I mean you know do with it what you will but um we can turn these around pretty quickly and that that way you at least have what we know was a legally sound document for the public to review prior to town meeting um I'm going to direct this to Julie Julie do you know when that will be ready where the draft sits with us already so so our counselor is reviewing it so we should be turning it around in in a couple of days and it'll be back in your hands okay you know so for this particular application it's a stone malls anticipated to create 20 jobs invest over 1.8 million with the project you know Jason's point we had tips in the past which have um talked about some of these goals that they have and away from the legal side of it does your organization track these sorts of metrics or yeah there there's annual compliance reporting that the applicant has to do and then there's the clawback provision available both at the Town level and at the state level if they are non-compliant how often is that clawback incorporated in um not often um you know we have essentially like remember from grade school Progressive discipline policy you know you might miss you know by a job or two in a year you know you get a letter saying Hey listen you didn't quite meet your your hiring you know objectives what are you going to do next you know next year to rectify that and then if they're out of compliance by more than a certain percentage and forgive me because I'm not on the back end of the program I don't know exactly what the percentage is um then that you're actually asked to come in for a hearing to explain it okay in per you know in person and then at that point um we have the opportunity to modify the Tiff and things happen sometimes like for example we've seen situations where someone was putting up a large building and they hit ledge and it took them two years longer to put the building up than they expected and so they essentially had a forego the first two years of the Tiff because they didn't even have a certificate of occupancy cases like that well the reason we didn't hit our numbers is our building's not done yet those types of things so you know we try to work with everybody to make sure that that it goes as smoothly as possible but you know rest assured there is there is compliance reporting on annual basis and then there was clawback available so oh so like this particular example would have in this compliance agreement the 20 jobs or invest 1.8 million into the the project or something exactly and usually um those jobs are are not expected on day one it might be you know two this year four next year or five the year after that or whatever the numbers are okay and that's what we'll track against that's what what they'll report against okay that's interesting that's helpful to know I think so thank you yeah and then last thing I was sh here with you is of the 351 communities in the Commonwealth I believe around 145 um have taken advantage of the program so it's it's you know a fairly popular program uh for communities to leverage to kind of send a message that you're business friendly and you want you know to diversify your tax base than da maybe one final one is just the the state sort of matching um or not matching but um the additional State funds which would be available not not looking to pin you to any sort of number to that but you know how does that process generally go I mean is it so like this this this would be done for and I'm asking just more maybe for the committee's education on these going forward but um if this project moves forward um then what happens at the state level like to move that forward and see if there's what kind of you know so our board meets quarterly to to hear you know the testimony and and to vote on both the local and the state credits the next meeting is in June so that's what we're targeting right now um and prior to that um our internal team will make recommendations to the board as far as what we think is a reasonable tax credit to offer on the state's side okay we'll take whatever the town you know agrees with for the Tiff um the range is typically between $5,000 per job created up to $15,000 per job created uh we tend to skew heavier for manufacturing jobs which which these will be as he's transitioning his business from you know Landscaping to essentially you know manufacturing of of the the the prefab uh stone walls um so that would skew higher um and at the highest end of that range would be Gateway cities you know you guys are not a Gateway obviously so you know my guess would be we're coming between 75 10,000 but I mean it's not not ultimately not my decision but I think we'll be in that range J I'm sorry yeah per job and so even if you use a 7500 number times 20 jobs that's $150,000 uh of State credits uh in addition to whatever the calculated value is of the of the Tiff I see okay that's great Greg is there anything else you think we should know well the the rest has to do with the um business model and so my guess is we may want to hear from the owner um because basically what we're investing in is uh somebody's idea for a business now this is a um uh something I took an independent look at because this was my first warrant article um and so I've done some analysis of it but this this is really the owner's story and I'd like to hear it from him first I'm going to hold on one second we it sounds like don't have actual language in front of us that has been finalized is um I'm sorry for everyone watching we just got the most recent draft warrant and then this article is very different than the one we had um how far off are we off Maran from having actual final language for this article I we don't like to vote on things that are changing we we have a lot to go through tonight I will offer just a little bit of guidance here too is you know most um warrant articles are written in the form of authorize the select board to negotiate a tiff as opposed to the actual nuts and bolts and term and discount percentages um because I I think you know try to avoid a situation where you have a tiff negotiated on town meeting floor is always uncomfortable for for everybody and and so I'm not sure what the form of your warrant article is taking but you know most of them are along the lines of authorized the select board to negotiate now you you as fincom obviously need to understand the finances behind it yeah no that that is true generally we have there is a summary that we are willing to give much more good faith to which includes numb so we we are not as a finance committee blanket willing to yeah of course no I understand negotiate on our behalf if I may Madam chair uh I'd like to suggest that we could possibly vote on this tonight with the possibility that we could reconsider before town meeting uh if for some reason the contract language doesn't meet uh our expectations other feelings okay um we're we're not making a motion so I'm not going to take a vote on that um recognizing the volume of things we have to go through and that there will be a good presentation at town meeting with an opportunity for the business owner to present um and based on what you have learned Greg do you think it is worth our while to make a motion and discuss this yes um I I I think the have a viable business model um I think this is a win-win for the town I understand we've been bitten before and there can be grandiose things this is um you know based on you know they've got a sister company that's been doing business in actin for 30 years they uh um are basically offering a product where you build the stone retaining wall ahead of time and then deliver it which is not you know a technology that oh my gosh what happens if chips become shorten Supply or whatever in other words this this is a doable thing and um uh they are local they've been en acting all this time um they are also in conquered I think this is a good idea okay do we want to make a motion I move we approve Article 15 or recommend Article 15 sorry got got to get my language straight second all right Scott did you hear that I do have that yes Article 15 um motion to be approved okay um any motion to recommend motion to recommend um any discussion again I it will be reconsidering this if it's other than the 5ye 50 43020 give my opinion thank you agre okay um Scott please lead us in a vote Dave I'll go back to you I didn't hear you I right thank you Greg hi chrisy hi Jason Hi Steve I Roland I and I'm an I thank you we M chair members of the committee thank you and uh your the your line of questioning is spoton very thorough and diligent thank you um this will go into the warrant as a recommend if there are big changes we see we have one more meeting before the town meeting we reserve the right to stand up on the floor and change our opinion at any point in time so keep it in line with what we've seen here thank you thank you okay moving on to our next agenda item um is the special town meeting which is happening next Wednesday at 700 p.m. at the high school CH did you want us to put up some of what you sent or do you want to just talk to that be a good idea um it's all it's it's just Jason and um they asked for a template so I just used like like pie in the sky numbers um you know based on some research on the internet as opposed to any hard numbers because it's just a template to give an example of the type of thing so I sent you some slides I can go over really quickly well on a second Jason's going to put them up now uh reiterate for everyone out there we are talking about impact studies impact studies for any sort of significant zoning changes there is zero I don't want to hear the word MBT a thank you in our discussion y y awesome so while he's doing that I'll just say that uh land use impact studies examine what a proposed land use change will result in in terms of things like cost of services revenue and taxes cost of infrastructure Etc you guys can read that through um and you can hand this out um afterwards uh before and after usually it's a worst case versus profitable probable versus do nothing uh they help towns make smarter decisions you can go to the next slide um um this is uh this next slide is what we used to do in Acton with major land purchases and with um you know a zoning change would would qualify as a major land use change uh this is done in 2001 based on Bill mullen's brother John mullen's um also the now famous Mullen study and it looked at when do you break even on uh you know the number of kids and stuff like that so um and I'm not going to go over that here that's just a clip from that study which you can have um it is still valid because it's just math it says hey here's some costs you add them all up and that's what things cost uh so the next page um one of the things it did did it missed or maybe consciously left out because sometimes it's hard to do things so you leave it out for now is cumulative impact on things like infrastructure and water and nearby property values so doesn't look at you know if you do something in this neighborhood how does it impact you know within the quarter mile within a th000 ft um it also doesn't more modern Municipal land impact analysis looks at things like Community value open space affordability risk of historic assets environment traffic Etc displacement risk of tenants and small businesses next page um this is a typical kind of template for uh a basic fiscal analysis you know number of homes number of bedrooms number of students number of Acres commercial you can calculate how much of the taxes coming from new tax revenues coming from residential versus commercial uh for number of bedrooms and uh the percentage of commercial also helps the Acton water district do their impact analysis um the impervious land helps with the recharge rate on the water the wells protected open space is also helpful for our Community Values but tax tax revenue down the bottom percentage of each I can give you examples of other towns that do this pretty regularly cars trips per day on various main intersections the next um was just a uh zoom in on the Reit prenderville study so in case it was hard to see and you want to look at that and then the uh next one down next page down is more socioeconomic type things uh the affordability so if you put aot if you take down a $500,000 house and you put up 10 uh $700,000 condos how does that affect our affordability um you know how many naturally affordable homes will be lost if this and that you know current Max and probable uh tenant displacement risk carbon footprint historic buildings all things in our master plan and this stuff is not that hard to put together if the town wants to uh the the next page is a a template for um an affordability impact analysis which is not in your mission but I urge you to think about that again it's like taking down certain affordability levels and adding on top of that the next page after that is the a page from the Milton impact analysis where they decided to fight the artist formerly known as Prince no uh so my point is is that oh and they discovered in their impact analysis that they did not include cumula and infrastructure and so they had to redo some things but anyway next one down next page down some questions to consider will impact analysis help us make decisions for all zoning change or just major and significant zoning proposals how do we decide on which zoning proposals to analyze uh you know uh New York for example anything that's a blocker over gets a significant uh zoning impact analysis I just the framework for the scope of work for the is like 80 Pages for a block um towns you have smaller ones often the staff do it themselves uh and if we want to engage in such analysis to what level of depth so the next page is a oh I don't know possible approach um where the staff provides the basic data volunteer experts supplement and staff the staff provided data uh a lot of the stuff is formulaic so you have ways to calculate carbon foot you have ways to calcul Calculate cost of services it's just math uh volunteers prepare and agree on templates to use the data so you have a subcommittee they go off and run off and do things um fincom subcommittee could do fiscal green Advisory Board they can do the carbon footprint they already got those formulas the historical commission can do the historic asset impact real estate volunteers we have enough of those around here ten Rights group can sit down and talk about affordability tenant displacement risk and neighboring property value impact and then review and discuss of course and get um concerns from act and water district and you got the memo from act and water district right okay thanks and then the next one is I the last page is just like this is just a like let's just see what the re type model does you know let's look at okay well if you get 50 units you know of a proposed zoning change what happens um and then of course there's the grants if you do or don't get them who knows and um so this type of analysis is it useful do we want to do it that's the end of my presentation um thank you any questions Greg yeah why does this need a special town meeting oh I'm happy sorry I'm going to cut that question off it's happening I I appreciate where I I want to make sure the discussion stays focused on yes the issue we are going to speak about um this s word meeting got a little heated in the but in 3 seconds it's because I asked for this for a year and a half and I got nothing if I had gotten this data way back then you'd have already had impact analysis at least my cut at it Dave how do you how do you ensure like that this data is is objective like and just strictly you know numbers based and just hypothetically if if there was a template or something like that and you know and and I asked because you know all the different groups in town I mean I think you'd want to have the the most objective information to put in front of a group and you know there's some trade-offs with I think what you've presented here is is in some ways it's almost too much information in a lot of ways like you could get bogged down in so many different areas all of which are important um but you know it could just end up leading to more of a circular conversation so um maybe my question is two twofold is one is who would who would do this analysis and then you know sort of provide some make sure it's objective and then two you know second secondary is you know could it be compartmentalized in a much more fine-tuned way to easily disseminated for for for for the town um I I honestly I don't I'm not totally I I I could see the value of having more information and more data but you know I'm also in the sort of you know analysis paralysis side of it of you know we could look at this a lot of different ways and it just depends on how the information is presented so um yeah anyways yes so um okay um so the the basic data the basic land use data would come from the town so they know or can calculate how many units Max and how many units probable like give us your best guess people can argue about it whatever but we just use it cost of services we have history on that um I'm personally for fincom I want to show the difference between associate economic stuff and then the hard-hitting um uh the fiscal analysis so the third page in let's see the popular land use data um Jason it's one two 3 4 four pages in this is the type of stuff that the fincom did in the early part of the century and somehow it just started slipping past us you know we just assumed that land use was good and you know excuse me that uh saving land is good and then there was this analysis that was done so I propose that we just get this you know with that we can do all kinds of stuff we can show you things from data that comes from the town as opposed to made up numbers uh I can go to GIS and I can calculate all that stuff and probably present something pretty good to you guys uh but unless the data comes to the town you know there's questions of you know did you measure it right and all of that so let's just get it from the town this is not um you know if you paid a consultant they would do it but I the a of the consultant would actually turn to the town and say how many units would be allowed how many square feet I mean they they did the calculations already when they were developing the um the warrant article warrant G KS which won't be named uh so I propose that just that data so right what you got right there will give us enough to at least do some decent uh impact analysis you know supplemented by some volunteers you know people from this committee and that committee you know and we know all these people you know we know who they are and uh you know when they say things we can say well we don't agree with that or we do agree with it but until we have something in front of us it's just a template right now I mean I would very much like to show you something that's fairly complete so that you can see what the impact of your decision otherwise you know sort of like you know in a sense this is uh potentially a quarter of the town this is potentially a 25% of the value of the Town billion dollar billion and a half dollars and that you're going to make the decision without any impact analysis to me that just seems like so it seems financially irresponsible because we have the data right in front of us and we have the formulas we have the way that people do the impact analysis it's just math and um so it's it's information that is not only fairly easy to create but it's um information that other towns won't make planned use decisions without uh now we had this information maybe not all of it um to my recollection when we looked at the rezoning potential rezoning of the Kmart lot yeah exactly um and I know we as a committee talked about it a bunch because there were concerns about the impact it would have on the school budgets especially um what sort of housing um how many bedrooms Etc would be in there was that information yeah generated by the town at the time I I don't think so I think what they did is they got um what's his name down in West Acton to do the basic analysis and then that was taken and then volunteers like fincom took it from there so that's same thing so but staff can get us that data and we can do the same calculations that we did on the Kmart parcel so your proposal as I'm understanding it right now is that the select board have the creation of something like this that would be applied to various zoning Chang yeah that come before it of whatever they deem or the public tells them is of significant size and we'd like this level of information correct so that you know if you did it this year then if there's another one you might update the numbers but once you've gotten the the template and the formulas everybody understands the template and the formulas it's just plugging in new numbers now uh some of the information you have asked for uh comes up or just in a previous discussions i' I've heard from you you believe about this having to do with storm water input um yeah that's a tricky one but what you can do is you can derive it so for example what I was going to say is that comes up actually in the permitting process except for that if you can't prove that it will happen because of that particular project then you end up with a cumulative impact that was paid for by nobody which is what's happening now so all of these development projects should have contributed to the storm water so that we would have no storm water infrastructure shortfall of money there would be plenty of money in the storm water fund to to pay for all the storm water fixes that need to be done at a town level but what happens is that the little bit that little driveway add that house you know all that stuff adds up but nobody collects it on the individual project so what I'm hearing I believe is that um you're hoping that this broader analysis would guide the town towards ensuring that those incremental changes yes absolutely absolutely I so my whole complaint about bad planning you know years ago you know I was hoping that they would be doing this stuff and that that would be kind of automatically happening and it hasn't been and so now it's now we're facing you know some very significant decisions and I feel like it's time to start crunching the numbers on the storm water front I'm a little confused because it sounds like the planning was there but the enforcement is necessary it's hard to tell cuz I don't want to like have blame spend a lot of time on blame but but it's important to know where the where the cracks are yeah so it's hard to tell where the cracks are exactly but what you can do is you can make calculations to determine if a major zoning proposal will make that majorly worse or not so much I see okay anyone else have any Jason yeah a couple of comments uh since I did um go back and forth with you on this um over the last couple of weeks but actually before I before I make my make my comments would either of you two gentlemen like to speak on this or Scott I would just like to ask G where's the cut off on this you know is it every single commercial development does it a threshold that has to be met so in the Kmart particular case um it was determined that it would be 200 plus units I can't remember the number 260 something like that and so that might seem a FR threshold um I I don't think that we have to make a decision now on what threshold we use for future years um but I would certainly say that if it's going to cause a new school need or if it's possibly going to cause a another Kelly's Corner in South Acton I don't know but that that somewhere along the line we've got to say to ourselves what's that threshold not today not even tomorrow but some at some point to have a discussion about how much of a threshold because it's all cumulative it all adds up this project that project well there is cumulative but we don't get to evaluate all the projects at the same time that's right but come up they come up when they come up um and so what the issue I see in this is you know until we establish ceilings or you know what's our water capacity Max what's our you know storm water you know Wastewater capacity uh then how do we know we're allocating to the right project well the um act and water district has concerns about capacity about the three zoning articles um I would I would chance to say that if you have a certain number of units and your intersections can't accommodate it that would be a great place to start so so we get the numbers and we'll know do we do anything deeper or is that enough like maybe that's enough and that has told us that the threshold hasn't been met and that we're not worried about it because what this is is right now we have a buildout that's allowed on the current land according to zoning action water district can't um meet the water needs for the existing buildout so now somebody's proposing increasing doubling the the buildout they they left the buildout that's left um so to me that's a threshold that's been met still see some problems with implementation and you know it if the last guy in has to Bear the cost of all the previous guys who got through without bearing the cost of increasing the capacity then you're going to say no to the last guy when maybe you should have said no to the guy before but I'm not saying let's do a project by project I'm saying quite the opposite I'm saying if we're considering increasing the buildout let's do that analysis now so we have enough capacity that we know that we're comfortable that we have enough capacity for XYZ uh thousands of units I mean I don't want to debate it to but we don't that's not part of the the long range plan the capital plan doesn't talk about building out residential or commercial property so uh how I just don't quite see how this works uh other than maybe with a very large um proposal because the proposals come before the town when they come before them by the people that want to do them at the time uh and um so I can see some value in doing this kind of thing for a very large one uh but I'm worried that we're just going to get bogged down in producing uh a lot of analysis that will lead to nothing well I'm probably going to do it myself um with my my numbers that I come up with which again are pretty reasonable formulas that people use um I feel like it will be better for everybody if the town provides the basic numbers so that we can work off of those numbers as opposed to my using my numbers and making claims and then the town like why isn't the town doing this that's the big question that people ask me 400 people sign a petition and they say why isn't the town doing this and I say you got me so you may not want to do the planning I just want to know if you guys want to help do the planning and if not I'll just go off and do it Rand I think doing something like this without having some kind of threshold in place is a waste of time hold on um this is a citizen's petition non-binding guidance to the select board I I think it's unfair just because we sound like some of us are heading in the direction of shooting it down because it's not fully detailed it it shouldn't be at this point in time that's not the purpose of this article I agree with you I I was actually going to speak to that once everyone's had a chance to finish uh Scott would you like to say sorry I just wanted to interject that R and please continue Scott would you like to weigh in on this before I make my comments I'm I'm good good thank you thank you um uh I'm going to start by saying I hate non-binding citizens petitions I again just trying to be consistent I hate and I hate when people say it's not binding therefore it's not important um I definitely respect the select board for saying that they will take up and honestly uh pursue any recommended citizens petition um I was the one that asked you to come with a template and I think you've done a lot of what I had asked you to do um when you and I went on our had our last back and forth on this there were the two sticking points that I had which I believe have been mentioned by both Mr wellinghoff and Mr noon which is what is the accountability how do we make sure that that this is um that that we're all dealing from the same set of facts everyone can have their own opinions but I want to make sure we all have the same set of facts and so we need to make sure that we have some kind of agreement on what that's going to be and then the second uh topic was um how to make sure the the way they positioned it tonight is what's the threshold I was coming at it from a second position which is I don't want to spend tens of thousands of dollars on every single on every single zoning article that ever comes up so um I I do think that there is I do think there is value in this I absolutely think there is value in this because otherwise we are saying we're making a proposal um and it's going to have some kind of impact but we're not even willing to put a you know Dart in the board on the impact I like how in your um template you have the max range which is of course the Doomsday range and that's if if if the developers came in and built everything the minute they were allowed to um which is of course not feasible and not realistic um but it is awesome Al a mathematical thing that can be figured out and I like the idea of having a probable probable impact we're going to argue over what's probable and what's likely so I think you'd probably be better off to have some kind of range or or ident ask to identify what the first trip wire would be and whether that first trip wire is we run out of water capacity we run out of traffic Capac capacity we run out of seats in the elementary schools we run out of seats in the high school these are trip wires that can be can be calculated and predicted and then can be measured against this so rather than having to necessarily come up with this is what we think the range is we can say this is what's allowable under this new whatever whatever new zoning opportunity comes up this is the first thing that we're going to run up against or going to run First Resource we're going to run out of if this zoning goes through and X number you know if if it's a zoning if a zoning proposal comes up and you pick your first trip wire I don't want to I don't want to pick on any one trip wire but pick whatever trip wire you want if if we're not going to hit that first trip wire till 80% of the absolute maximum theoretical buildout okay well then our risk is relatively small if we're going to hit a trip wire at 10% of the theoretical then that becomes something that should be much more apparent and much more concerning and should be raised earlier on but how do we get that with if the town isn't giving us the numbers right now we don't know how many numbers Powder Mill or South Acton Village don't go there okay don't go there oh sorry right I didn't say I'm I'm agreeing with you Tara don't I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm agreeing in the on the idea that this is something that needs to be done I'm also agreeing with the c C that we're not going to have a perfect proposal between now and next Wednesday but I would like well yeah next Wednesday is the the special time meeting but I am going to say that I like the spirit of this I like that there has been a template put forward and I would I would suspect that you are willing to continue to work to have a template to to come to an agement terms something else that we probably need to agree to is are we going to use the Mullen method are we going to use some other method and before we even go to that level I absolutely want to give the town staff an opportunity to come back and say we've looked at a couple of methods this is the method that we like best is it acceptable to you right so let's have a little negotiation on this and move it forward yep my other guidance to the town to the town staff I do not want to hire outside consultants for this I do not want to bury the town staff either I believe that part of the negotiation that we do with with Tera and the other petitioners on this is to make sure that we have truly minimal information that we are all confident is some are our valuable inputs to have if we start getting a list of 200 criteria I'm going to be against this if it's a relatively small number of criteria and we can agree on it in the next couple of next you know collaborative work over the next couple of uh sessions then by all means let's do that so uh Madam chair I I move that we recommend this article with the stipulation that there is not a final uh final uh template in place at this time and that we would direct all parties to try and come to a reasonable template in within the next fiscal year before we have a second on that um do we think it's beneficial to go into this with a a formalized final template or I don't believe we can have a formalized final template between now and next one no I I I'm not sure that it is the job of this petition to to you don't want to hand over a sort of a Fed comp to the select board and say here do exactly this I think as you were saying there has to be room for the people who know more about the planning process too that's why I offered to make sure that we negotiate it over the next little while and have it done by the end of this this next fiscal year okay um do we have a second I second got that Scott got it okay um actually I miss who said the second I did oh okay could you please lead us through a vote uh yeah for discussion I'm sorry yes please debate Steve I'm not against planning um however I I am not in favor of special Town meetings uh to have non-binding I'm going to tell you what I told Greg here and and you can tell me to shut up but basically all this does is tell a town to do their job ah and um I'm not sure they're not anyone else I agree um I appreciate that this puts all of the information that the town might very well be doing in one place in a format for us to understand and do our own analysis especially having been through the situation of um the look at resoning for uh the potential resoning of the Kmart lot this is exactly what we discussed um the town might have the information I know some of this comes up after the fact when individual product uh projects are permitted but I don't know how we can be asked to to put forth any opinions on zoning bylaw changes of scale whatever that scale is of without this information yes Jason to that same end Madam chair I went to to the uh planning board meeting last week and I asked for the exact parcel count um and I was told I'd get that information I was also I also asked uh if the parcel count had the number of bedrooms and they said they couldn't possibly get me that information which um actually surprised me because if you and and I did go to GIS and uh list out all the different uh all of the different uh Parcels that I could find um but what what shocked me is when they said they couldn't tell me the number of bedrooms that should absolutely be plan a record and if it's not plan a record it's something we can get off of Zillow and realtor again I'm not looking to make thousands of hours of work for the town but before you put forward a large zoning proposal of any kind basic information should be available and so um respectfully uh yes I agree this should be done by the town and this probably is the town job and it is entirely possible that I missing this data and it's available but I have not seen it and I asked for it last week and I was a little surprised when it was not available at for at the time of the zoning board when the zoning board was trying to well when the planning board was planning to vote on it they did not have that information at their fingertips yeah that shock it please oh sorry that shocked me and so therefore I think asking for a more codified more accountable view is not unreasonable um also in other zoning related situations there has been a clear delineation especially um discussions around the sewering along great Road and other things there is an indication of the number of lots and what the effect various things have had would have on the um impact of the groundwater Etc um so in my mind this is in some ways getting it all in one place I don't think it's unreasonable information and it might simply be that what's being asked for the result here in the end is that there is a unified place that and and form that some part of the planning department as my guest fills out and they place that they post it and everyone can easily see it they and that's why I said a template because I do what I do not want to have happen is I do not want there to be one set of rules for this this zoning proposal and another set of rules for a zoning proposal 3 four five years from now that's why I wanted a as generic a template as possible so also why I said I don't expect us to have this solved in the next couple of months but but I believe that we should commit to having a templatized repeatable understandable way of having a having Comm in information moving forward I believe we're going to be debating all those other articles at correct I mean just point of order yes yeah so um what we seem to be doing is trying to avoid the elephant in the room I am actually very personally explicitly not doing that I am trying to ignoring if you took all those Warr articles off I want to know no what we should be doing here fair fair enough I I would like to know what we're doing here too but one of the challenges that we're going to have with all those other warrant articles that we should also think about is getting people to attend town meeting night two and one of the things I'm hearing from my friends and neighbors is we needed a special town meeting to hear this one issue I'm going to cut this off again I'm sorry that has nothing to do with our point that should have nothing to do with our recommendation to the taxpayers this meeting I I I hear you but that's what I'm hearing oh that is everyone's right to have but our job here is to present given the current information our best possible Financial based recommendation Scott anything you want to add I I I will go with my prior statement that I am good making additional comments ter do you want to say something else yes um that the special town meeting isn't a referendum on whether or not we should have a special town meeting about impact studies it is about whether we want impact studies um and uh Milton got the information on bedrooms the uh Town staff got the number of bedrooms for the buildout for Great Road in the sewer study there's like when they want to do number of bedrooms and do the estimates they can do it and the actum water district can't tell you uh how much water they can pump excuse me they can't tell you whether the the zoning a zoning proposal uh can be accommodated without knowing the number of bedrooms and or just an estimate you know as Michaela Moran said at the planning board she's a real estate agent you can use averages she can use averages and so is that what we're gonna have to do we'll just do it ourselves um that's fine except for I'll bet you that that you guys would make better decisions if you had the information from your professional staff members thank you thank you okay um I would like to have a vote now Scott could you please um sorry Jason could you please repeat the motion the motion is to recommend this artical with the caveat that we uh believe that it needs to be fleshed out more fully and templatized during the next fiscal year during this upcoming fiscal year all right Scott would you please take us through a vote fa I can go and reverse order um Roland I Steve no Jason I chrisy I Greg no Dave hi I'm going vote in favor believe that's 5 to two that motion passes cool um may I ask you I have to go to the planning board meeting and see if I can catch that I'll be back if not if it's over um but I hope that you defer um voting to recommend the uh don't go there oh okay um any articles that have not been voted on yet by the planning board that we have not had a chance to their meeting will not be voted on tonight they voted to progress them they didn't vote correct they have do another night okay thanks so much okay ahead mad Madam chair I'm willing to remove my hold on article 25 since the town manager has graciously answered my question okay um let me get back to my list article 25 the septage disposal Enterprise all right would you like to make a recommendation since we're here a bunch of them at once I tried that before I know and I stopped you um so I would re I would move to recommend articles at 21 through 32 so that is to let me read this off prudent investment rule yeah amending the general bylaws for the revolving funds revolving fund budgets commuter light and station maintenance um septage disposal Enterprise how far down did you go I went down to 32 insurance proceeds um we already voted on 30 through 35 yep thank you Transportation recycling Enterprise budget sewer Enterprise budget ambulance Enterprise Budget Transportation Enterprise budget um so I amend my motion to be you can hold so we'll hold 21 so 22 to 29 all right second um so right now we are just discussing um the recommendation is to approve recommend recommend a motion to recommend 22 through 21 articles 22 through 21 do we have a second second all right um debate time discussion is everyone happy with that list before we get too far into it um is who has any of those articles have any concerns that they think should be mentioned I know this is a a quick [Applause] pass I do not no okay um then let's go ahead the motion is to recommend articles 20 through 21 22 through 29 22 through 29 wonderful thank you uh Dave hi Greg hi chrisy hi Jason Hi Roland I Steve I and I will agree as well thank you um okay I'm sorry I'm thrown off by the fact that we have a new draft that I haven't had a chance to look at let's start with the easy stuff well could we since we we still 17 through 21 on 21 talk about1 yes please so sorry have my mic please go ahead so I'm just trying to understand what it actually is and what it actually means and I know David's the uh select board representative was here in our audience this evening and David could you give an overview on that or John hi good evening John man Town manager um we met with our financial advisers over the winter and uh one of the recommendations that they uh suggest is that we adopt this prudent uh investor rule which allows us to use a little more flexibility with the Investments that we're making and it's based on uh best practices um from our financial institution which is Bartholomew um actually our director of administration and finance uh could could weigh in on as well but that's generally what it is it's just you know our performance is is pretty good in terms of financial Returns on the things that we do invest our trust funds and our other um funding that we are able to invest and without adopting this there's there's limitations on what we can invest in and we're not asking for C brch to invest in the entire uh availability but we're asking to follow this prudent investor rule which which is a standard for companies and investment assets or whatever you call them that are um considered prudent so would that be done by current staff are you going to need somebody else to manage that our Treasurer collector um takes the lead on that but she works closely with um the financial advisers okay so it's taking money that you may have an exess for right now putting me into a 3 Monon CD that's paying 5 half% or something like that versus keeping something different no uh well not exactly I think it's more the the the funding that we have invested in our trust funds is in a portfolio that has the appropriate level of diversity as it should this local adoption would give us a little more flexibility to potentially invest in some um companies that were not not allowed to currently invest in but are considered to be prudent Investments and we can have a a better explanation from Teresa or I don't know if you have anything further um that is correct so as John had mentioned is that there is a current list and I want to say either it's currently 21 or could be expanded to 21 and whether it's like large cap small cap International domestic but through Bartholomew is that they do that investment on behalf of the town and with that is that if this language is passed it allows Bartholomew to work with the town on continuing to be The Prudent investor but with a longer list of choices of investment thank you just um I work with Bartholomew and the schools opab trust fund have worked with them for years they're they specialize in Municipal governments and Advising them on investment strategy I found them to be very knowledgeable and um and get good results Dave do you know what the standard is now if they they want to change to the The Prudent investor I don't know the specific concept but we can get that for you what what standard we're held to now without adopting this sure we can get you that it it might be the prudent man rule which I think is more restrictive Than The Prudent investor and both require them to act as a fiduciary with respect to the trust and do what's in the best interest of the trust etc etc but I think prudent investor is just loosing of that as you put it just not nearly as restrictive as prudent man I I believe that is correct okay anything else would you like to make a motion on this or do you want to wait for more language I'm good um motion to recommend second did you get that Scott I thought I Roland and Steve I could be a mistaken right correct all right so and and uh what I missed was which numbered item this is 21 21 21 okay please lead us through the roll call all right roll call um Dave I Greg I Christie I Jason I Steve I Roland I and I will agree as well all right next up um GSM want to ask some questions about article 20 yes um article 20 uh Mr manager article 20 looks uh very straightforward it's accept land gift portion of 38 Piper Road um I unfortunately have not had a chance to ask any questions about this or dig into it um and in all honesty I have literally one one question that I would love your uh love your input on is there any risk of there being any dams or underground uh super fund sites or any other thing that's going to end up costing the town an unexpected amount of money because we did not check exactly what was on this property before we before we decided to uh accept this land grant I beat you to that question uh I that's the same thing I asked uh when we started working on this and that's partially why the language hasn't been finalized yet um what this ultimately will will be though is authorization for the board to accept it under terms and conditions that they deem appropriate or that it deems appropriate and uh appropriate due diligence would be part of that uh we're not going to be able to do that now uh so it would just be simply authorizing the town to accept the gift uh there is also the potential where this individual may want to donate it for conservation purposes only and as such may be able to do so by donating directly to the Conservation Commission and not not even need a town meeting um but we would have the same due diligence uh in place in that scenario too so that's a placeholder uh but that's uh that's how that's my answer to your question um if it's a placeholder do you expect it to materially change in the next three weeks or is this literally just an authorization for some future time yeah so the what this will ultimately be if it doesn't say it already is uh authorize the select board to acquire by gift uh a portion of the land at 38 at that address listed uh under terms and conditions as it deems appropriate and so um that will be the extent of it okay unfortunately that's not the art that's not the language in this article at this time what it just says placeholder right yeah it just says email from Attorney Kevin Willis owner wishes to will por town to the land land to the town so well I what I just described is is the current version of of the warrant that we asked you to consider we're looking at the draft 47 version which is the most recent I've seen right but I think what I what I just said all loud is is the language that we would ask you to consider or or or defer on considering but it's that's that's the that's the the warrant language yeah I Fe I'm going to defer on other things so I'll will go ahead and recommend U motion to recommend uh uh accepting a land grant uh with uh pursuant to due diligence second okay so we have a motion to recommend and a second Scott's getting a workout tonight I'm SC grabbing away that was uh was that Steve that seconded that yes yes all right this is U which article number is this one 20 accept land grant portion of 38 Piper Road it's best to go by names in case this change the numbering changes again in the next three weeks okay all right I'll do the roll is that okay please yes please all right uh Roland I Steve I Jason I Christie I Greg I Dave I and I will agree as well right the motion passes um do we want to Let's jump back to the beginning now okay that sounds great um my recollection is that we do not generally give a recommendation for both choosing Town officers and hearing and accepting reports um so we're going to skip those that is the first two articles The Third Article actually John do we know if the third article when we'll know whether the The Third Article will happen if that's the budget transfer article uh I'd want to keep it on here just in case but at this point we're not envisioning uh needing it okay this is the budget transfer from um to cover a potential shortfall because of the health insurance trust information with no numbers we defer I I I I would ask us to please defer okay second all right we have a motion to defer does that need a motion it wasn't really could you could you please make a motion but do we need a motion if we're if we're just not going to because we're what okay because there's the possibility they're going to come to us between now and the night of the meeting in which case we will vote on it then so for now if we just don't say anything at all it's deferred defer means we well we can always change our mind but defer means right but if we say nothing at all it's a pocket defer we should vote on recommendation no recommendation or not recommended and defer we just let roll okay I just want them to write defer in the warrant flightman recommend without a without a number okay I will keep inul I think we don't in fact have a motion no we don't okay so are we all comfortable with deferring this yes yes okay just make it sure I agree um Town operating budget I believe we already voted on this back when we did our budget hearing we voted to recommend back when we had our budget hearing we did okay we recommended it I'm just happy one more article down okay um Jason Town Capital Public Works Public Safety and public celebrations amazingly how quickly my words come back to me I said I'd be deferring other articles because I was unprepared uh for theight and this is one of one such article so I I do not have enough information at this time to come to the committee I'm afraid we're going to have to kick it until the uh pre pre-own meeting meeeting um I do would I would just like to say that I I find it unfortunate that and this is not it's not any one person's fault I do think it's unfortunate that we received the draft draft warrant with only one meeting prior to uh to it so um I will I will do my very best to get to get my ducks in a row on Article 5 as soon as possible did you want to say something John just that that I'm available to answer any questions about the capital plan it's the same one that we've been discussing for the last few months hasn't changed understood I will I will be following up with you in the next couple of days thank you uh Christine has the next article which is Town Capital infrastructure design and construction burrowing um she is unavailable tonight so we will also be deferring that um Scott you'd like to um discuss the act in boxboro Regional School District budget maybe make a motion uh I would make a motion to uh accept recommend this recommend this sorry wrong terminology do you have a second second all right uh discussion I believe just like with the town budget and the school budget and the ALG process we've done we've that's that that is what I was going to say but I said it's soften my language thank you so I do believe we're good to go yeah um I just for anyone who's watching if you're new to this process um specifically for the budgets that we will be discussing we have had so many discussions over the course of time about these individual budgets we are not in fact rubber stamping them we're simply not repeating the various discussions we've already had um so we have a motion and a second Scott would you lead us through a vote please sure uh Dave hi Greg I chrisy I Jason I Steve I Roland I and I agree as well next up is the Minuteman Regional School District assessment see yeah that one's mine um so the total spending um as you may recall uh for many May went up about 4% um most of that being in capital um the operating budget went up 3% um non-assessment Revenue the Chapter 70 facilities rental chapter 71 was up significantly so the member assessments for Minute Man only went up by less than 1% 82 our assessment is of course going up by much more than that um 9.6 um and when I analyze the numbers basically 8.7 of the 9.6 is just due to the enrollment growth from Acton the remainder point8 is just the assessment growth so um as I see it um for us minute man is just a um it's a cost of the success of them recruiting students from Acton um and so uh I would uh recommend this article second anyone second any discussion um the enrollment has effectively effectively leveled off so we shouldn't see the large jumps that we have seen um separate from these budget increases I believe the school's at capacity so they can't take any more oh you're working okay um Scott would you take us through a vote please sir um Dave hi Greg I chrisy I Jason I Steve I Roland I and I I'm an i as well and the motion passes thank you um next up is the community preservation program um Roland the article we have here says it's a draft from uh March 28th do you know if this is the version we should be talking about I haven't seen any updates since then I can follow up maybe we should hold off on this one just because we don't have [Applause] the let John can speak to it yes John hi uh just like the capital article this hasn't changed uh since it was approved and recommended by the comme preservation committe oh okay so it it has been approved by them it was yeah this is their recommendation wonderful so I motion that we recommend the community preservation program Direct Appropriations from fund balances second um is there anything right hold on a second Scott is there anything it's time for discussion um just making sure I don't see anyar yeah is there anything in here that you would like to call to our attention Roland no not not at this time I think everything looks pretty much standard that's what we've had before there okay set St service no I'm good with with everything that's on here right now I I I will point out one thing Regional Housing Services Program which is article which is sub article l in this one few years ago especially when I was on the committee back now 10 years ago used to be recommending in twoyear slots so it would be 880,000 2-year appropriation now in the last couple of years they've gone to doing this yearly so that if they pull true to that that'll still be coming up every year and it does provide a lot a lot of bang for the buck in that and it also frees up town staff time to do their jobs here and not have to administer this and a lot of it was done ncy havir who is you know up there right now and can't dedicate the amount of time to it so it's a it's a good that is a great service to the town so I do recommend this article di uh spending Appropriations see the dog park um if I recall when they presented several years ago that that they swore that was the extent of the funding needed for that space I think that was 25,000 or something like that we didn't discuss at the time like what we thought about it coming from the town budget or CPC but um here it is um I my understanding was this was going to the ball was going to be picked up and ran after that meeting and no more money from the town was needed yeah I remember something about there being a grant involved yeah there is a grant on this one it's they they has received $225,000 from Stanton and 40,000 private donations the remaining items to be funded by the 100,000 appropriation accessible water fountains benches solar lights and maintenance shed dogway station trash barrels additional funding for design I I I thought myself the design was already completed um it it sounds like the scope of what they're doing has grown beyond what we were initially I think that's the told yeah um it is is one of those things that tweaks me when we're told something is all set and it won't cost more and then it ends up in a few years they come and ask for money uh what is this the sort of thing people would like to pull out we have it once before MH um not recommended a certain item if so we have the option of doing that if we are so inclined we can also invite someone from the cpcn or someone from the dog park committee to come speak to this at our next meeting so I don't want to vote it down because I'd like to know more information about it but I wouldn't be against us uh recommending everything but subsection C and asking them to come and and speak to us between now now in town meeting yeah okay um I believe we have a motion which this would change I can amend it you can amend it yeah so motion to approve all items under this article except for right now subsection C active Community dog park second agrees to the amendment all right um unless there's more discussion we'll go ahead to the vote does that sound good Scott all right so okay so voting uh Dave hi Greg hi Christie I Jason I Steve I Roland I and I'm in agreement next up is to um vehicle sales and rental amend to the zoning bylaw Greg this is you yeah um I need to do more due diligence on this so if we can uh wait until our next meeting I'm all for deferring it I would just like to um ask uh if if if I may when you do your due diligence on this um this feels to me like one of those instances where in the desire to do the quote right thing we end up being less um less amable to businesses and therefore uh it's the type of thing that would be right up your EDC alley your your your Vibe is similar to my vibe very good then I will then I will leave you be to Che it down because the I did listen to the presentation of the early version of this to the select board and it does seem to be weird that we're going to make it harder for businesses to do business on 2A uh at a time when we are also trying to do some economic development down near noox Trail we are in rare complete agreement um my understanding is that this is not stopping them from happening it's simply saying there has to be a special permit process correct okay but we can we can defer this discussion we want to be careful of not deferring too much such that the next meeting becomes understood horrible and it's people like to have something in there but we also don't want to rush them um Mr Martin Madam chair I happen to be the select board member assigned to this one I'm happy to answer any questions or I could give you a summary or whatever you'd like what would we like your call Greg um sure otherwise I can do my due diligence and we can talk about this later but the the questions that I've got here are there were a variety of proposals that were floated that said we might do it through part of 2A and did any of that get resolved cuz I look through the version of the warrant that we get tonight and all I see is a lot of letters and numbers I don't see any narrative um I'm sorry I'm going to jump in here for a second do you have access to the slides um I I assume it's the parcels listed in the planning board presentation that you gave that's correct it was only three slides yeah I'm just wondering if there's I have to bring that that up if that would help but I don't know where to find those they're so short Madam chair I can just speak to them because it's very very simple there there is a map with these specific Parcels so it um B basically just I can do this I think in like four sentences um after the neog park one the selectboard got a lot of feedback that saying that we needed to control more where um uh cardial ships went so the select board did a discussion the planning board gave the select board two options one was to restrict um um uh car dealerships in part of Great Road and the other one is not to change where they could go but just to require um uh a special permit for any place that they could go so the final proposal in the change in zoning just requires special permit for um uh car dealerships uh on Great Road same areas where they can go now no change in that um um car dealerships whether they're indoor or outdoor display and whether they're rental or or for sale um I'm just going to see if I can pull up that map if you'd like do are there any other questions or would you still like to defer I would still like to defer because the concern that I have is this indoor outdoor display because that was one of the issues that was discussed at the initial presentation and the methodology of the survey that led people to propose that seemed a little sketchy um uh I know the sample was 600 but it was not a representative sample the questions did not explain tradeoffs they uh gave people multiple choice items and so is not clear to me that um basically all the issues have been resolved so I would still like to defer this okay um if you look at the agenda the posted agenda for the planning board's let me tell you exactly April 2nd meeting their packet has a presentation called Zoning for auto dealerships on Great Road presented by Mr Martin that has the map in it that you were wondering about shows exactly the the parcels good um but we can defer this discussion further until our August 23rd meeting August a sorry I I got in way too late last night just trying to skip over everything you know that that's my anniversary I should know that date okay uh moving on to the next article item the dog ate my homework Okay I uh was planning to do due diligence on this yesterday and then the Eclipse thing happened okay NBTA overlay the planning board is voting right now so um they have not made their recommendation as of well they were meeting at 730 today uh so we will have to learn about that and discuss this one next time how about the south act and Village districts Adam is not here would anyone else like to take a lead on discuss this or should we defer it okay next meeting is getting long just put that in everyone's head because it's going to be a big discussion about I just want to make sure we balance that having enough time to have good discussions on things all right next up Dave authorize long-term lease for 19 and 21 Maple Street yeah so this one is um the the ter the the wording is not a part of it right now but essentially this is the Richards property that the town purchased um was authorized to purchase in 2019 which is those two lots it's adjacent on the other side of the tracks but um from the main commuter lot but also in the the general vicinity of train access and the idea at the time was to purchase this property to discuss what sort of parking improvements could have be done and potentially for some sort of shops or breakfast nooks Etc that could serve folks commuting in and this as as I noted was 2019 so since then the property I think has been you know partially occupied by by folks in the town Etc and uh the town is now uh was authorized in 2019 to enter into up to a three-year lease for the property and this uh warrant article would look to authorize a longer term lease um my understanding is there's potential tenant in the Acton food pantry who would be looking to lease the space for um up to 10 years U um and at that point um we would have a tenant there and um I I had a conversation with with Corey and some folks with the town today just about parking in general around uh the train station and you know there's a couple of these satellite Lots um behind the fire station next to the church um by Jones field that are are generally uh unutilized or severely underutilized um there's folks using them for the dog park sort of area back there the general Park of the church or for Jones just to access the the the playground there but uh long story short we don't have nearly the need for commun rail parking as we did so from that perspective I I think this makes sense um John I may have a question for you in just a second but um the when we bought the property we purchased it for 1.1 million and we entered into a 20-year borrowing um at a rate at about 4 and a quar perc and so there's some interest on that borrowing that is paid annually out of the commuter rail lot fund um the the fund itself is is generally you know at roughly half the sort of um Revenue that it was in the 2019 sort of time frame a little above that um but but it varies and you know the utilization generally increases in the middle of the week and much less on the Fridays and Mondays of the world um but long story short um the debt is being serviced for that lot currently from um the communter rail so you know I I I'm certainly supportive of getting a tenant into the property and I think it does think it makes sense to have a longer term lease here and I'm not going to you know um debate you know um the future parking uses Etc or whatever we may have dreamt for it but uh I was wondering you know about this debt which is being serviced by the community out lot and maybe um the town manager could help us understand just you know the structure of a lease um and maybe where rates are in the market now and how that would be uh there to service uh the current borrowing on it and if there's just some sense of um Revenue generation for the lease um Etc how that would be utilized John could you please answer thank you yes so the the debt Services paid from parking lot revenues uh which have been slow but we expect them to pick back up and that would be the primary source for paying back that debt uh there is a proposed um lease although the there isn't a substantial rent that's going that's being proposed given the substantial Renovations that are uh going to be undertaken by the tenant and so uh we do also receive revenue from an ambulance company that rents space in there um on sort of a on an annual basis and so you know our obligation is to pay back that debt and we'll do that uh using the parking lot revenues going forward and to the extent that this lease helps with that that would be great but uh it's not um it's not going to we're not relying on the building Revenue to pay that back to debt the parking will be able to do that um okay and then so can you talk a little bit more just about that is is the idea that the new tenant would spend I'll make up numbers but hundreds of thousands of dollars to update the building or to reave the lot or redesign the lot um Etc and that investment you know in theory would go to the town at the end of the lease term unless they renewed the lease um but it sounds like the rent the actual lease payment would be di Minimus is that right yeah so the town issued an RFP over the winter and we received a few responses um we're actually there's going to be a presentation at the end of this month from the food pantry which is the recommended um tenant uh and we would work to negotiate a lease with them between now and then and likely into the spring uh so this this request of town meeting is not to lease the space we already have that authorization this is simply to allow us to Le lease it from longer than three years which is all we're allowed to do by Mass General law and so in order for any entity to want to invest in the building they'd want to be able to have the opportunity to have it for more than three years and so that's what this is um so the final terms of the lease are still being finalized but this has been a this is seen as a a critical authorization that we need to be able to finish the process of negotiating the lease and so those questions are still being answered but if we don't have authority to go longer than three years the answers would be different because then the Investments they may not be interested in in in making those Investments and then the whole economics of the lease would would have to change but but if this was approved the authority to uh for any lease terms would be up to the select board so I mean if the if the finance committee in the town meeting more importantly say we vote to authorize long-term lease of these two properties technically could the select board say well we're willing to subsidize that lease also not a get payments but we can make payments um how like what what sort of restrictions would there be on lease terms with any tenant uh that that wouldn't be a town meeting decision or that's not what we're asking town meeting we're we're just asking town meeting for the ability to enter into lease longer than 3 years no but subsequent to that if if the town meeting said yes would where would the terms that lease be determined like would the select board the town manager simply have the authority to do that yeah so I oversee all buildings and then and this is a building the town owns so it's under my control but the select board would I would go to the select board for the lease Arrangement uh before it's implemented and if Tom meting said no for example uh then we would just work within the framework that we have to which is a three-year lease and it would just um be harder to get a tenant I think one consideration we would want to have is because technically the commuter lot subsidizing this debt that purchases property is taking away from the commuter lot being benefited and if a new tenant moved in we that we would be indirectly losing that the commuters would lose access to that through the commuter lot fund and so I mean one consideration for recommending this article would be to have as part of the lease so they cover the debt service um that's associated with it and I don't I don't think the terms of that onerous at all but it would be some di Minimus amount of payment that would make the commuter lot fund whole um I got a little confused on what you were saying the commuters are losing access to what with this well they're losing the benefits of the funds that they pay to park on the lot because those funds are now paying off the debt that was used to purchase this property of which a tenant would get benefits of but even if no one's in there the commuter lot is paying correct so this is sort of well sure but if there's a tenant in it why not have a tenant who could pay off the debt for the property itself so first understand correctly you're just trying to add the stipulation that the amount of money we make on it more than covers what we're paying for it in De yeah so so the the actual Debt Service is 84,000 a year or whatever it was in 2023 um I'm simply saying the commuters could be made whole by requiring that a lease long term or otherwise cover that payment because technically they're they' the commuters fund purchased the property although the town technically owns etc etc I hear you and I think it might be a little like other situations I I think we maybe are a little stuck on their not being actual language here as I understand it the town is simply asking for the right to do a 10year lease oh or long-term lease which would be 10 years I think nothing to do with who's in it or where that money goes correct but by authorizing this we would lose the finance committee would lose any ability to have to say so and that it would be strictly up to the select board to determine whatever conditions the building would be least Thunder and again the commuters who Park in the lot who may numbers May grow they may shrink they may ET like let's hypothetically say commuters don't use the lot at all anymore I mean obviously the town would step in and likely make those payments because I think they're all going to the town of Acton under the town's borrowing anyway not the commuter lot borrowing but I don't I don't think I'm being cute I'm just saying is the town technically is the commuters are losing $80,000 worth of improvements to their property through the fund but it's also used to subsidize a transportation fund and so on and so forth so I me I I'm just being a little particular about lease terms not picking up the debt service on this so the commuter lot is an Enterprise fund effectively yes so but there's also the transportation Enterprise fund which has been subsidized by the commuter lot so it's no um but do revenues this is from a property kind of owned by like you said the debt payments come out of oh yeah yeah it's all it's all it's all the town to a large extent but is the rent there is revenue into the Enterprise fund would the revenue from these properties go into the Enterprise fund or they're just they just coincidentally are on this yeah so so until until we own so before we own this property we had the par the big parking lot on on the other side and a few other spots when we bought this lot um we were able to provide reserved parking uh where Parker paid a premium to have a guaranteed spot right on the inbound side and that generated Revenue uh which covered the lease uh the building is used for storage and um and and the ambulance company um the and so the board and and the town wanted to have a more productive use of that space uh potentially generate economic if not income economic activity people um and the proposals that we received none of them would have covered our annual lease payments um oh really our annual debt payments so that would just throw the whole process out if that was going to be a condition uh of of the approval um the parking revenue is what's used to pay those debt payments and just by leasing that space we would not lose the ability to generate that parking Revenue assuming people want to park um which I I was there today that that lot itself there was about six or seven cars there but there's 40 plus spaces so once those people come back that's going to that'll help cover us yeah and you know there's there's a surplus for sure I mean it was 135,000 of Revenue that the lot generated last year versus 84,000 of debt service or something like that so no I I I did know that I guess my assumption was the the lease would be um more than adequate to cover that so I guess it's an issue in any case um um well then maybe it just we could just suggest the uh select board you know Factor this into their thought process and the town manager when constructing a lease Factor directing the the income towards the debt uh no I mean it doesn't sound like that's would cover it um so I guess it's kind of a mood Point okay do you want to make a motion motion that we recommend article 14 authorized long-term lease in 19 and 21 Maple Street second got that Scott I got it wonderful please lead us through a vote all right I'll start with you Dave hi Greg hi Christie hi Jason Hi Ro uh Roland hi Steve hi and I agree okay um we've already done that next increment financing so we're going to skip over the citizens petition also that is Christine um Steve we're up to you last oh no not the last year but you have two collective bargaining agreement articles and we're going to discuss those next time Rand how about the amending the town Charter regarding the historic district commission yeah I vote uh to recommend what they doing is it just adding another person to it so they going from six members to seven members which you should have seven members you should have an odd number because you don't end a deadlock that way and with six members you very much can end in a dead log with three against three and nothing gets accomplished right it's kind of like Congress so I figured that you know so well probably not that bad but um I I motion to recommend second the amended Town Charter for histo for the historic district commission okay any discussion wonderful thank you um Scott could you please take us through the vote okay yes uh Dave hi I Christie I Jason I Steve hi Roland I and I'm an i all right thank you um we are now looking at next week addressing an list of articles that I will send out they are it includes all of these zoning bylaw articles we'll get someone in to discuss with us the dog part CPC article apart from that I believe we have done everything with the exception of the budget transfer which we will not discuss until there's an actual so our next meeting is next week we will not discuss that at the next meeting thank you our next meeting is next week at 6:30 I think is the correct time before the special town meeting I'll ask CPC to I'll ask CPC to come in that night no no that's a special Town that's the meeting right before the special oh okay okay on the meeting on April 23rd is the the next meeting incorrect 423 thank you it's a shame Christine wasn't here tonight because the uh gas power leaf blower phase out is the is one of only two Amendment the two articles that my neighbors have come and yelled at me about well my neighbors too so I I've been we are actually neighbors oh that's true it's the same neighbors never mind okay um that is it for our current hi John please hi just a just an offer I'm not sure if you're trying to wrap up but I do have time and I'm perfectly willing and able to go through the capital articles I know one member is not here tonight that was going to present on that uh if that's helpful to folks uh it is it is capital the capital projects that I presented when the finance committee approved the budget a few weeks ago okay um so I'm happy to go through that if there's time otherwise that one's mine and the reason why I was unprepared to move forward with it because I thought in one of the late phases of the um the late phases of the ALG agreement you pulled out pulled out some money for the uh replacement of the fleet replacement vehicle for the police I don't know if that actually changed your number from a capital perspective or if you just found money elsewhere in your budget to to make that adjustment uh no so at the meeting that I presented the the budget or the budget hearing rather that the finance committee held last month uh I went through the capital list and um it was as as it appears here uh correct and then at the last ALG meeting the last ALG meeting I went to because I missed the very last ALG meeting my apologies for that uh I had asked you to pull out $40,000 as well as as a $200,000 for vacancy Factor and that was agreed to uh I am aware of the fact that since it's a bottomline budget you could have pulled the money from elsewhere uh I was just surprised to see the that the same amount of money I wanted to make sure that it was if this was the same amount of money that you indeed had pulled elsewhere or that if you would if you had backed on the number of vehicles that you were planning on replacing in this coming year because that was a a distinct ask at the LG meeting okay um I find that to be a much different discussion than what's before the finance committee tonight and it's something that the finance committee has already voted to support um but uh the vehicle replacement schedule hasn't changed um the budget did get reduced from one ALG meeting to another okay uh but the one that you missed and then the finance committee meeting that you missed I think that had already been discussed and uh supported I Believe by the finance committee so I didn't know that we were going to go backwards on that one okay so the money came out but you did not commit to changing the fleet uh they did not commit to changing the number of police V police vehicles to be replaced but you did find the subsequent amount of money that I had asked for to be pulled from elsewhere in your bottom line budget is that an accurate assessment of what happened uh well we reduced the budget by um between the e8th and 9th budget presentations we reduced the budget um an additional amount with the funding that we were able to save from health insurance and from our debt management strategy so in those two areas we reduced the budget um and that was a budget that the finance committee approved so and the fleet the fleet Improvement program hadn't change you may be confusing the A and B budgets but that's all we're T all all that's in here is the a budget um Jason you made specific requests for where the money come from the money came from other places in the budget okay so what I what I just said is accurate that the the money was removed from bottom line but not removed from this specific purpose yes okay then I will bite my tongue um we have discussed these items I'm not happy with it so I'm just going to let someone else move it because not happy with it uh we were talking about Article 5 Town Capital Public Works Public Safety and public celebration I there are parts of this that I think are absolutely mandatory and I'm I'm happy to move forward I I thought we had thought we'd made some some movement elsewhere but I [Music] I'm the overall budget was reduced so I guess I shouldn't be particularly upset at where where it came from all right then I'll move that we recommend Article 5 Town Capital Public Works Public public celebration Scott would you please lead us through a vote yes that was motion by Jason Jason and Steve and second motion Steve made the motion Greg seconded thank you all right um so Dave uh maybe come back to me okay I'll go backwards then uh Roland I Steve I Jason nay chrisy I Greg I um Dave are you ready yeah Iain AB I believe that passes Scot has to declare his vote Yes uh I guess I will um I guess I will agree to this so that's 54 one no and one abstain I said a lot too thank you um I am currently encouraging us to ask questions of the Town manager since he is available at this time such that we can have a shorter discussion when Christine is available at our next meeting um we have discussed many of these articles this includes replacement of the ladder truck the intersection at Prospect Street and um some great Road sidewalks storm water infrastructure and the DPW facility Improvement um regarding I'm sorry the fueling station replacement um regarding that John has there been any indication from the school or from case about helping to pay for it how much yes both uh both organizations have uh expressed uh are are are willing to participate in the in the Improvement project uh the exact specific details are still being finalized but uh they both uh use this facility and rely on this facility uh and and will be contributing to it um to help us offset the cost of this investment okay anyone else I think we're getting yes please John I apologize and I have asked this and I appreciate you presenting or reviewing this material with us again um you know what is the life remaining of the existing Fuel Depot how many years left is there uh my understanding is that uh we're at the the end of its useful life uh like next year uh I it's either a 20 or a 30-year tanks and we're either the 20th or the 30th year I can't remember which but uh we're nearing the end and so to get this project going uh would allow us to have infrastructure in place that's that's compliant but and this will this will take years obviously to to build this facility likely or a year or two from when it's approved I I don't think it would take more than a year once it's approved yeah what would be done in between like with the end of the life of the existing facility and before this one would ramp up to be used we well yeah we we we maintain it and we inspect it and we continue to uh make sure that it's operating safely but uh if there's a project uh that's breaking ground on the other side of the parking lot there'll be some relief that we don't have to go through the trouble of replacing an underground storage tank or something uh more substantial that would would be a major investment on on very old equipment oh and this is above ground yes sorry if I missed that [Music] um okay thanks um yeah I just this one just gives me a little bit of pause because it's it's a bigger dollar item um you know we we talked about Alternatives uh for this and you know I appreciate that some of them aren't really feasible the sort of temporary structure um I don't know if we had made any progress on that um but I'm just not as sure on this one so I'm just talking out loud thanks Roland thanks John um for the fueling stations they they already know where they're going to place that on the site yeah the location is closer to um Forest Road um so it's actually kind of where they the the Vans park now if you ever been on the site with the transportation Vans Park overnight if you're coming in from forest it would be on your left yeah and so that's an area where right now it's centrally located right in the middle of the site so as school buses are trying to get fueled up and plow trucks are trying to get salt it's it's all it's right in the middle of it all so from an operation standpoint moving it over there is going to be a big Improvement alone uh regardless of the fueling so they already have uh somebody lined up so when Tom man gives their approval they can start preparing the site and getting the contractor in there to bring the tanks and all that stuff yes we're we're very far along in the design and then we would just need to finish the final design and bid bid it out to get a contractor yes thank you um I believe I heard that this will be off to the side such that um when the DPW a larger project happens this is out of the way is that correct yeah that's another benefit of of doing this first is that it gets it out of the way of anything that we do with the existing facility so this won't be disturbed and it will in some ways facilitate that other project not having it be in the middle uh I think that we could replace the Fuel Depot and not do anything else out there um it certainly is a standard project but it's envisioned as part of the larger Improvement of the site which which is very much necessary right thank you may unrelated was just the the Maple Street property you know you talked about the leasing it is there any thought given to selling those properties I mean is what what's the idea of the Town maintaining ownership of them is there like a longer term vision for them or are they just like any tenant who would want the property sounded like he had multiple parties interested this is the Maple Street property yeah sorry we hadn't discussed selling them we just we just bought them a year and a half ago two maybe two and a half years ago and I think with the intent of providing more parking and even though there's a suspension temporarily in demand for that parking I believe it still exists okay and so the intent of the purchase is still I believe to be in line with what the town wants us to do and the board asked us to try to find a more productive use of the buildings rather than just storage but to hold on to it until that demand for parking returns at some point is that what your I I think we we own the building we own the parking lots uh they generate revenue from parking if we were to sell them at some point we were going to wish that we had them again um and so I'm not sure unless there was a specific opportunity to do so we would bring it to the board but that that hasn't been presented and just last question um on that and and I'm done is the there's no chance the town would spend more money on those properties at this point right like there wouldn't be a tenant who would ask the town to fund some Renovations and then say then we'll lease the property from you and then the town wants to invest 200 Grand in the property or 500 Grand in the property if that scenario was presented it's not it's not part of um the lease that we're looking at right now we we we wouldn't have that funding we have to ask town meeting for that or ask somebody for that okay all right thanks thank you Sean um that's all the Articles at this point we've pushed off everything else um Scott were you oh I'm sorry John yes I think I just thought we were in the middle of article six and we just kicked back to another one I didn't know if if we could finish finish article six did did we vote on article six no we decided we're putting off thank you you were providing information to hopefully speed up our next discussion in which we will after which we will vote on article six um that and the rest of the Articles will hopefully get done at our April not August 23rd meeting um they will not be um they will be marked as deferred in the warrant just to make sure Cher Anderson what time would you like the meeting to start on the thank you that was that was going to be my next point would we like to start earlier I know um maybe at 6:30 on I can ask about 6:30 you're saying 6:30 is too early for you uh Madam chair 6:30 is a little too early for me but I'd be fine with a 7 o'clock start which is better than our 7:30 start okay just 7 o'clock for everyone Scott does that work for you 7 o'clock wonderful um so we will do 7 o'clock on the 23rd meanwhile we will meet well do we think there is value at meeting before the town meeting next Wednesday no we're waiting on you to vocalize your thought process my thought process my thought process is it's not a bad idea for us to be there in case something happens out of nowhere um but I don't I definitely don't want to do at 6 I think 6:30 is reasonable the only other reason why I might want 6:30 is if people wanted to run through what I'm going to because you've asked me to speak to this topic if people wanted to hear what I preview of what I had to say or if you'd rather Madam chair you you can uh bless what I have to say and then we can just meet at 6:5 and be good to go do people want to he hear what Jason has to say beforehand no Steve says no let's do 650 okay um let's meet up on stage we will not have a formal meeting before um what time is start 7 7 yes make sure to get there by 6:45 again we're not meeting to have a formal meeting we are simply all going to be there in order to get settled and have our seats at the high school on the stage one rer kids that would be ugly Cy um frightening okay moving on to committee business we have no minutes to review currently are there any leas on reports no okay um we have confirmed our next two meeting dates I'm sorry again there will be a meeting on May 1st if necessary and I believe that's it I move we adjourn second Scott would you please lead us through a vote uh yes uh Greg yes Christie yes Jason I Steve hi Rolland I and I an I thank you Scott could you please send us uh send me rather um the votes and the all of that information thank you and I will see you all 6:45 at the high school on stage next Wednesday we areed all right weo