e e e e e okay as previously mentioned this is the uh act and select board uh we are all here uh I've already called the meeting to order but we took a break in between our um executive session and now because people expect the meeting to start at 7 so here we are at 7 and we're resuming our regular deliberations um we start these meetings uh with resident concerns because as elected officials it's really important to hear from the people that voted for us and the people that live in town um at the same time we have a really big agenda so as usual I'll be limiting the comments to three minutes and the clerk will be holding up a piece of paper one a yellow piece of paper at the end of two minutes and a red piece of paper at the end of three minutes and then it's my job to have you stop um having said all that um are there people with resident concerns looks like there's one online so um why we go ahead hey Matt you want to let the one person speak yes um this is from a Callin user they should be able to speak now and identify themselves hi this is Tera from up here on mass I have a a comment and a question uh regarding the uh Bond um will will there be a chance to ask a couple questions about that during the bond part of the um the meeting yes we'll be making a decision so a public comment is called for great thank you um so relative to my comment um I was out petitioning this weekend and someone stopped by to talk to me um who I think went away unsatisfied so I'm just giving a little shout out to them um they were concerned because I said that um the petition I was uh Gathering signatures for is non-binding and they were concerned that um this meant that their vote doesn't count and so I was just you know they walked away because other people were coming up and uh so I just wanted people to know that even if it a town meeting article is non-binding that um the the the select board tends to be very responsive to people um that town meeting uh votes and so I don't think that your vote doesn't count so just because it was on binding I said non-binding didn't mean that I thought your vote didn't count thank you so much thank you so I still have a little time left I'm afraid of the Dober Heights being part of the NBTA zoning I want to protect the do Heights people from U potential gentrification and I hope you have an opportunity to talk about that at some point Thank you thank you um other resident concerns hi there Miriam leac High Street Acton um more of a question can somebody give me a ballpark figure as to how much this 15minute special Tal meeting will cost thank you um we will get back to you on that unless the town manager has an answer right at the top of his head but we usually don't answer questions right away thanks for turning off the microphone okay we'll we'll we'll research that and get back to you um any other uh resident concerns no okay let's get on with the agenda and there'll be for public comment uh on things that we're making decisions about uh the first part of business after resident concerns is called chair update Town manager update and members minute and uh I took a couple of notes so let me start up my machine and I will tell you what I meant to say uh okay um this agenda um it's probably a little too long uh I looked at it again late this afternoon and it's adding up to more time than I'd like to ask my fellow board members to stay here um so like usual we'll we'll we'll check in with each other if the clerk can remind me when it hits uh 10 p.m. or when we finish an agenda item and it's after 10 p.m then we can have a brief discussion about what's next uh depending on the urgency of the remaining items uh we may also be having a quick conversation about having um an extra meeting um perhaps next Monday night so if you want to think about whether next Monday night could possibly work for you for a meeting you could get ready for that um what else um tomorrow night March 19 um right here in room 204 the planning board will be considering their recommendations about the four major zoning related articles that are moving towards being on the warrant um the South Acton Village plan and MBTA zoning bylaw the zoning change to make card dealerships require a special permit and the powdermill road changes that mayard and Acton have been working on um the calendar entry on the website has the agenda and the agenda has a link for more information uh you might want to attend to speak to these proposals that night or you might want to go to learn more an advance of town meeting um either way it's a it's it's an annual event not to be missed um that's all I got uh Mr manager thank you few I have a few brief announcements uh the Acton Police Department is running their citizens Police Academy again it starts April 2nd it's an 8-week program uh with classes in the evenings uh we encourage people to check it out you can sign up online or if you have any questions about it contact the um Police Department or my office but it's April 2nd is right around the corner so if you're interested please sign up soon speaking of the police department I'm excited to announce that uh Anna dkas has been uh assigned as our new school resource officer uh who will be working with the schools she is a detective with the Department she's been on the department for about 11 years and uh she has some really interesting skills and and experience that she'll bring to this role and we're excited to have her um take that on and look forward to introducing her to the community um I wanted to mention that the select board reviewed its goals I think at the last meeting or a few meetings ago and since that time I've updated the memo that had had originally provided in October just to give some more current information uh and I shared that with the board within the last week or so we can add that to the packet for tonight's meeting and extra information just so if members of the public are interested in the update on those goals uh they can check that out there I wanted to make sure that people are following the voter registration and the different application ballot application deadlines that are being um announced through the town clerk's office that's all available on the on the website or you can call Town Hall if you have any questions about that I also wanted to mention that the federal government recently announced that the arpa American Rescue plan act funding uh needs to be not just allocated by the end of this calendar year uh but it actually has to be contracted and so uh we're preparing for the board an update on all the arpa projects that were approved and many that are completed or near completed and some that um may or may not meet that deadline and we'll we'll bring that to the board um at a future meeting for for you to discuss and weigh on some weigh in on some um potential alternative ways to move forward I wanted to mention that 17 Woodbury Lane had its public hearing with the historic district commission last week I think it went pretty well they're looking at the windows to see if they can be preserved um I wanted to thank Sharon marero and the Council on Aging for collaborating with acting TV to get the Java with John program uh broadcast live uh last Friday was the second time that we did it live and I think it went pretty well uh there was a full room in the in the senior center and I'm sure there were hundreds and maybe thousands of people watching from home um if I had to guess and um just wanted to mention that we're seeking comments on the West Acton Village complete Street designs we had open house earlier this month and there's a survey uh and there's information on the website a lot of different concepts for how to make that area safer for pedestrians cyclists and drivers so please check that out and and provide any comments if you had any have any thank you thanks so much John um let's see along the table Alyssa any thank you I wanted to remind everyone that the Acton Water District's annual meeting is this Wednesday March 20th at the RJ gray Junior High it starts at 6: p.m. tomorrow uh is the deadline to submit comments in support of rank Choice voting which passed at our uh annual town meeting last year here in Acton as well as six other communities in the state you can send an email of support to the Joint Committee on ction laws the chairs Senator John Keenan and representative Daniel Ryan you can also email your legislators um the citizens Library governance structure advisory committee will be holding its first meeting next week on the 26 at 3:30 in the afternoon in room 9 um yesterday right here in this room there were dozens of snakes um for the ACT and conservation trusts annual meeting and I just wanted to let everybody know that uh the land Steward for great Hill John watlington was awarded the Carol Holly conservation award at that meeting and one last announcement um for folks who are interested in learning more about the override the operational override that's going to be on the ballot on April 30th and hopefully on the town meeting warrant on March May 6 sorry um David and I will be holding some office hours here at Town Hall in room 9 this Thursday March 21st at 300 p.m. until 5:00 p.m and also on Saturday April 6th from 9 until 11: a.m. same room room 9 right here in town hall thanks uh David were all the snakes accounted for at the end okay um I don't have anything today except I'd like to say that there are 12 people online thank you for for for starting that habit after we discussed it last time hello 12 people out there in Zoom land Fran I I don't have anything Dean couple of items um yesterday the Acton Lions Club hosted a St Patrick's Day dinner at the uh Senior Center we had uh over 90 seniors there and as we all know St Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland so obviously they came here um so that was a great event collaboratively with the Lions Club and the Council on Aging um the Acton 250 uh we now have a merchandising web page that you can find your way to through the uh the town of Acton uh website um so there's a number of commemorative items that are available for sale there uh we just rolled that out about a week or so ago t-shirts hats glasswar really nice little lapel pins so um uh the portion of the proceeds from all the sales will go to support the uh speakers programs and the other events for the ACT in 250 and along the same lines uh the next speaker program for the Acton 250 committee will be John Bell on April 2nd uh talking about his book The Road to conquered uh that will be April 2nd at 7:00 here in this room thank you thanks everyone um the next item is called announce the colonel Francis fauler Senor exemplary volunteer of the Year Award nominees um the big event related to this award is going to be May 16th at 6: p.m. in the Memorial Library meeting room and at that time you'll have a chance the winners will have a chance to say more they'll be will'll have a chance to say more about them um but for now let's at least have each board member announce their exemplary volunteer Award winner so let's see for example uh I'm proud to have one of these Awards go to Franny Osman um why don't we take it from left to right this time uh my award will go to Ellen feinan who has served on the council and aging board and the uh nursing Services advisory committee thanks uh my award is going to Janet adachi um she's a chair of the ACCC and also has a past select board uh uh my uh awarde is Terry maand a longtime uh chair of the uh Conservation Commission and more recent uh co-chair of the open space committee and I am very pleased to nominate s saluni who is a trustee for the Memorial Library Board of Trustees well thanks so much to board members for thinking this through and and congratulations to the winners and uh we'll be hearing more from you and you'll be hearing more from us on on May 16 thank you okay next is the only agenda item that takes three lines in the agenda vote to approve the issuance of 4, 900,000 General obligation Municipal purpose loan of 2024 as more particularly described in the document prepared by Bond Council distributed to the board and um I think we first to get uh John you want to take us through how we're going to learn about this thank you yes this this is a a lot of paperwork related to uh borrowing money and our director of administration and finance Maryann flechner uh will'll walk you through with a brief presentation about what we're asking you to uh vote on and sign here tonight thank you hi good evening um so I am here on behalf of Teresa Oar she is our Treasurer collector she's on a well-deserved vacation day today um so I represent treser in the finance department uh and just very quickly quick summary in early February um we worked with Lyn Welsh who is our account executive at UniBank and to prepare for our management meeting with standard and poor um we did have that management meeting on February 27th it went very well uh we're very fortunate we were able to uh produce the documents that they requested and able to present our management stand and where we are the town of Acton as a whole from our financial status uh we had received shortly thereafter our AAA rating so we're very humbled very proud of that that helps as you know considerably when we go out to bond in our interest rate so I believe you received a notice from John when we received that notice um that again very fortunate that we have the AAA rating shortly after that they called out for the bond uh we went out for a $4.9 million that represent nine projects and uh that call went out on March 6th again we were very fortunate we were well sought after there were approximately eight or nine um investors that were looking to uh in if to buy from us the 4.9 million Bond um and B Bard so Raymond James Bar Raymond James Bard um is the uh holder and it will be selling on March 28th and so it went for 2.77% very pleased with that interest very happy with that um what we are asking of you tonight is um Dean as the clerk you have one document um that you will be signing as the clerk um the votes for issuance and then there are uh that pile right there exactly um there are other documents um that all the select board members are requested to sign uh we need three out of five signatures but all of you are here so we request that all of you sign as select board members there might be there might be questions from the board or is there more Maran in your presentation uh that is it one of the um like what you were signing is the certificate of issuance you'll be signing the bond themselves so it goes so it's a it's it's for 15 years um again there are nine projects I think believe John had forwarded those to you um some of them four of the four four of the nine started off as bans um Bond authorization notes and then we turn them over to this 4.9 uh over a period of years for each project depending on the project some are 13 because they were banned for two years for example so that one for example would be 15 years I can go over each one but I think just the summary you had received it from John already so you'll be signing the certificate you'll be signing the issuance you'll be signing the actual bonds themselves um as select board members tonight and then on March 28th is when they are sold thanks so much um there might be questions or comments from board members before I open up to the public um no seems like we're all understanding what we're about to do um is there a formal vote that you need or you just need our Ascent to sign all these things or or what so there is in your packet um there's an email from John and it starts off with vote to accept and it's in your packet and I think um Tom is bringing it up and right what is highlighted m is vote to approve the issuance of the $4.9 million General obligation Municipal purpose loan of 2024 bonds and as more particularly described which I just described in the document prepared by Bond councel distributed to the board great thank you and that was that was what we received the wording from the bond Council of how to State the vote tonight okay well I would uh happily entertain uh that motion from any member of the board yeah then before we actually vote we'll we'll listen to comments and questions from the public but I want to get a motion on the table first I move to approve the issuance of 4,900 th000 General obligation Municipal purpose loan of 2024 bonds as more particularly described in the document prepared by Bond Council distributed to this board I'll repeat it I move to approve the issuance of 4, 900,000 General obligation Municipal purpose loan of 2024 bonds as as more particularly described in the document prepared by Bond Council distributed to this board second okay now I've got something moved and seconded uh are there any other questions from the board or questions or comments from the public okay looks like there's one question online Matt if you can let them speak yes Mr chair this is the Colin user I believe it's Tera but they should be able to identify themselves hi there it's ter again uh I have um so my first question was answered I believe at 2.77% which is really exciting and I quickly went to my um affordable housing trust uh ex uh Excel sheet and uh it looks like we would might want to recalculate that to perhaps get some um Housing Trust work going especially if there's going to be a threat um of displacement uh for zoning and um I would hope we would do that before the price doubles or triples um because of zoning thank you so much thank you um there's a motion on the board uh it's been seconded um uh all those in favor please say yes or I yes I okay I saw yeses or eyes from everybody so that's unanimous um then now Dean you don't want to just you want to like start signing things and send them down here and we'll sign them during the meeting okay if anybody has any weird you know complicated questions while they're signing things just let me know and we'll get them answered but we're on our way thanks so much for being here Maria thank you okay uh the next topic is called discuss petition for special town meeting um I think there's some information that I want to get out there's some information from the town manager uh we met along with Town staff and the clerk and um others this afternoon to discuss this further uh John was also armed with advice from Town Council um so here's the basics um our town Charter allows for a petition to call a special town meeting it requires 200 signatures when that petition is filed the board is required by law to have a special town meeting within 45 days um that 45 days um is uh we were initially sort of hoping and thinking without a lot of research that we could possibly have a a little special town meeting at the beginning or middle of the regular town meeting uh but no 45 days doesn't take us till there uh Town staff then looked at um possible meeting dates uh and uh discovered that a good time to meet uh is uh during school vacation week because then the auditorium is available um and um I think John can tell us more about exactly where and when that could be if the board uh decided to go ahead and call that special meeting tonight and again if we do uh accept a motion to uh call this special meeting I'll I'll then allow public comment on this so John do you have any more uh the technical and logistical details that are relevant here uh yeah thank you so with the thing that the things that are happening here in town over the next month and a half um there was only uh one or there was only one week that appeared to be available to hold a town meeting um within the time frame and uh so we identified the middle of the week uh during school vacation week that Wednesday is the 17th and that I believe is okay with the schools uh okay with the moderator and um that's all we checked with so far but uh we assume it's okay with the petitioners um and so that's where when and where we would hold it it would be uh in the auditorium like other Town meetings and if the board calls it tonight we could um get started on the process that we required to do for every town meeting uh with every town meeting there's a voter registration deadline we have to mail the warrant out so many days beforehand and um we would be able to accomplish all of that if the date were to be Set uh for the 17th um some other things that came up at that meeting that I found interesting were that um um Mark had found um earlier examples of special Town meetings with only one you know one agenda item on them and it looked like that uh could fit on a single double-sided page is that that which makes it a little easier to mail out is is that still true is that what it's yeah I mean the postage is the is the expense more than the the number of words but yes um it certainly would it's better than a big packet okay um as context for um any comments that board members might have um the petition itself is only uh four lines long so I'll read it we urge Town leaders before recommending any major zoning proposal to perform uh left square bracket and release for public review right square bracket detailed impact studies which examine the maximum impact of such a proposed zoning proposal um there might be comments or questions from board members no not much um it does go ahead I have a question good this is a good time for questions I understand the logistics of of requiring another town me town meeting but why is there a way that we could work it into our original town meeting it just seems like a lot to do um before town meeting I I I never I can't think of a time where we did this in town as long as I've been here but maybe I just wasn't aware well we certainly had other special time meetings with only one item on that came from a citizen petition but maybe John maybe you can speak to any other knowledge you have about the the legal requirements here yeah I think in order to comply with our bylaws and the and the documents that govern our community we we would have to call a Town Meeting within 45 days we could choose not to do that and just have it in within 55 days but that would be not following our bylaws so I'm not recommending that um I think it was put forward in the timing that it was intentionally so that would happen before town meeting uh is my guess do you think it would hurt attendance from either town meeting or one during vacation week is going to be very low attended so I'm just curious so yeah it would be the first town meeting during that week that that I'm familiar with so I'm not sure who would who would be interested in going but with the time constraints that we have on either end I mean we could probably have one next week we but that's not enough time to do it per the notice requirement so uh it' be better to do it in May uh but we have to do it in before the end of April so we have very limited options so I think what the best course of action is to just follow the 45-day rule call the meeting conduct it as we normally would and um continue getting ready for the time the other big events that we have uh in the following weeks I think in terms of what residents will see receive at their mailbox would that be confusing I don't know I think we can maybe do our best to make it clear that this is not the town meeting warrant this is a another town meeting that's occurring before the town meeting and and so that that doesn't create any unnecessary confusion for people and that's something that we can work on as we finalize the documentation after the board calls it officially and we'll move forward in that direction thank you um other thing things that we explored uh uh Fran was um Can the petitioner withdraw the petition uh the answer no now that it's been signed by more than more than 200 people those that petition is you know represents them as well um so um and there's no there's no uh provision as far as we could see in the law for individual signers to come up and say you know I I withdraw my signature it's it's already been put in it's already been recorded um so that's that Dean yeah I I just like to say I'm very frustrated by this um I believe one of the folks Gathering signatures has done the same thing in the past at Great expense to the town and great inconvenience to everyone I've heard personally from a number of constituents who felt that um the petition was misrepresented to them when they signed it at various Grocery Stores um shame on them I guess for not actually reading and understanding something you're going to sign that somebody puts in your face in front of a grocery store um I don't think there's any way out of this it's just very frustrating and it's just this is the ultimate in narcissism as far as I'm concerned ConEd thank you thanks Dean David so I I I I too have heard from people maybe others on the board have to uh for people who were uh didn't understand that this was calling a a special town meeting um and um um that is because it's a little bit uh subtle in the on the form and so a lot of people thought that they were uh um just uh signing for a a um an article for the annual town meeting and didn't realize that they were um uh calling a special town meeting I mean um I I I agree with folks who said that this was done um uh uh intentionally right if it was done two weeks earlier it could have been on the uh annual town meeting um if it was done a week later it could have been part of the annual town meeting but that's not not not what was done um we've had uh two references to cost um I was wondering if the town manager had an approximate um number for cost so the cost we we would T typically estimate the cost between 5 and 10,000 to run a town meeting um depending on you know that's that's often for two nights uh but we have to hire police details and pay for the school and do the postage do the mailing and um there's also work that goes into it in addition to that with in the clerk's office staying open late uh for registrations Etc so I think a good estimate is 5 to 10,000 um we certainly didn't budget for that um this year but uh we will uh do what we can to make it make it work I appreciate the work on the part of staff to make this happen thank you Alissa so I just want to add one thought for folks who are listening now now or in the future um that's a little bit different from from what we've heard about the language of the petition and whether it was misleading and the cost um I want to encourage everyone who would be inclined to petition the government to do so a lot earlier in the game you know we just talked about town staff working to put on a town meeting that staff have been working on some of these zoning articles for two years and there was an incredible public engagement process I I went back and looked up Kristen Gard our planning director's original presentation to this board it was two years ago almost to the day March 21st 2022 so I absolutely agree that there is value to impact studies on zoning that's coming before town meeting voters but the time to demand them to request them to organize other residents to join you in doing that is during the public engagement process um absolutely it's within citizens rights to call a special town meeting with a petition with 200 signatures um but as far as not um putting yourself into the position of people being disappointed or frustrated or feeling misled but to join you in getting what you want which is an impact study for zoning changes um there has been a number of opportunities I think the only zoning change that we're bringing to this town meeting that hasn't had that run way is the car dealership but there was still a couple of months you know in a survey and meetings where we discussed it so please email um create websites uh come and speak at select board meetings and at um other public engagement and other committee meetings where this is discussed you know call Town Hall stop in town hall and talk to staff thank you um I'm wondering about the board's appetite for um a motion that would set this town meeting uh uh you know in in in in process um if if I hear some nods I'm happy to read the draft motion nods nods I'm not sure where people are at in the morning process whether we're still in denial or whether we're you know at anger or or what but um David um I I think to meet the uh the printing requirements and everything we might be able to delay to the next meeting but that's not obvious to me uh and so I think we we either do it now or we miss school vacation week so I'm in favor of just setting the date also I think it's helped to everybody to know when it is okay well let me um bring this uh motion up again we can get it read and we can then um get comment from the audience and from the select board about it yeah sorry uh I wonder if there's anything we can do with the volume in the room is there anything technical we can do okay I I feel like I'm swallowing it but that's okay we'll we'll do what we can sorry sorry that you haven't been able to hear everything um so this this motion would be a motion to call a special town meeting on April 17 2024 at 7 p.m. at the Acton boxboro Regional High School as required to vote on the non-binding article submitted as a citizen petition signed by more than 200 registered voters on March 14 2024 so moved is there Matt we're not hearing you are you out there can you let someone speak my apologies my internet cut out for a second there Charlie kadlick Charlie you should be able to speak yes this is Charlie kadlick I just want to add my name to the comments that already been made about this being a waste of time waste of money it's a nonbinding resolution which effectively does nothing it's a total waste of time and money I hope there's some I know there is no way to prevent having having to hold a special town meeting but it should be made clear by everybody this is not what the was the intent of the law that controls it thank you thank you Charlie um any residents in the room want to make a comment Tom Bez Willow Street my recollection from the last special town meeting uh the moderator or the question was asked about the cost my recollection was that it was 15K at that time I wonder if there is a way without discouraging citizens petitions or um citizen participation to change the bylaw such that the process is made uh more more available um more consistent with the town's um Logistics um whe the U mechanics of that I I would I would ask the uh the board to comment on thank you thank you any other comments yes a couple of other people are coming forward come on down good evening Adrian Hancock from gwood Road I signed this petition because I believe that any discussion is good discussion and should take place there should be an outlet for all points of interest um I admit that I'm guilty of not reading the introduction the header sufficiently carefully that header said citizen petition for a special town meeting for a non-binding resolution since all the paperwork that's submitted to the town talks about holding a meeting I did not get the alert that a meeting was proposed and would have to be held it sounds as though there's nothing we can do about it but I would strongly suggest in future that wording be used to make it very clear that by supporting the content you're also supporting that or the petitioners are asking us to support that we go to the extent of holding a meeting and paying for it because I think this is a very expensive privilege to allow for something which is a non-binding comment I made these comments in a note to the board and thank you for listening thank you I had all sorts of ideas most of which are illegal which is unfortunate the best one I think is to make the petitioner pay for it but we can't do that which is unfortunate because I think as uh Dean said it's a narcissistic U Move On the part of the petitioner um I would like there to be a true accounting of the costs of the mailing the printing the police the clerk and all that sort of stuff so everyone knows how much money is being wasted on this and the fact that the 45 day uh bylaw is in place I think Tom has a good idea that we should change that so that it would be with a uh annual town meeting then the other my other point is I think that we should probably have a fall town meeting to do zoning uh I've have been on the uh Powder Mill Plan for three years we have done impact statements on the Powder Mill Plan if anybody likes to read them they're there there are also impact statements on the MBTA and South Acton and we have studied it until it comes out your ears the the the the I just think that this is such a waste of time and such a waste of our energy and our funds and since we're in such a tight budget year uh I find I find it really quite uh reprehensible thanks and there's another comment online Matt yes this is from aall in user I believe it's Terra from earlier but they should be able to speak now yes um hi I did a lot of the petitioning on this uh special town meeting uh warrant article and in every sentence I start with will you sign to have a special town meeting and then I would say what it was about every single time every single time uh secondly it's not about the Town Charter please check state law um as far as I know this was done with under state law not um the charter but either way uh in terms of impact studies I've been to all these meetings I have reviewed all this documentation there is no count of condos in fact the planning board asked Kristen to tell them how many condos will be created and she couldn't tell them so is it a thousand is it 5,000 I have no idea so impact studies examine these issues they don't just present one side of what all the things that could happen we could have restaurants we could have this we could have affordability it's not just the upside that that that's what's been presented in all these documents um what about the downside what is the impact on the water what is the impact to tenants so Dover Heights 72 I count families low-income families would the landlord would change excuse me the land owner we could possibly change the economic um calculations to incentive advis him to EV these folks I know Town says that in answer to this for the impact study on the tenants is that the property owner doesn't have any plans to do that well what about the day after town meeting the plans change when they're faced or they're offered millions of dollars more because they can put 25 units an acre I feel like this is a really good idea uh to have this before the actual vote not the day of when the select board can change the order and have be the second day after the zoning bootes but actually before so people can get the decide if they want the information the town can do a lot of this maybe all of it for free just if they assign the staff to put the information together if they can calculate how many square feet they can calculate how many units maximum thank you oh also um oh no I already said that thank you thanks um there Matt there's a couple more people online who would like to say something yes Mr chair next up is Frannie Osman Frannie you should be able to speak yes hi um you might I just wanted to note that just as a reminder to everybody that this is not an immediate we will see all of these condos this is just what is allowed in the certain areas for the MBTA zoning um and people often don't realize that even what zoning they have um I but I what I wanted to note about this and maybe you said it is is it possible for the person who organized the petition to resend it did I might have missed that um sadly no okay thanks thanks um and Matt there's another person yes Mr chair Charlie kadlick Charlie you should be able to speak yeah just to repeat this is a nonbinding resolution even if it's approved at the special town meeting the select board and the town management doesn't have to do anything that is called for in that in that petition it's a useless piece of information means nothing proves nothing will accomplish nothing thank you thank you Charlie um and then was there another comment in the room Jane moose Brooker 40 Brewster Lane I've been involved in this process too I've gotten some of the signatures there actually over 400 signatures I've gotten some of them and I was not as clear as Tara about what this was so I apologize to my fellow Democratic committee members that I might not have explained it as well and they're unhappy that they signed it my concern about it is that the town would push for the MBTA mandate coming from the governor without um without having as much affordable housing as is really wanted in this petition it says 10% that's ridiculous if we want to get out of this the kind of diversity and multi-purpose housing it would have to be 90% afford able I worked as a conservation chair Commission in Bolton for many years I worked with a lot of developers there were a few good ones most of them just wanted to make a big profit and if this isn't controlled carefully that's what will happen we won't have affordable housing we'll have very expensive housing and unless we know I live I live in uh South Acton so I'm most concerned about this part of the development I know there are people concerned about Mill despite the studies they still have concerns um I want to know what the effect is going to be on our water and sewage system I know we're at with we're at the end maybe with our sewage possibilities I know that South Acton has less water than the other parts of town and More pias in our water the traffic can be terrible at certain times I've only been here six years so I'm not as smart about some of this as some of you and I'm sorry if a lot of people feel that this is is a terrible thing but the idea of discussing it before the regular town meeting is for people to come and learn about what it's all about before they get kind of pressured into voting for it you know six or seven towns have looked at this and half of them have rejected it I've been following what's been going on in Milton I think the MBTA Mand out mandate is more heart than head I think it's a very good idea that came from the Governor from her heart it's not worked out it's not not enough head in it that's mostly why I got involved in this and I'm sorry if I'm causing some of you pain thank you Jane with no more comment we do have a a motion on uh on in front of us that's been moved and seconded um and there's a little bit of followup after that depending on how the vote goes um so this motion to have a special town meeting um how says the board uh I or nay I I reluctantly I okay uh that's we don't we don't sadly we don't have a category for reluctant I so that would be a unanimous five to nothing vote um I think there are some matters that would um assist the town staff in preparing for this um but let me ask John about the timing of these things um it could be that a uh a recommendation from the board would be helpful to uh to publish uh in with the warrant and I don't know if that can wait two weeks um the other thing would be to have a uh what's the other thing on the paper a select board member assigned um I don't know if either of these uh can wait or whether it's okay to uh or whether we should be deciding those tonight if if the board were to designate someone to speak on behalf of the board on this article that would be helpful and um the fin the the select board and the finance committee would would have to um would would be would be usually would put a recommendation um in the warrant so that we can accomplish that um I think before we print it so that recommendation can probably wait till next week or next meeting which is April 1st um and both things can wait sorry that's great then um it'll be it'll be uh I think better from us from a process point of view to wait so that the public is aware that this is where we're making our recommendation in case they want to weigh in one way or the other um so I think we're done with this item unless there's any final questions or comments okay thank you please go ahead hi thank Jim Pat Clifford old barway will this warrant take any other items or is this an open and closed warrant tonight thank you for asking that question I was supposed to talk about that um we talked about the notion of having uh having no other items on this um but I I'm a little unclear on what we're required to do in that regard um Mr manager you have any guidance for us can we open and close the warrant you know over the course of the next few minutes or or what I recommend that you uh call this as a special town meeting for a one one issue meeting and um I don't see the town adding any articles so I think you could say that though it's closed just for technical technicalities sure okay yeah and that seems consistent with a motion we took which was to uh to we we're calling the special meeting to vote on this non-binding article um are there any select board members with concerns about the notion of proceeding with not having an open open warrant period in which other articles can be submitted no okay then that's the way we're going to do it that's the way we're interpreting the vote and thanks for asking thanks for asking Pat and and just to clarify the the warrant will appear exactly as it was presented to the petitioners um so that we can get started on that tomorrow yeah okay thanks um and if if you need any um you know summary material or anything like that uh you'll I'm sure you'll be in touch with a petitioner about that yeah it's it's our option whether to include that I'm not sure that that we would in this case given the The Limited space we have on the document but it's up whatever the board wants MH um so the board this question is uh if we have if we allow the petitioner to write some sentences that describe uh the article that may encourage um it may increase the turnout um it may have people be informed uh it may may may or may not be helpful um but I so I'm happy to hear any guidance from the um from the board about whether they would like to have a um uh any uh offer any summary sentences uh in this warrant David So this this uh article is pretty short I don't think it needs a summary and in fact it only means what it says any summary is not what it says right so um I think we should just leave it as is and of course they can moderator up to the moderator of course but I presume that they'd be able to make a presentation at town meeting yeah that's consistent with what we heard yeah um the other the other the other note that I heard about that an earlier discussion today was that uh the petition form itself gives gives room for background information and that wasn't filled out so that's that's apparently consistent with the intent of the petitioner okay so we we will we will uh unless I hear objections from the board I'm going to go ahead and uh direct the town manager to not include a summary but wait there's a comment wait I'm sorry it's y Chang again are you going to have a lead Selectmen to uh okay I would like to suggest that the lead selectman not be a petition signer please makes sense um we'll we'll just we'll have that on our agenda for the April 1 meeting and if people want to look in their hearts and minds and decide if they want to be the uh the respondent we'll we'll we'll figure that out then um any Alyssa so I I understand the reasoning behind not including a summary from the petitioner I'm wondering what kind of information from the town to ensure that there's not confusion about what this special town meeting is that it's not annual town meeting besides the title special town meeting I'm I'm hoping that there can be some sort of par introductory paragraph that leads people to understand what it is that they have just received in the mail uh John you have a thought about that would you be comfortable with us using the opportunity to mention that there is an annual town meeting on May 6th and including that in the mailing that would I think accomplish what your yes and I think in in addition just for people who um are going to receive this who aren't familiar with the process um maybe they just moved here um we received a petition that was signed by 200 people requesting a special town meeting to see if the town would vote for this non-binding resolution just so people understand why why should I go yeah that that's that's consistent with the draft I saw um from previous special Town meetings it it's clear that it's a Citizens petition David so the um the warrant obviously has um opening language in the annual town meeting Ward it's many many pages and so I would suggest that we use those pages to describe how we got here and that the fact that the annual town meeting happens next time you can decide whether we that can be drafted and reviewed by us next time or or or what or whether usually staff just prepares that so and anyway whatever you want to do but I I think that the opening part of the warrant can can say um you know the purpose behind and what the long-term ramifications sorry not having to do with the article just the purpose behind the meeting MH um Alyssa there's a comment on that so I understood that but I also heard that it could possibly be a one pager not several but maybe that's not possible because maybe you need to get all of the maps of where to park at the high school I don't know no we we're actually we were assured that this this could be done in a single single page um you know with with links for more information may I speak yes sure we're we're thinking about little little micro decisions I'd be happy to have your we have actually prepared a two-page summary which has not been submitted yet um which I thought would go out with the warrant I I also have given you a very short summary in a message I sent to you yesterday so it could be I mean I think something of the thought behind this should go into the warrant or people will not understand what the heck they're doing I have agree with Alissa thank you so um I think the notion that Jane is uh bringing forward is to uh take the the letter that we got from Jane um where she described the purpose of it and put that in a couple of sentences it doesn't quite seem consistent with what I heard from the board but I'm I'm happy to entertain ideas about that David I and I would oppose having the summary in there the summary is not the article and the article is the article right and and they can make their presentation to town meeting um you know two pages of information to describe what one or two sentences says is not correct m i mean it's the summary makes sense for a zoning article that's seven pages having two paragraphs to describe seven pages makes sense um or a summary of an appropriation article as to what it covers but I think it doesn't make sense here okay that's that's that's the sense I'm hearing so I'm going to proceed that way um yeah um I think that may then that may be it for the special town meeting or there more online Okay um yeah we've been entertaining comment here uh Matt there's someone online who wants to say something yes Mr chair I believe this is Terra from earlier but it is a call in user who should be able to speak now hi yes this is Tara um it was my understanding or it has been my understanding since I've done this before that the um proponent always gets to put a summary in um I thought that um that seemed a reasonable thing um I would help get that down to a paragraph or two um I didn't see Janes or maybe I did I don't know I don't I certainly don't recall what it was she wrote If I saw it but um it's Min saying that there's a summary always and for it was seem um unfair uh especially with somebody who's new to the process um because I didn't think to ask anybody about whether that policy had changed um so as to tell Jane um but uh it's always been a tradition I've done these before it's the summary goes out with the warrant with the article the petitioner and the proponent because I've asked if I can do an opposition to some uh warrant articles and they said no no no it's always the proponent the proponent gets to put a summary in so that's um would be a change in in Tradition um but I I'm sensitive to the onepage idea and um I would help Jane accommodate that thanks um so I'm clear that at the annual town meeting we do include summaries of all the items um you know it's a multi-page booklet it's the it's the it's the annual town meeting where we have all this information but what I'm hearing from my fellow board members is this is a special town meeting and the the article the the article itself is uh you know is self-explanatory it's just just two sentences if there's if there's more to say about it that can be said during a presentation at the at the meeting uh there's also um in the article as it will be published it was the contact information for Jane so her email and her phone will also be available for people to call if and and and write to if they have questions so um I think we will have they'll we'll have plenty of ways of getting information out okay the next item is uh number six uh approv Proclamation for Arbor Day uh April 26 2024 uh if you guys are going to talk talk outside thank you um back to Arbor Day um so trees we're in favor of trees um unless the unless the board has an objection I'd like um um Mr Charter to read this Proclamation so we can enjoy it and then we'll have a quick formal vote on it all right thank you so the proclamation whereas in 1872 the Nebraska Board of Agriculture established a special day to be set aside for the planting of trees and whereas this holiday called AR day was first observed with the planting of more than a million trees in Nebraska and whereas Arbor Day is now observed throughout the nation and the world and whereas trees can be a solution to combating climate change by reducing the erosion of our precious top soil by wind and water cutting Heating and Cooling cost moderating the temperature cleaning the air producing lifegiving oxygen and providing habitat for wildlife and whereas trees are a renewable resource giving us paper wood for our homes fuel for our fires and countless other wood products and whereas trees in our city increases property values enhances the economic Vitality of business areas and beautifies our community and whereas trees wherever they are planted are a source of joy and spiritual renewal therefore we the select Board of the town of Acton do hereby Proclaim Friday April 26 2024 as AR in the town of Acton and we urge all citizens to celebrate Arbor Day and to support efforts to protect our trees and woodlands and further I urge all citizens to plant trees to Gladden the heart and promote the well-being of this and future Generations I move to issue the proclamation as read by uh s maart second any other comment no all those in favor please say yes or I I I that's unanimous and there are 13 people on online yes okay then there are 13 people online of course I was curious whether there would be a distribution of trees again this year as there was last year uh Mr manager you have any info on that you mean the saplings that he put in the back of the pickup truck uh no I mean the tiny trees that were available at the transfer station on tables those are the same ones yeah they do that he does it every year I expect he'll do it again wonderful come on down great thank you um oh I put two uh two proclamations in a row uh but that that system kind of seemed to work so let's do this again um approve Proclamation for Acton Garden Club uh and Mr Charter do you have that one as well I do okay let's go for it if I known I was going to have to read it I would have been a little shter in my for and whereas the club has maintained the herb garden at the Acton auum since 1986 and whereas the club continues to maintain Planters and other Beauty spots in the various Villages of Acton and whereas the club through its monthly meetings has educated its members in sustainable design of plantings it will have a positive impact on our environment and whereas the club through its annual plant sale have provided an opportunity for the public to purchase locally grown and native plant material at a reasonable price and whereas this year the Acton Garden Club has undertaken a complete reconstruction of the ellipse Garden in front of town hall to be dedicated on May 1st 2024 and whereas as far back as 1936 the club was described as quote one of the outstanding organization of Civic achieve aient in the town unquote 90 years later the club continues to help keep the town of act in a beautiful community in which to live let it be known the select Board of the town of Acton Massachusetts recognized the dedicated and professional work of the Acton Garden Club and congratulates them on their 90th anniversary resolved on this day March 18th 2024 I move that we issue the proclamation as read by Mr Charter second beautiful Proclamation Dean thanks for not skimping on it it was great to relearn all that stuff about what amazing work the club has done uh over the 90 years um we have a motion that's been moved and seconded any other comment about it before we no all those in favor please say yes or I I that's unanimous do we know time this dedication on May 1st is happening pardon me you know what time do we know what time this dedication on May 1st is I believe it's about 10: a.m. thank you don't I have the notion that you were about to no okay never mind reading too much into the body language um thank you okay uh the next item uh uh number eight uh discuss potential tax incremental financing plan or Tiff for those those of you out there who like abbreviations for natural Stonewall Solutions at 42 Knox Trail um John you want to lead us into this yes thank you uh we have been uh approached by a local business owner uh and the State Office of uh Mass office of Business Development regarding a potential uh tax increment financing program to help support its uh local business growth uh the business owner is here uh from natural Stonewall Solutions also we have on the zoom Kevin kuros from Mass office of Business Development and I think we'd like to and Julie Pierce our economic development director and Katherine yof the economic devel development committee chair are all here to ask answer any questions that may come up but um we wanted to present this to the board to see if you're interested in uh support moving forward uh towards town meeting which would be required and other work leading up to it um but if we could start first with Kevin from mobd just with a brief overview of of what this program is we saw you briefly and then we saw a a tiff mechanic screen are you there oh there we go can can you all hear me absolutely great thanks so much so uh Julet asked me just to spend a minute or two to talk about um the economic development incentive program that our office manages and then specifically uh the mechanics of the Tiff component of that program so um the mass office of Business Development uh for those of you who may not be familiar with us is the state's official Economic Development agency so we report to secretary yvon how who is the Secretary of Economic Development and our primary uh uh function is to support the economic development incentive program or edup uh by its acronym and that program has uh two components that are used to encourage capital investment uh job retention and job creation uh and economic uh development and uh essentially the the first component uh is a local component where a um municipality can work with a business owner and in exchange for capital investment and job creation um might offer some relief from the incremental tax tax liability that results from uh their capital investment and um the the reason I I asked just to show this one graphic is to kind of explain exactly what that means so is is the the graphic displaying on the screen now I'm seeing it from my side just don't know if if you and and folks who are watching from home uh can see it yeah absolutely we're seeing uh the tax the Tiff agreement mechanics with Arts one two three four and five all right okay very good so on a given parcel uh in town and in any community that light blue area at the bottom where it says property taxes before investment that is in effect uh the property tax uh Revenue that's being generated for particular of today okay any particular parcel in town you take a snapshot of it that's you know what it would look like okay um the Triangular gray area uh number two above that Baseline growth that is uh in effect your annual you know two and a half% increase uh that would come about as a result of you know prop two and a half just you know typical uh growth uh in the tax revenue for a parcel over time okay and that you know that continues on you know on an upward Trend and then um the green box to the left there number three that uh demonstrates new capital investment that um or new I'm sorry new assessed value that comes about as a result of capital investment that a business makes in a parcel example uh in the case of a green field where you know it's just mostly an open field not collecting a lot of Revenue and then you put a building uh up on it uh and then youor comes through reassesses the parcel so that reassess value is essentially at the top of uh that green bar uh on the left hand side there so that would be the new assessed value that comes about as a result of the capital investment that that a business makes okay and then just as your Baseline um value increases over time I.E that that blue box with the the triangle above it the the Baseline growth um the growth would also continue you know onward and upward uh for the new assess value so essentially you're bumping up the assess value of the parcel and then that that normal whatever two and a half percent per year growth uh would would continue on okay so through the tax increment financing program um a a municipality can negotiate um with a business owner excuse me one sec sorry about that I'm working from home and uh we just had dogs barking here um so through the Tiff program a a business a municipality can negotiate with business owner to offer some relief on the incremental tax liability that came about as a result of their capital investment so what that means is at no time um would the community ever collect less taxes than they are currently collecting okay but what the incentive offers is rather than charging the you know collecting the full tax liability that could be collected after the capital investment in the property that there's some negotiated um reduction in uh tax collection for a period of years okay uh Tiff agreements have to be at least 5 years long and they can be up to 20 years long um most typical is 10 okay and then the community can offer anywhere from 5% relief up to 100% relief on that incremental value only so again we're not talking about touching any of the revenue that's already coming into the community in effect I always like to say it's agreeing to accept less more or less additional uh tax reeven Vue uh for a particular parcel you know it's one of the few tools that a community can use uh to you know kind of shout from the rooftops that that they're business friendly um it it certainly is a tool that communities will use to encourage development uh in their Community as opposed to a d Moran Community or you know across the border in uh into New Hampshire Etc but also very important component I start off my comments by saying that the economic development incentive program has two components a local component and a state component if indeed a community offers an incentive to a business in the form of a tiff um the business can also apply for credits towards their corporate tax liability so it goes from just being a two-way partnership between the business and the community to a three-way partnership between the business the community and the Commonwealth so the business brings uh capital investment and job creation the community uh provides some level of uh property tax uh relief and then the state provides relief towards the corporate tax liability um that the business may you know owe the Commonwealth our um tax credits are going to be tied to job creation so in in this particular project um I I believe Troy has has indicated he plans on creating probably at least 20 additional jobs um on top of the the 30 or however many he already has in town um over the next five years so that's you know 20 additional people coming to town and and uh you know shopping locally filling up the cars eating at the restaurants those types of things so the Commonwealth recognizes that and uh we would provide a a tax incentive most likely um for those those jobs um and the last my last comment I'll leave with you all is in in many cases and I I would believe it would be the case uh for this particular project the incentive that the state provides can often be uh larger and sometimes significantly larger than the benefit being provided um at the local level so um you know unfortunately uh we at this time the program doesn't support uh the state providing incentives without some local involvement so oftentimes uh you know a tiff is viewed as as opening up the the keys or providing the keys to the U the state in incentive bucket so that's essentially what I wanted to share with you all tonight um happy to answer any questions thanks so much Kevin um are there any questions right now for Kevin or do you want should we move on and hear the rest of the presentation or okay let's move on like maybe we we can hear from you about your business and this the special things you're looking to do going forward we've heard a little bit about this in the past and it's great to have you back again yeah thank you uh so again Troy gther and I'm the owner of natural Stonewall Solutions I think Kevin just did a great presentation on on what we're applying for and what I hope to work with the town on I think the key components were our our our existing site was a plot of land just um unused so the of the buckets that are required for a tiff is a manufacturing you're taking land you're taking capital and and um so I think we meet all those requirements so I'm excited to hopefully have a negotiation with the town and another key component is that uh we are a profitable company and that that allows us to fill that bucket with dealing with the state for some future um unbreaks there and and in the in the main goal of bringing in um full-time employees to the town you know I've got a long running history uh I've lived in town for the majority of my life I've run two companies we've been out of this facility for or this area for over 25 years and hope to keep everyone here and keep growing thank you so much um there there might be questions or comments from the board but if there aren't any right away then I I you know we often rely in these kinds of questions uh on our economic development committee and I wonder if if if uh if you Katherine if you wanted to say anything or just sort of remind us what the letter was from from the EDC that would that might really help us in our deliberations sure thank you um excuse me so the EDC would like the select board to um support the town's negotiation with natural Stonewall solutions to provide a local Tiff and our primary reason for wanting to support this is the investment that they've made in the company um $2 million in this new manufacturing facility we heard a presentation from um one of Kevin's colleagues and understand that um growing the manufacturing base in the state is extremely important and certainly should be important to us in Acton um what people need to understand is that this is a good incentive for companies because it does increase our commercial tax base ultimately um and increases it right away because this you know we're um our understanding is that the proposal is not for 100% Tiff so there is some increase to the commercial tax base right away and certainly in the long term a significant um increase in the commercial tax base and in addition to the creation of jobs in town and all the um resulting potential increases in value to the town from that so those are the reasons that the EDC um is asking the select board to support this and to um recommend that the town negotiate the Tiff thank you thank you so much um I I wanted to acknowledge that that Katherine and I and and and Fran and the town manager I had earlier conversations about this Tiff and one of the things we recognize that I'll just sort of set aside for the future is that we don't have a a policy on when tiffs are appropriate and uh I'm looking forward to um you know that conversation and I'm I'm I'm hoping we get a lot of help from the EDC on thinking that through um in the meantime this seems like a a poster child for what's appropriate for a tiff it's you know there's there there was you know there's there was there you've been working uh you know in a site without a roof and you're building a building and you're hiring new people it's exactly the kind of increase in um you know Economic Development uh that we're looking to see uh and it's on Knox Trail which is uh let's see how would I describe it hardly a Bastion of biodiversity um you know it's been it's been paved over and um you know treated kind of roughly over the years so we're not we're not damaging any natural resources by um by by encouraging this um but that's all I had to say there might be other board members that had questions or comments or David thank you um so uh as I think you mentioned uh we've heard about uh natural Stonewall Solutions uh here uh before uh it's really unique product uh uh I think uh we use it on it there's one installation on High Street I believe for raining wall on uh uh for a sidewalk um uh I think the fact it is a unique product and it kind of brings notoriety to town which is kind of fun um I I think that this program is um we really we really can't lose um especially with uh uh Natural Stone Wall Solutions because um they're a growing uh company um the tax reduction is only on the new investment um uh and uh which which we want to encourage and it's um magnified by uh state aid uh uh or state tax break so I I I think it's a a really good program and I'm I'm in definitely in favor um other comments questions um that suggests that we have some motion that might be uh that the town enter into negotiations with natural Stonewall solutions to provide a local Tiff tax incentive financing agreement with the goal of getting it into the 2024 Spring Town Meeting warrant I I just to take questions after uh we yeah yeah we'll definitely take questions I just want to get a motion on the table so we have something concrete to discuss I so moved okay second okay motion it's been moved and seconded and there might be comments from the public or from the board members um thank you Tom beels um I think this is a terrific proposal I'm a great admirer of stone walls I notice them as I uh cycle around town I do have a sort of a philosophical question and I think Mr chair you brought this up in taxation when you reduce the taxes on one entity the that reduction is made up by all the others how do you avoid when you award a tiff how do you avoid the critic who brings up the phrase crony capitalism who says why this company why not some other company mhm um and that's that's the question that I would uh I wonder if the first Speaker might address or um the business development thank you yeah thanks thanks Tom um we might be able to construct answers but we do have we do have you know two folks here who who might also have answers so and Kevin you've had your hand up patiently for a little bit so you might have something to say and you might also be able to address some of Tom's questions yeah so uh the the first thing that I wanted to share and I neglected to mention in my comments is for whatever the duration is that ultimately is negotiated on a tiff be it five years or 10 years or 20 years which is the max um at the end of that period it is if no Tiff was ever negotiated so at the end of that period the business does indeed pay essentially the full fair you know Freight for uh taxation for you know from that day on you know till the end of time essentially or until the next St um so I just want to make sure that that was clear to everybody um because you know I think the graphics showed that but I didn't speak to it um you know relative to um the gentleman's comments about you know ta Taxation and the taxes being distributed um you know essentially it's it's up to every Community to try to Define uh like the culture of their Community you know you know do they want to be recognized um as a community that that strikes that balance between being business-friendly and also being sensitive to the tax burden on on its taxpayers and and so that that certainly is a conversation that that you know your board should have uh particularly if as you indicated Mr chair uh a desire to establish um a a tiff policy you know a lot of communities do have have them and I'm happy to talk to you you know offline and and suggest some that might you might reach out to if you do you know want to put together just a standard uh Tiff policy but really it it comes down to you know the the the the broader message that you want to send to the business community and that that Balancing Act between you know um servicing you know the individuals in the bedroom community and and then the business that businesses that also Offset you know tax liability so there's no silver bullet or or magic answer there it's finding what works best for your community and every Community is different you know some communities um almost never um participate in the program but I will share that of the the 351 communities in the Commonwealth um I I believe the number is 138 or 158 uh don't quote me but it's right around in that range have participated in the program in the last eight years so you know probably about half the communities in the Commonwealth um have participated so it is you know very popular program and again the the the range is Extreme from you know very slight to very generous and that just really comes down to your your community culture thanks um are there other uh answers for Tom's question um David so I I know for me um the the the difference in um this as opposed to another uh uh kind of tax subsidy is um this basically just reduces future taxes so if the investment doesn't happen there is no reduction of taxes basically it kind of subsidizes the investment a little bit um and in some cases you know I don't know exactly in in this case it's it's not possible to for a business to um be successful with the uh investment um without a few breaks um and you know the the few braks that needed to get get to the end I mean I know this business is difficult to categorize it's a kind of a unique business but I know for other businesses in town you know uh local restaurants as opposed to chain restaurants it's almost impossible for them to establish themselves without some kind of break some of them get breaks from their landlord right they some landlords agree to have no rent for the first year or something like that um so it it is um we it doesn't reduce anybody's taxes doesn't reduce that taxes that exist right now the taxes that exist now stay the same it just reduces the taxes on the investment going forward for a while and so um to me that's that's different so there's nothing for other taxpayers to make up um because the taxes they paid last year they're going to pay next year um uh it's just uh kind of like deferring some for a while so that the investment can happen anyway that's the way I think of it there's a oh yeah first friend just add one more thing in that you did put a huge amount of money into the new building initially is that right yeah that's correct and and part of I think what limits current people to acquire or request a tiff is there's certain buckets you have to follow and one of those was yes as you mentioned we're on KNX Trail Road which is no Peach and we dug up that raw land basically unusable a low taxable parcel actually had to get it subdivided and to a point where we could build something and then yes we we we invested over $2 million that you will now as Kevin said ultimately tax me on um so we're bringing a lot of new tax revenue to the table and this Tiff is just to reduce some of that increased tax revenue that I'm going give to the town on top of all the job creation and that we hope that this can you know continues in that path but yes this is a little break that we were asking for after spending an incredible amount on a very specific unusable piece of land so this wasn't like a you know restaurant remodel or a this was taking raw land adding capital and resulting in a you know fantastic new new facility um Matt is there someone online that wants to say something yes Mr chair I believe this is terara from earlier they should be able to speak now hi it's Tara calling thank you I very much like this proposal um I would urge the town to create a um you know a template a formula something so it's very easy for people to engage in a in a program like this because again it doesn't reduce their taxes it doesn't increase our taxes it just in uh reduces temporarily future taxes and we win and it's only a little bit and so uh anyway but I would like it to be um limited no no um hopefully no offense um to like what we talk about wanting in the various Town documents restaurants and small businesses shops and things like that that we say that we want and then we invest in more industrial type um um um business bus so I love the idea I thank Julie for preparing it and the EDC for for developing it uh and the applicants for coming forward and thank you so much thank you um that might be a Fine Place to end this um we have a motion on the table are there any more final comments all those in favor please say yes or I I I that's unanimous so Town manager will we'll will'll work with you on coming up with a tip with the goal of uh getting it ready for the 2024 annual town meeting thanks everyone thank you um the next item uh is called approve recommended partial removal of bellow Farm Mill Dam and authorized chair to sign letter of support for Dam and seaw wall Grant application um and John I think you you you promised me a a crisp presentation given the hour so uh take it away I did we have a team uh that we've been working on for this project Corey York our Public Works director leads all of our damn efforts and uh he's brought in a consultant SLR and they have a brief presentation to describe the feasibility study that we've conducted on this Dam and our recommendations for uh moving forward and we hope to get out of this meeting your support on a letter to the dam and seaw wall grant program so i' I'd like to welcome Jim uh Jim yak and Corey yes uh good morning or evening thank you I just wanted to take a quick intro before they get get into the details just um quick background um back a little before 2010 um the state reached out and had deemed this a lowrisk overhazard dam and that we were required to do inspections um and they're done on a 10-year cycle so we had done a an initial inspection back around 2009 um and I had assisted with the natural resource director then and it was the structure itself was deemed um in poor condition and so then over the course of that permit period in 2020 uh the previous natural resource director did a follow-up inspection that required around 2020 um it was deemed to be in unsafe condition with a s recommendations so at that point we've been working on um trying to figure out what the next best steps would be for the community so we had um contracted with SLR to help us work through those um sort of ideas and details and come up with um what we have here tonight so I'll hand that over to to them and they can go through the details with you thank you great thank you Corey um I'll say good evening uh to the board to the members of the public to Corey thank you for the introduction um we there's two of us on the line tonight my name is Jim murak um with SLR Consulting um we I'm a Water Resource engineer and I'm joined by my colleague Jenna cin who is also a Water Resource engineer um we were the design Engineers for the 53 River Street dam removal that's happening um it's underway now it's on the southern end of town um uh nearing completion and that Dam also was found to be structurally unsafe similar to this one um we were asked by Corey to to evaluate this Dam to identify U alternatives to either repairing modifying or removing the dam to to mitigate the hazard of it um failing under an uncontrolled collapse um it has already started to fail as this photo shows and um so there there are we've identified some options that we're going to explain to you tonight um Jenna Bay was the primary author of The the feasibility study we submitted our full study on February 12th uh that is available for anyone who'd likes to review the entire thing but um as you mentioned um select select member it's it's getting late in the evening so we promise a f minute presentation from this from this point forward so uh Jenna B go ahead take it away all right thank you uh so as Corey and Jim mentioned um um previous safety inspections that were conducted in 2020 found that the primary Spillway of this Dam has eroded from 9 F feet to about 13 ft um the concrete training walls show signs of deter ation undermining significant cracking and Detachment from their footings or um underlying masonry tree and Sh growth on top of um and adjacent to the Earth and embankment was observed and seepage was seen along the entire length of the um earn embankment and uh the dam will need to be either repaired or removed in order to meet safety standards in accordance with Massachusetts office of dam safety the purpose of the study was to determine the feasibility and cost of four potential approaches we looked at Dam repair full dam removal partial Dam breach and Dam lowering with a rock ramp for fish passage and the study also sought to gather and evaluate information needed to help the town of Acton make a decision about future management M of the dam after a period of data collection which included site visits Wetlands mapping uh sediment probing and investigation we evaluated um four different Alternatives based on Hydraulics Public Safety restoration of natural River processes fish passage protection of wetland areas evaluation of Upstream infrastructure Recreation use and cost alternative one was um Dam repair which included elimination of seepage through the Upstream face of the embankment through toe drainage or ceiling um placing and compacting supplemental fill where needed in the embankment to fill any low points or uh areas of erosion installation and repair of Stone May and re armoring and also clearing of um vegetation from the earth and embankments within 20 ft of the dam structures and uh reconstruction of the spillway and um repair of the breach this alternative would be less expensive initially but requires ongoing maintenance and repairs as the dam continues to age it would not restore fish passage um and would require creation of an emergency action plan the dam would not be removed from jurisdictional requirements of 302 cmr1 um but it would allow the empowerment to remain accessible to small boats alternative two we looked into full dam removal which would be the most expensive alternative um and includes removal of the full primary embankment and the embankment that extends along the canal and would fill um the canal in order to restore the project site to pre-dam conditions and the in this alternative the empowerment would be drawn down and allowed to revegetate Alternative three was a partial Dam breach and um this alternative includes removal of about a 70t section of the embankment um and creation of a bankful channel to tie into the historical channel that was um previously running through the impoundment um this would lower water surface elevations within the empowerment remove Bellow Farm Mill Dam from jurisdictional requirements of 302 CMR um restore fish Passage and would allow the historical Canal to remain in place alternative four um was Dam lowering with a rock ramp which included removal of about 50 feet of the embankment and to give an idea what this would look like the photo on the bottom left is looking Upstream towards the existing Dam and the photo on the right is a rendering of um what it would look like to construct a rock ramp for fish passage up through the remaining Dam um this alternative would leave the dam subject to jurisdictional requirements of 302 cmr1 it would also allow the historical Canal to remain so we looked at costs for all four Alternatives U the dam repair would be between 2 and 2.7 million depending on what type of approach which would be necessary to repair seepage along the embankment um full dam removal would be approximately 3 million partial Dam breach would be 1.9 million and Dam lowering with the rock ramp would be about 1.5 million um after looking at each alternative and their costs we are recommending the partial Dam breach um which would is less expensive than full removal or Dam repair um but would would still allow fish passage and remove the jurisdictional requirements of the dam and we also in our um feasibility report outline some next steps which include public Outreach regulatory permitting um historic and archaeological site surveys additional sediment sampling to confirm the preliminary sampling that was done as part of this assessment uh hydraulic modeling um which would be extended Upstream in order to um evaluate Dam stability and Spillway capacity and creation of final design plans and construction documents so at this point we could take questions we did um receive a couple questions before the meeting um that we could briefly address one question was regarding the uh recreational use of the trail Through Time system which is located um along the empowerment and downstream of bellow Farm Mill Dam uh the majority of trails are Downstream of the dam and would not be impacted by modification or removal of the dam however the canal by Robins Mill Dam um which is shown in the oops all we see did everyone lose Jenna Bay yes oh boy apologize for that she's also sharing her screen with the presentation um I can finish her thought here um you know talking about the trail through time um really the only effect that we would see modification to the dam having on sort of the historical character of this area was this the subject pedestrian bridge Jenna was briefly back and now she's gone uh the photo of the pedestrian bridge that was shown is going over the um head rce canal and because of the lowering of the water surface Upstream of the dam that would likely be dry in most conditions most normal day conditions uh occasionally might see flow during elevated precipitation events and floods in Scher Brook but we wanted to at least address that question now and it looks like Jenna Bay might be back there was one other question we had received ahead of the meeting I'll switch it back to her if she's able to uh yeah sorry I'm not sure what happened bounced out there for a minute um the Jim had you addressed the well or the no the other question was was about the Upstream wellfield Marshall Wells right um so you can see here um Bellis Farm Mill Dam loc no not you're not sharing yet um is the slide showing or not anymore not for me um okay hold on there it goes go okay thank you um so where that yellow star is shown um is approximately where Bellow Farm Mill dam is located with Marshall wellfield being to the north um in the feasibility assessment we recommend extending the hydraulic modeling further up stream in order to evaluate any potential draw down areas farther from the dam um and could include the Marshall well fields and other Wells of interest in that analysis um to make sure that there would be no adverse impacts thank you Jen yeah unless there's any other I mean if there's certainly other questions this evening but I would recommend as one of the next steps and we do mention this in our full study that you know we have a public engagement um plan put forth where you know conc ered citizens can come come forward and identify individual pieces of infrastructure or properties that might be um of concern to them that they would like to be analyzed um and you know sort of up to the town how they'd like to handle it I know for 53 River Street we had a committee sort of an ad hoc Committee of concerned citizens who participated and sort of um coralled all the different uh inputs but um those are just some ideas that we had and um we went over a little five minutes I'm sorry about that but we're we're done thanks so much um there might be questions from select board members I I see David with his hand up hi thank you so much um I just have a a few questions um um the breach um uh s uh proposal if I remember from reading the the document that removes 70 ft of um the Earth and Dam is that amount necessary to make sure that the um the the remaining pieces only back up 15 acre feet or less than six feet in 100-year events yes that that was um what necessary in order to meet the um office of damp safety requirements to remove jurisdictional requirements right I okay and then that means the rock ramp um uh backs up more than 15 acre feet or uh is more than F feet deep in 100-year events how um deep well I guess I have uh two questions how how deep is the would the impoundment be normally with the rock ramp and um uh how deep is it in 100-year events um I would need to open up our modeling in order to check that um so so you you you could send me that that response later I mean I I know because you you you said that the uh ODS would still need uh justification we know it has to be more than those limits right and and right one one final question um why did you recommend uh the partial breach instead of the rock ramp partly due to um fish passage concerns and also um because of the um ongoing Dam requirements understood thank you right so allowing uh the dam to stay as a regulatory structure and installing the rock ramp Downstream will still subject it to Dam office of dam safety regulation so there still will be some liability associated with it as far as its continued maintenance it's continued inspections on an on a recurring basis and if there is any sort of um issues any failure uncontrolled failures debris you know captures any sort of deterioration of structures that'll all continue in in perpetuity um the partial Dam breach as you mentioned gets it right below the office of dam safety thresholds so that that's the minimum uh required minimum work required to to achieve that goal and it also you know managed to achieve the other goals as well but similar to 53 River Street when we did sort of that excuse me that sort of value engineering I'll call it where we analyzed iteratively you know the Hydraulics of that Dam to try to leave as much of it as we could uh more from a historic and archaeological interest um we did the same thing here preemptively and and this was the result of that analysis thank you um during this is Jim again during your research did you run across this um vision from a local historic group to uh do a little bit of rest restation work on the existing Canal enough to have to be able to show people how um you know hydr power was used um does that ring a bell did that end up making its way into your into your eyes not specifically though we did um see all of the uh great interpretive signage that's out there right now okay yeah that's it's the same group that Through Time group um so this is I mean this is the only factor that has me hesitating about this which is um the idea that if we could maintain the water flu water flow through the existing Canal um we would have the opportunity in the future when we could find the funding uh to do a little historic exhibit there about you know showing how um you know H how how the old hydroelectric used to work um you know it's an Old Mill it's uh you know it's it's one of the few intact uh you know raceways that we have um and uh you know there's there's that Vision which I'll certainly I'll forward you the emails I have on that just in case it it's part of you know what what would go into the next phase um although I'll say when I first heard this idea about restoring the the about about repairing the dam in order to have this historic aspect I was very tormed because I'm also uh you know it feels like we have a a big priority on restoring habitat uh if we can actually get the you know more fish to come back up here that's a big win um I'm I'm wondering what the um what the downstream Dam situation is uh are there are there existing problems uh Downstream uh that we would need to resolve before we really saw a lot of new you know fish being able to take advantage of their not being a dam we don't have that data ready for prepared for this I okay the especially as it relates to anagrus fish that would be of huge concern is to making make sure that there's unobstructed access to the ocean right because that's where they like to come back and forth um this I think we're a little far inland for that so this really is more freshwater species um and habitat fragmentation but we didn't specifically um look at the connectivity up and down to to Really determine that but we can okay well I think those those are the two factors that I'm thinking of what I'm trying to decide you know whether to agree with this particular recommendation or not um Dean yeah I uh initially when I when I read through the report I was I was favoring The Rock ramp but as I looked at this a little bit more I think the the dam breach is probably the best route in my opinion most important to me is that the the canal will remain um in a dry sit situation I mean you know 53 River Street we're trying to reproduce a canal so um this at least we've got the authentic Canal will still be retained um you will have the fish passage will be enhanced and importantly we're outside the jurisdictional requirements so I although this is a little more expensive um I think this is in my opinion probably the best route to follow uh David so um I I would suggest that we uh approve this proposal today and go move forward to the off office of damp safety and then decide in the Future Between The Rock ramp and the full breach and since the rock ramp is less expensive the office of dam St safety and anybody else is not going to complain if we spend less money and and we make that decision later after a little bit more public input the the canal in the breach situation it's my understanding would be dry and I think dry would be in within quotes basically it's going to be muddy um and you know I had a concern in River Street and and a concern again here that just becomes because it's depressed becomes a collector for trash and um May maybe fill and outlined like the River Street Park uh will have makes sense if we go with the full breach so you can see where the uh Canal was in the case of the rock ramp my understanding from reading the report is um it would have flow in high water conditions and not at other times and so um that then to your point I mean if that's the route we want to take in the future um but you know before we actually start construction um that uh you know uh you you can see the the canal working the race way working so I mean I don't I think we should get some public input before choosing between those last two but I think that the for the application for the uh ODS Grant um and then we can see what they grant us right if they grant us only a million dollars well we might want to close choose the lower price thing if they grant us $2 million you know we can decide what we want um anyway that that that's what what I uh I would defer the final decision it based on some public input sessions um is is that a viable route forward to not have to proceed to the Grant application without a specific uh best path or a favorite path I guess that's a question for James or or for John I yeah I couldn't I couldn't speak for the grant review specifically but I would say that in my in my experience in applying for grant funding the those who who administrate that funding and review the applications are charged with reporting to their um superiors on an annual basis on the success rate of the funding that they distributed and they typically will give more weight to an application that has a stronger sense of realization um more detail and therefore in their opinion a better chance at fully being implemented um I don't that's all I can say is is just speak in general terms thank you well it seems like we have a a possible path ahead of us I'm I'm uh oh yeah please Fran just to go back to the screen with the choices of the yeah can we go back to that summary screen with the with the four choices just from is that okay yeah that'd be great let's do that if we can yeah thank you um right so I think my my main well let's let's figure out if we have a motion um so uh David you're talking about proceeding with the grant appc but keeping open uh whether we do two three or four or were you narrowing us down to two choices uh three or four appealed to me because of price and you know the full dam removal uh removes quite a bit of the you know much more of the um the whole earth and part removes everything yeah right and so um so and repair just continues to back up a lot of water right which makes it a safety issue um the it uh Choice four backs up some water and and she I asked her if she would send me how much it actually backs up normally and in 100-year events so the the danger is much less right um um and choice 3 essentially backs up no water um and um so you know I i' before we make a motion I think we should hear from everybody as to what their preferences are I was going to ask the office of damn safety go into it with a proposal of would the you asking for 1.9 million to do the breach and then based on some public input if we want to go back to them later and say we'd like to do a rock ramp instead I think we have some credibility here because we have one successfully completed project so it's not like we're taking money and not doing anything with it um so um um anyway I I I think the it's hard for us just right here tonight to make the choice between three and four for me one and two are not good choices but four might be a good choice um I we just have to get some public input think about it some more can I yeah friend got questions what is the positive or negative of being in the jur jurisdictional requirements of yeah I know you could answer that so it's it's just more work right so so the the the partial breach means it's uh it's not effectively not a dam anymore right and so the office of Dan safety doesn't have to watch us and we don't have to report anything it's just easy right after that we don't have to do anything right um four is essentially a little damn yeah yeah and so we we have to um and it it um there's a standard by which if it backs up I I'm pretty sure the standard is 15 acre feet um or 6 feet in height in a 100-year event so if it backs up more than that um uh it has it's watched by the office of dam safety and so uh Choice four must back up more than that um but it's not going to back up as much as it gets backed up now thanks um Alyssa so I would uh prefer option three primarily because it's the recommend Ed option from the folks who are the experts um also because it maintains some of the historic infrastructure but doesn't build anything new um and I I recognize that this is my singular opinion but I didn't find the rendering attractive um and this this particular area you can see from the pictures it's a magical place and it's not just the nature part of it is the historic aspects like Dean mentioned it's important that the canal remains instead of trying to create an impression of of where the Raceway was um and there's a lot of other um structures there indigenous and the foundation from the wheeler house and and I love walking on the bridge and the embankment and looking at those you know retaining I don't think they're called retaining walls but the stone walls that that line there so I I think that first of all removing it from the jurisdiction makes it easier and second of all we're not constructing something new that's going to be um I mean the kiosks are are new obviously and the parking lot is new but I think we should limit ourselves in in adding any new structures um to to this area towards three as well I'm yeah um David I don't have an objection with three but I did want to clarify two things one is three there'll be no water in the canal and we we'll have a decision as to whether we fill it or not like if it we could fill it with a different colored thing or yeah I understand that it's going to be dry it's just still going to remain and I and I don't have a concern about it filling up with trash and I would not be in favor of filling it with dirt and the other thing the rock ramp um just to make sure that it's understood is underwater most the time so it's it's like a it's like a waterfall mhm okay it's an ugly waterfall no no no I was just explaining that it's not um Dean are you you you feeling inclined to I I heard I remember what you said but not well enough um yeah I initially I was I was looking towards the uh the rock ramp um you know for cost point of view and it would be nice to have a little water flow through there but I you know looking at it more carefully uh I think it's really important for us to eliminate this Dam from any jurisdictional requirements um we don't know how often we're going to end up having to to revisit this depending upon you know the state bureaucracy and uh you know I I think we've got an able group of land stewards that you know if any kind of trash might happen to get into that uh dry Raceway I think it could be handled pretty quickly it's also it's not like we're it's really close to a road where there's going to be you know bottles and cans and plastic bags blowing into it it's it's fairly uh fairly remote MH so I I think I unbalanced I favor the uh option number three MH and I think it's also important that we do the the best job we possibly can to uh look for a state Grant on this and it seems like if we're really firm with the route we want to follow it's better than saying well we might go one way or the other y um so I I can see I'm in the minority here and I think it's because of my um allegiance to you know the old trail through time and its Vision um you know the notion of having water run through there and being able to have something that shows how that actually works is is is attractive to me but uh I'm I totally I'm I'm very comfortable with being outvoted on this one I'm seeing I'm not persuading a lot of people um and at least with the partial Dam breach um like I said the canal is stays there even though it's dry and there still might be an opportunity for some you know historical interpretation there about you know this is where the water would have flowed this is what it would have done this is what this rock work looks like um you know earlier attempt to restore the rock work was stopped for for precisely this reason that that um because they didn't know if the if the water would suddenly be rushing through there at full speed or if it was going to stop or they didn't the the stonemasons uh didn't know how to proceed until the dam issues had been settled so at least if we go ahead with a partial Dam breach uh you know it'll be settled um and you know and then things can proceed from there um I forget whether there was already a motion in mind for this particular action great h i I moved that we asked the town manager to move forward with an ODS application for a partial Dam breach at the Bellows Farm uh Dam uh does that does that satisfy what you need to do to move forward well that's great and and one question to well let's let's do the vote first then I'll have a question um that's a motion a second would be good yeah I was thinking authoriz chair to sign letter of support oh yeah so the second board is authorized the town manager to sign that letter of supp I quite finished and authorize the chair to sign the letter of support appli that's what I thought you meant to say thank you second yeah okay that's been moved in seconded um any more discussion um all those in favor please say I I I all those opposed please say nay nay that's 4 to one let's let's go do it okay thank you guys for your time Happ answer any other questions thank you for waiting here thank you virtually yeah thank you guys thank you byebye um okay um approving the number 10 is approved withdrawal from Acton health insurance trust um it's a pretty simple one we might have thought we'd already done this but this was one little piece of the puzzle we hadn't formally done um John want to just thank thank you as discussed at the previous meetings we're we're transitioning our employees and retirees to the health insurance trust um all sorry out of the health insurance trust into uh a new trust called Maya uh it's a two-step process and so so this is just a motion that we prepared and put in the packet to uh confirm our intention is to withdraw from the Acton health insurance trust and if there are any questions I'm happy to address them uh David's got a question yeah yes uh with withdrawing doesn't affect the the run out of um the trust does it uh no we we we're proposing or we intend to keep within the trust uh to fulfill our financial obligations um until they are completed and uh the any other questions no so we have we do have the following motion provided for this request uh okay you are you're saying let's read this or you're in favor of it okay since you saddled me with the health insurance trust M it would be entirely appropriate hit liaison make this motion I was worried I was going to lose my house folks I move to approve the withdrawal from the Acton health insurance trust and provide written notice of withdrawal to the trust no later than March 31st 2024 and to join the Massachusetts interlocal Insurance Association Maya for the purposes of offering employees and non-medicare eligible retirees health insurance coverage effective July 1 2024 second okay it's been moved and seconded is there any other discussion no uh all those in favor please say yes or I yes I I I thought I heard four what what did you say sorry I okay forgot okay now that's five yeses and five eyes and I'm glad I can still hear well enough to know that I I didn't hear twoo highs to yeah yeah wake up wake up okay we got five um that's unanimous um okay um this next one um number 11 approve policy regarding waving compensation for appointed positions um John could you remind us how we got here sure there was some confusion um in town hall as it relates to officials that are appointed uh when their position comes with compensation uh some volunteer positions such as registrars uh are in Mass General law says they are to get paid a certain amount uh and this is making it crystal clear that uh or we're proposing to make it crystal clear that a volunteer or an appointed person may wave that compensation if they would like to and um so the policy uh may not have been clearly written in the packet but I'm happy to share it with you right now um that's helpful yes yeah so that we would know exactly what we were voting on so the policy would be to uh allow appointed officials to wave compensation if they choose very simple um would uh would anyone like to like a make a motion along those lines oh so moved then just get it into conversation here is there a second a second okay uh now there might be conversation about this topic um I I'll just say yeah this did this did initiate from uh the problem with the the with the board of registrars and this is part of the fix um any other comments or questions yes John I wonder if the word appointed is necessary and if we were just if I were to revise what I uh just said it just say allow officials employed I already lost it sorry no that's fine I I think that would make sense because then it would make it legal that for example one of our board members would not be receiving compensation as you know so from time to time board members have declined to be paid and would clarify that that was okay uh David is it just elected and appointed officials then is there any other category um yeah that's a good question um I can't think of another one another category rather I would offer a friendly amendment to change it to elected and appointed officials great um I certainly accept that I'll accept my own thing okay a second okay getting a Slappy here it's okay we can we can just we can focus in um Okay so we've got a motion and we've got a second any more comments or questions any comments from the world out there no all those in favor please say yes or I yes I that's all five of us we like this policy it's been approved there are six people online okay we're down to six people thanks for hanging in there people um okay uh we have a um a a brief update on the CPC recommendations for town meeting I think Dean is also going to send us a complete thing but you've got this to get the the gist it would be great to okay I did the uh the planning staff puts together a spreadsheet that has all of the details in it and I did send it along to the town manager and suggested that we forward it to all the members so that's floating around somewhere out there if not I can send it again um so CPC uh completed the deliberations last week uh are making a recommendation that's being formalized uh and we'll vote on it next week but just briefly we had a total list of requests of $3,225 th000 um we had a total sum available of $1,674 th000 I'm rounding here uh we recommended expenditures of 1,668 th000 of those totals have to put it in several buckets what's being recommended uh for town meeting uh just under 33% will go towards open space just under 24% will go for community housing uh a little bit over 15% will go for historic preservation uh 23% will go towards Recreation projects and 4.26% will go to Administration um looking through this there were two projects in particular that that got zero funding everyone else got something um obviously in order to meet the budget the uh a lot of people got a lot less than they were hoping for uh so I can I can go through the list of of the allocations or or not depending upon how much time um I'm happy to wait for the for the print out to see the details um there might be specific questions or comments from board members you know it's on it's on our agenda so we can talk about it David is there a decision we have to make no this is just an update I could also wait till the to either okay yeah the the the way this works there's no decision for the select board to make um it'll go to town meeting with the CPC recommendation and at town meeting uh projects can be taken off the list be not funded or um but nothing can be added and nothing can be increased that's it thanks for the reminder and thanks for the great work of the committee um that's tough work to especially in these years when there's you know twice as much requested um but it still makes for better decisions when there's more when there's more requests than there are funding at least I know that lets you make choices um just good okay let's talk parking um number 13 and 14 are related um thir I'm just going to mention well let's do one at a time 13 approved reserved parking rates for both Maple Street lots and jonesfield lot through June 30th 2024 so this is a relatively shortterm uh uh uh decision before we get to the longer the pilot program stuff in the next in the next item so John who how will we learn about this uh so I was at the parking lot on Thursday uh the communal lot and it was mostly full except for the resident parking sticker area um which is I think good news a THS the commuter the traffic in Boston is heavier Tuesday to Thursday from what I stand uh but it's nice to see people taking the train again uh so we'd like to uh continue ramping back up with how we do the reserve parking on the other side and just extend uh based on the motion in the packet uh for another three months M uh what's listed there as the pricing and then we have another item I wanted to talk about under the next um topic okay um does anyone have that document right in front of them and want to read that motion especially I don't know anyone that wants to David either way move to continue the reserved parking rates for both Maple Street Lots at 120 am I reading right yes you got it 120 per month and the Jones field lot at $50 per month through June 30th 2024 second okay it's been moved and seconded there might be additional comments or questions from board members there might be comments or questions out in the world among those six people that are still online no okay great um all those in favor of continuing these rates please say yes or I I all those opposed please say nay just m sorry on to this interesting pilot program idea uh thank you as we continue to look at how our Park parking program operates um I certainly observed on Thursday that the reserved Lots on Maple Street are very much underutilized um currently and uh given that that area is you know we're hoping that it continues to ramp back up but in the meantime we were wondering whether the board would be interested in allowing us to try a pilot program where pilot program where we have up to 10 spaces in between those two Maple Street Lots set up as daily parking spots just as if they were on the other side uh and that you would go just like when like if you're in the city sometimes you just go you read the sign and you can use your app to put the number in uh we we we have the cap the capability to do that with our existing Software System and we wanted to try it out uh and wanted to see what you thought of that there might be questions or comments about that idea David so I I think this is a good idea um the um parking usage it continues to recover after the pandemic it's you know uh I've been by the the the parking lots especially the big parking lot a number of times it get it's becoming more and more full again which is great but um the evidence we're seeing is that the nature of parking has changed changed um it used to be the reason why we had these Reserve spaces is that you know the parking used to completely fill by 715 and um some people needed to do things like drop off a child to child care and then take the train in so we allowed them it was an extra cost thing but you could reserve as parking space and you could get there at 8:30 and still have your space that seems to be not necessary anymore no um so we might as well use these for um you know people with in town surrounding towns um uh to to use on a daily basis um so I I think we might as well use the space as we have rather than have them be empty any other thoughts or comments about this um no um then a motion would be called for oh uh John you're noticing want to clarify that hit the little button again I just want to clarify that these would be set up as at a premium compared to the other side uh partially it'll reflect that that it is could be perceived as a better spot and it also maybe would encourage people to say hey I really like this maybe I'll get one of the reserve spaces so I can just come here whenever I want um so uh uh David would you like to make this motion here move to establish a pilot program to create uh up to 10 daily commuter parking spaces at one Maple Street or 19 to 21 Maple Street Street at a rate of $8 effective May 1st 2024 any final questions or comments second okay oh yeah even better uh moved and seconded uh again any other questions or comments no all those in favor please say yes or I I I that's unanimous um okay let's have that pilot program it'll take a couple months for it to get together so for those of you for the six of you left online don't go rushing out there expecting to see these right away you always s so surprised when it's unanimous yeah I think it's worth celebrating or at least noticing thank you okay um next item and last item before consent and Meeting Evil approve tax impact document for select board webpage um so I did a little research on this that I can report on to the board uh that might be a foundation for what we talk about um so at our last meeting uh we we talked about what the ALG had wanted which was to have a um a way for people to see um what was more the more likely tax impact of the override that is the effect of a $6.6 million override with a 1.2 million um um unused tax levy um and we talked through the various aspects of it um some points that were made um were to um make sure that the wording was clear that the actual uh operating override amount was 6.6 million um and um another thing that came up at the last minute uh which Alyssa suggested and the rest of us nodded our heads to was to um uh remove the um remove the the totals columns because all you really need is previous uh tax amount and how much it would be increased under various circumstances so I had thought where we ended up was um assessed value you know FY 24 you know look at that table uh increased and how much your taxes would increase without an override uh how much your and how much your taxes would increase with an override um with an override but minus the 1.2 and unused tax Lobby um what we got from the manager is a draft was different than that um and it was two documents rather than one so I heard from at least one select board member who said oh this this doesn't seem right let's let's talk about it some more um so um I think first I had some questions a couple of questions for for John um so what you showed us was two documents uh is there a scenario in which you can imagine there would be just one document or was is it important for you to have both or where were you at with that yeah my apologies if if I misinterpreted Direction I think I might have been confused by this discussion that morning and then maybe didn't clear it uh all the way through with what happened that night uh that's why it's not fun having two meetings like that in the same book ending your day yeah um but I think we could certainly have one document U if that's what the board asked me to do that's what we'll do um the only other thing that I think we would looking at the language there uh in the in the in the sort of in the top part it seemed like we might want to add something to explain that the $1.2 million was not something we just made up but it was part of the ALG plan based on the town and school's budget um that was the only change I could think of to the to the language there um those of you who saw the the those drafts uh or um or had a or or you know were there at the last meeting are there other things you would add or subtract from that notion uh David so I think it's really confusing for the public to have two documents um okay great I think it's just very uh difficult um and um the second thing I would say is um the the the tax rates that have come out of the ALG work that is the plan right the increase to the tax levy is not a plan to increase taxes MH and it is extremely un likely that that would happen this year and in fact the and then the document that was out there said fy2 tax impact from the override which is false right it's that's not in the plan and it's extremely unlikely so maybe it's necessary to say possible eventual impact of the increasing the tax levy and that impact but I I think that's just confusing I mean what's in the plan is the budgetary amounts that um uh ALG is produced uh along with uh you know from the essentially the budgets created by the town in the schools yeah I think that's I mean that's consistent with the agreement that we we had reached at you know whatever it was 1055 on two weeks ago on Monday night um so yeah I totally get why it was hard for for John to reflect that but I I think that is what we decided um um other thoughts Alyssa and then John oh and then there's comments okay i' like to hear from board members first oh us uh no no it's still too confusing yeah um so I would agree with what David just said except I I think it is it would be confusing if we said potential possible because it it would also be um inviting distrust um so this is the plan this is what the tax impact will be for fy2 if you have your you know this is your home value look it up um and then the other column for the untaxed levy capacity instead of defining that by saying potential future possible um people can just look up what untaxed Levy capacity means mhm or we can put a proper definition in there MH because I don't think we want anybody looking at this tax impact um estimate and thinking well it could be this or it could be this other higher number um and and different towns do it differently um I have some friends in Westford in addition to the town manager um who are facing an override and they are um you know the information that has been put together I have to admit I haven't went I haven't gone to the to the town website to look at this to see if it's accurate but the information that residents are putting together is that the $6.8 million override is going to be taxed and then they're going to keep um in an o in an override stabilization fund so people are upset like oh you're you're taking it out of my pocket instead of letting me keep it in my pocket for another year and that's not what we're doing and act in and I think that people need to know that so we talked a lot um here at the ALG meeting the fincom meetings they talked about the psychology of the figure right so a100 we were trying to get it to $100 a month so people could really more than $100 was a more scary number um and the reason that this tax table is important is because you know we're throwing out that that $100 a month at $1,200 but you know if you look at the beautiful histogram um and add up all of the home values you know when you say the average home value in Acton is $840,000 that you you think average middle of the road but I added up all of those bars and 70% of the homes in town are less than the average home value so people really need to understand if they have have like me I don't have an average home value it's significantly less I'm not going to see my taxes go up in FY 25 by $100 a month it's going to be much less so I I want folks to have this information but I don't want to be wishy-washy and confuse them with anything that's not really likely MH thank you um Dean yeah I I think the important thing is although granted that is the plan 5.4 million uh and whatever that tax increase is going to be in your house this year but I think you know the other piece of it that people are focused on is okay so what are you going to do with that extra 1.2 million now amongst ourselves we know it's going to be un taxed capacity but that does imply that at some point your taxes will go up by that amount and I think that's the that's the real issue is that you know when you when people go to vote on uh on the override they need to know exactly what the dollar value is I I'm I really personally feel that it was a bad choice to ask for more money on an override than you actually intend to use I know you don't want to going to have to go for another override next year but I think everybody figures that this is just to avoid having to go for an extra override next year but there's nothing to say based on financial situation in the town that the override passes things go up you spend your 5.4 million and you still get an extra million two that you could spend at some later point that might not be enough to fill the Gap that you need next year we don't know that so you could somebody could say well okay you're going to take that 1.2 that you're holding in reserve you're going to tax that and you're going to ask ask for another override on top of that and I think that's the problem with asking for more than you actually need and I think it's it's going to be to the detriment of getting this override passed um I can't find the document that that we're talking about so I I think I would like to see it on the screen um so we can take a look at the wording and I think the public probably should be able to see the wording as well before we vote on this yeah um so yeah so maybe without the I not want to focus on the column headings but at least the opening text on the uh the ALG version of your document um that would be great to see um and like I said the only thing I I thought add was uh to add a sentence to explain where that $1.2 million came from that it was it's it's part of the ALG plan it's the it's it it accounts for the school and Town's current budgets that that leaves this you know $1.2 million yeah please so in terms of this introductory paragraph um instead of 6.6 million with 1.2 million um it might be better to say which includes 1.2 million in excess Levy capacity so people don't add those two together and think that it's 7.8 y um are you finding a way to bring the okay great yeah so that's the yeah yes yes that was the one that that um yeah the one that had the the 1.2 million um so alysa's first suggestion is instead of the word with uh that change in the in the subject line change that to uh including which includes instead of which [Music] includes people don't know what excess tax yeah yeah I'm sorry people yeah but sure so I guess I'm uh proposing to add a sense after you define what um excess Levy capacity is um um to say something about um $1.2 million um this $1.2 million is calculated from the current town and school budgets or the town current Town budget and school act and school assessment um something there just to say that it's you know it's not a it's not a madeup number uh the cars um have have room for $1.2 million in excess Levy capacity with a $6.6 million override or have accounted for yeah I I might suggest you add something in there just to clarify that that 1.2 million could be taxed in future years yeah I think that that might be just the right thing to explain that it's not it's not forever not taxed um so that could be an additional sentence after that one this excess Levy capacity could be used in future years or could be um yeah something like that that that's that's fine the the fact that excess Levy capacity is odd is only because we've been at the levy limit for the past uh three or four years yeah we sort of lost track we went for about 15 years M with having we were not at the limit we we had exess Levy capacity every every year and we didn't tax it yeah uh even my first year on the board we had excess lby capacity wasn't very much it was like $300,000 but um uh we had some yeah I would just say may be used in future years period um then we don't have to get into a long explanation of how budgets work um and so that that that seems like a great start here um um yeah and then we talked what with with Alyssa suggestion at the end of the meeting was to uh remove some of these columns um and add an additional one so let's see that we would just have assessed value the column a uh increase without override that's column B skip column C because people can calculate the total just by adding it to their uh their current year tax bill oh wait do we have uh yeah no the the column that I had suggested was I I think it was in the previous document it was fy4 tax bill right that's adding on right right that's right FY 24 tax bill and and that would become the new column B right in your suggestion right yeah so the First Column is the value of the home and then the the next column would be what your tax bill is in FY 24 and then the next column is the additional tax bill for tax addition for FY 25 yeah but just the increase right inre average I think it was 462 um and then the next one was if the override passes then this is the additional on top of that um without the override and so you just have to add up those two numbers to your FY 24 tax bill right so which is sort of what column D is right now it's got a lot of words but that's the that's the number you're looking for no that's the not if I'm understanding her correctly so she want if I'm you can correct me anytime if I say something you didn't want uh column A gets left alone uh a column gets inserted between A and B which is the current tax bill for that value MH column B becomes column C but it's left alone M column C gets deleted MH um column D stays exactly the same way it is and column e gets deleted so there are four columns yeah so that's that's the proposal that's the wording um you know you can imagine that uh you know in in implementing this John might have small questions or concerns about little changes or wording changes um but this is this is uh what we're uh asking John to put on the website as the single document uh that's talking about tax impacts that am I am I getting that right I'm looking for nods I think from people okay great okay and there's hands raised um so we we figured out our Direction but it would be good to hear from the public uh Matt why don't you let the let let the people speak of course first one should be Charlie kadlick Charlie you should be able to speak hi hi Charlie let's make this simple I don't think there are more than a 100 people in the whole town who have any idea what excess L capacity means and they're not going to try and figure it out from the spreadsheet the simple fact is that the vote on the override is for 6.6 million that's that's all you really need to know the reason you're trying to make it a lower number is to increase the chances of this being favorably accepted by time vot at March 30th a so not March 30th April 30th so the simple way to present this it's a $6.6 million General override but how that money is used will be decided later leave it at that that's the honest way to present it anything else is just manipulating the numbers and there are not going to be many people who have any idea what this table how how to use this table or what it means how do what the impact this let's I mean several of you have already said this will increase what you want to do is increase the chances of this being approved at at the election that's not the way I would do it I understand that you probably are not going to agree with me but the honest presentation of what the potential impact of this override is on your tax bill is 6.6 million not no no other number any other number is just confusing the issue so do it the simple way you can explain to people later if you if you want to try to explain in a different format what X Plus estimate what sorry excess Levy capacity means but I don't think many people have any idea or will have any idea with any kind of an explanation ALG has spent good part of an hour trying to figure it out you've spent more than an hour last meeting and you're spending a lot of time now trying to figure it out which just proves that it's just too confusing to try vote for one number but actually not use it that's not the honest way to present it thank you thank you Charlie um are there other people that have stuff to say one more yes Mr chair there's another raised hand this is from a Callin user they should be able to identify themselves and speak now yeah hi it's ter again I had to hang up and so that I'm joining again I I I don't always agree with Charlie on everything um I do agree that it's confusing and that the total is the total amount um whether it's granted this year or next year it is um you know maybe you could say this year at this and next year at that but to have a chart like this suggests that the the second part the next year part the whatever it's called the unused Levy uh that wouldn't doesn't even isn't even on this chart so um I agree that we need to be up front and it is very confusing thank you thanks um well I think we have a plan for now um I'm happy to entertain ideas about how to make it less confusing but let's get something out there that at least expresses the shared agreement of the board about the information that needs to get be gets to be presented um Alissa yeah I just want to follow up that what was or maybe it still is um the the original draft is dishonest because the top of the column says your fy2 estimated total tax bill with the override so the board here is attempting to explain that the vote at the ballot is to authorize the town to tax but for fy2 we won't be taxing to that full amount of 6.6 million so we are attempting to be more honest and yes a bonus of that is that people will understand that their tax bill will not go up $1,333 next year if they have that average $840,000 uh home value it will go up about $1,200 that is the honest tax impact yeah that's why I'm that's why I'm con that's why I'm uh persuaded that this is a good way to do it it people will have the question of how much will my taxes go up next year and this is this is this is the right way to estimate that I'm just wondering if we need the words uh I mean I understand unused tax levy is uh confusing but if we can remove unused tax levy from the column header of column D so it's just the fy2 FY 2025 tax bill uh with the override or with the 6.6 million doll override because the um uh that you know that I I don't think we need to say access tax slow be there it can just say with the override yeah with the proposed override with the override um uh just to not not not confuse things um and I I agree with Alyssa that it's important to do it this way because if we ditched the full override the amount you know always in the past first of all all we've had excess Levy capacity in the over every single override that's passed has had excess Levy capacity in it and um the um um we don't know what we're going to do in future years a alg's what's being discussed right now is to use a third of that next year actually my tendency would be to use none of that next year because I think next year might be an easier year than the year after but um there's not full consensus on ALG yet on that um uh so um you know we don't know where where it's going going in the future um and I I think this is an an honest uh way of doing it it reflects the fact that we've cut the budgets the a budget several times um and um uh you know almost uh $5 million between the two entities um from where the level service budgets were thanks um do we feel done we feel like we have we've given John clear enough directions on the document that they'll create John do you feel like you have clear enough directions I see you're still editing it so I think you're not quite sure on but I'm just trying to make the the language consistent because it says several things several times so okay I'm trying to be not as redundant but also continue to be clear okay per perhaps you could just run the final thing by past Chim and me as ALG the ALG reps and if we have final comments is that works for me or or not I mean just use your Jud what works for the board if if this is generally where you want to be this is generally where I'll that will stay yeah will stay sounds good great and I have a lot of trust in your ability to write things clearly and you know not not do it in a biased way so thank you and I just want to say thank you for all the that went into this yes thank you very much and there are now seven people online Okay um that we did that I was I was sure this afternoon that we would not get to this one and I was sad about that but I really appreciate people hanging in there um and Dean doesn't even have to warn me about it being 10 o'clock for another five minutes um so let's start in on the consent items oh yeah are we going to take a vote on this oh um we could yes um so the we don't actually have a formal motion so let's construct that so the construction is um oh David you've been doing such a good job tonight constructing motions do you want to try it again uh I I move um that we uh published the um the format that the the town manager had on the screen with uh wording improvements by the town managering uh the word second would be good at this point okay thanks um so there might be comments on that or questions on that no okay uh let's take the vote all those in favor please say I I I I all those opposed please say nay all those abstaining please say abstain abstain okay thank you um okay let's start doing the consent I um and then we can do a meeting eval um so we have these consent items 16 through 24 I will read them you can uh uh say hold or something like that if you want us to have a further discussion about it number 16 approv meeting minutes February 5th and 26 2024 approve policy outlining slick board Le on responsibilities appoint James D Convoy to the board of registrars with a term to end in February 2 26 19 appoint Greg jarbo as finance committee representative to the economic development committee with a term to end on June 30th 2026 and James fuon as planning board representative with a term to end on June 30 2027 both as associate members and appoint David cotay to the economic development committee with a term to end June 30th 2026 as a full member accept donation from direct access therapy for $500 to support the 2024 summer concert series and events 21 accept donation from Shirley Densmore for $5 to the Acton dog park gift fund 22 appoint an Chang as a full member of the Department of Public Works building committee to expire upon completion of task when committee sunsets 23 approve one-day alcoholic beverage license applications Boston events Nara Park August 18th 2024 Cynthia Schubert jet Nara Park wi 1 April 27 2024 act and box worldo class of 16 9 hooray Nara Park picnic Pavilion August 17 2024 and South Acton Congregational Church 35 School Street April 6 2024 and finally 24 authorized Town manager to sign agreement with Paul swen silver unicorn bookstore for the use of Spruce Street on April 20th 2024 so perhaps there's a motion out there to approve consent item 16 through 24 so moved and a second second okay David and Alyssa have moved and seconded and I think these are the kind of things that get no comments or questions because that's why it's called a consent agenda so all those in favor please say yes or I yes I okay that's everyone thank you um meeting eval um let's see some comments um hey it's only 10 that's not too bad um we did get a a little at least I I felt that I got a little bit um tired or sloppy somewhere in in the middle there but we managed to recover I did notice that I I stood up and stretched at one point that seemed to be a good thing I can recommend that for everybody um people used to think that Peter Barry had a bad back because he would always getting up and stretching at when he was on the select board but as I was talking with him the other day he explained no it just kept him alert um so it's good to know it's a strategy that's worked for a long time um let's see uh I I would be curious if you wanted Dean during your meeting eval if you wanted to say something about what uh if something went wrong in that last part about the tax impact document I thought we were all on the same page but I I think you weren't quite and I I wish I had caught that but earlier um what else I think it was the first time I voted my memory uh as chair to vote for some or to vote on something when everybody else voted for it I thought that was going to be difficult turned out not to be such a big deal uh that's it for my meeting EV comments uh anyone else David good meeting I don't know what we're going to do for the next hour um um but I things for the future um uh um I was wondering if we could do uh uh town meeting assignments next time um that means we kind of need a draft warrant but um yeah I think we I think you know most of us will need a month to prepare and look at the presentations if we're going to record one you know so um or or whatever so usually we go through the list and say assigned this to you know one person to this one another person to that one similarly um I think next time we need to sign a person to the special town meeting article um whether that should be the same as the person who does the zoning articles or whatever maybe we do the town meeting articles first or whatever you think and then do do the special town meeting article um and the and the final thing I was wondering if um uh Fran should ask the EDC to draft a tit policy I was if we're in agreement with that we could yeah and and and we had um uh oh I've already forgotten his name we had a Kevin Kevin Kevin was also offering to send us sample Tiff policies message to you or to us yes said ask me yeah so that'll be good he also presented to the EDC yeah so um they know him yeah they're good friends now so um yeah so I just thought we and then that that would be brought back whenever the EDC is done thank you other comments on meeting eval Dean sh you asked um I did it it became increasingly clear to me in my opinion with all due respect to the members of the board that the discussion on this particular document had much more to do with how to get the override passed than to provide Clarity to the taxpayers and uh you know just my perception but um and at that point uh I knew I was going to be on the wrong side of a 4 to one so I decided to be on the wrong side it was an extension but um I I just think that it's really important that things get clarified and it we just went back and forth so many times with different columns different wording but it was still the impetus I think was to get it past and not necessarily to have it clear to the T taxpayers so I would prefer not to vote in favor of something like that got it well we'll have more chances to uh discuss the kinds of information that we want to present about the override so I hope we'll have more opportunities to make sure that we are you know doing this in a way that makes objective sense and that you're involved in that uh David so I don't know if' you're interested or what the other members of the board think I I be happy to work with Dean or anybody um of course it could only be two of us um on you know I mentioned the beginning maybe this is awkward just just but discussing and looking into uh a column or a way to say what the eventual impact could be MH you know the the uh uh eventual impact of the override right so it's the fy2 impact of the override and then the eventual maybe there's a way to do that um I'd be willing to work with anybody on that okay I we're not going to send the two of you off because that would be like creating a subcommittee but you know if some sub Quorum group of you happens to talk about that and comes back with an agenda item happy to entertain it anyone want to make a motion to adjourn I move to adjourn second okay all those in favor please say yes or I yes I okay that's it thanks everybody