e e e e e e e e e [Music] [Music] [Music] good afternoon everyone welcome to the March 14 meeting of the chadam finance committee pursuant to Governor Healey's March 29 2023 signing of the act of 23 extending certain covid-19 measures adopted during the state of eerc Mercy suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law until March 31 2025 this meeting of the chadam finance committee is being conducted in person and via remote participation every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings as provided for in the order reminder the persons who would like to listen to this meeting while in progress may do so by calling 508 945 4410 again 508 945 4410 and enter conference ID 698 918 859 pound sign 698 918 859 pound sign or one may join the meeting online by a Microsoft teams through the link in the posted agenda well this is a live broadcast and simal cast on chatam TV despite our best efforts we may not be able to provide for real-time access we will post a record of this meeting on the town's website as soon as possible roll call to commence janre here Bar Madison is absent Tracy Shields here Christen Andres here Tommy Don here Andy young here joh papalardo here Eric Whitley here chair is here all right we're going to consider consider we're going to continue our consideration of various uh warrant related articles I'm going to call an audible on our agenda as two of the pre presenters relative to the airport articles are somewhat time constrained so I think we will take a moment and start with them rather than the Waterfront Bond article um so I think we've got Terry online allegedly no not yet not yet Tracy please thank you Mr chair I um recusing myself from airport issues so I will leave the day very good thank you Huntley you ready to join us thank you Huntley Harrison airport commission uh I am waiting for Terry because he has a presentation ah and uh I think the presentation inv obviously involves both the Warren article so maybe until he comes on it would be expedient for you all to pick up one of the others okay that's fine and what is your time constraint how is there clock just aware of I i' I've got time I I'll I'll work it out okay so just yeah do what you do what you need to do all right Jo do we have any insight into Terry's availability he may have been waiting for a while but because there's a couple things we could knock out I think pretty quickly once we get into the Waterfront Bond article I suspect we be added for a spell I think Terry's constraint was to he had to leave by 3:30 so I think he's anticipating that the other articles were going to go first I just texted him so if you want to start with another article and then when we see him pop in okay and we can pivot over to him okay why don't we do that so Carrie could you take us through and again I don't know if Michael McMillan's on board but the mon Regional School operating assessment yes absolutely um okay so um the monoy school budget for um fy2 is 10, 38,9 4 um and sorry just looking for my little sheet over here so um their overall budget for uh the school this for fy2 is 46 m51147 which is an increase of 4.8% over FY 2024 um and the assessment for this year for uh chadam is an increase of 6.2% or $598,500 m293 940 no 10 milon 308 940 and nothing has changed since um their presentation okay any questions for Carrie with respect to the proposed mono Regional School District operating budget if not I'll take a motion to support uh the appropriation of 10 million 8,940 so moved second and all those in favor Joanne yes Tracy yes Kristen yes Tommy yes Andy yes John yes Eric yes chair's in favor a to nothing thank you and I believe um Terry whan is now on so we can proceed with the airport if You' like perfect great okay thank you so Huntley if you got a minute thank you welcome gentlemen Terry can you hear us yes I can hear you I apologize I had to come back in on a different link I no worries over to you gentleman if we could please I'll let Terry start yeah I I'll start and again I apologize for the link issue in the very beginning there so just um I I believe I I believe you have copies of the um the presentation that was provided to the select board um on uh Tuesday evening um and if You' like I can run through the presentation or U answer questions however you yeah one if if uh if you wouldn't mind why don't you give us a quick flyby as it were of sure what we're doing so what I'm going to do I'll I'll share my screen quickly I might flash by a couple of the slides but just um the scrier article um error um is um you know primarily a housekeeping article um in the sense that the uh action um hopefully you can see the this the slide here so again the um action here is to um basically re um Institute the word not so uh this was something that was um inadvertently uh dropped from the 195 this was originally approved excuse me in 1958 um the bylaw at that point in time was the the hierarchy and the bylaw was different it was actually section 56 and then in um uh 1997 there was a basically General overhaul of the the bylaws going from um sections to Chapters and at that point um is when the scrier error occurred um back uh in its transition from SE section 56 to chapter 100 there was a subsequent uh change to the general bylaws as well an administrative um format change where it became uh chapter 100 and that scrier error was uh continued so basically all this article is doing is is looking to um reinstall the word or um not as it was included in the original bylaw and basically it brings this back into compliance with uh Massachusetts General Law chapter 90 okay thank you Terry questions for Terry or Huntley is the case may be if not I'll take a motion to support the reinsertion of the word not in uh uh section 100-4 B of the general bylaw still moved second thank you um all those in favor Joanne I Tracy's abstained Kristen I Tommy I Andy I John I Eric yes chair support so that's seven to zero carry all right thank you Terry then airport approach zone map oh there you go right so I put so again I'm skipping a couple of slides for for context but I'll go back through the the high points of of the graphics but essentially a a similar type of situation from the the actual mechanics of the article are pretty straightforward with the um this U article proposes to change a reference from the February 1958 map uh with a March 2024 map uh to reconcile um the airport approach zones indicated in the general bylaw with those that are in place right now and what the airport commission has been uh conducting its planning towards for in both the following up on Airport Master Plan update items and um continuing actions on the obstruction removal project so the um the the there was the 2024 map in your um um which you probably couldn't see so well in the the copies but essentially this is the revised map that um shows the new uh approach zones and then um as I was indicating this is really to reconcile the airport uh approach Zone features with the current conditions um including the Airport layout plan uh and features uh the fa advisory circulars so the the revised approach Zone uh shape also maintains the existing 2:1 slope of the 1958 map so that's how the the surface um is represented in the air and this this has nothing to do this proposal has nothing to do with airport approach zones which are distinct and separate from a Runway protection zones and and just quickly here you can see uh the contrast rather than showing the old 1958 map basically the red here indicates the area um of the 1958 map and then the black outline here which you saw previously is the proposed 2024 um approach area which is consistent and conformant with the FAA advisory circular um on the approach surfaces and this this graphic just shows the the difference um or or area added to the um with the result in new new service area sorry all right that's helpful thank you um questions for Terry Andor Huntley respecting the uh revision of the chapter 100 airport approach zone map if not I'll take a motion to support or adopt Andy please um what effect if any does this have on the underlying properties the the new The Wider could you identify yourself Hunley please pardon could you identify yourself oh I'm sorry uh Huntley Harrison airport commission thank you um when we've been talking with the property owners underneath the new map the that we have not added any Property Owners between the 58 map and the new map the yellow zone was just a comparison so ever since we've been talking with property owners underneath the the approach Zone we've been dealing with the new map and so no no Property Owners will be uh added that everyone who's under that area who is affected by the tree removal project has been contacted that was all thank you thank you Hunley just for oot ter just for context could you could someone give us a sense of how wide um at the Apex of those new triangles we're talking about here is this a couple hundred feet or is it 20 ft is no no no at the base it's 400 feet 200 feet from the end of the runway and then perpendicular to the runway 400 ft 200 200 feet on each side from the center line and then at the far end the wide end it's uh 10,000 ft out and I believe it's 3,400 wide that is correct yes but that's approximately two miles off off the field yep yeah okay all right further questions or comments if not I'll take a motion to support the substitution of the revised chapter 100 airport approach zone map so moveed second all those in favor Joanne yes uh Kristen yes Tommy yes Andy yes John yes Eric yes the chair is in favor s to nil all right thank you gentlemen thank you very apprciate your time thank thank you very much all right so back to our previously scheduled programming we're going to head into the reconsideration of the Waterfront Bond article and I think Greg Burman is here to speak with us about that Greg Burman gentem natural resources welcome thank you sorry just pulling up the presentation here so I just have a very few slides in the beginning to talk about um the overall budget of the bond and 90 Bridge Street in particular uh it seemed like there were probably some questions on that so I'll kind of lead us through the overall budget and history of the budget over time but then I I also have some Town staff and uh other liaison and committee members who would like the opportunity if the chair sees fit just to provide a very brief background on how they've engaged with their constituencies regarding this project over time TR thank you so starting off um this is kind of the number that's been talked about for many years uh this was the original Waterfront Bond article that listed the2 million 90,000 and I just wanted to call this up because on the next slide I'm going to have that number and I want you to see where it came from so we minded a lot of the select board and finance committee minutes so that leftand column indicates the year the minutes came from the uh next column is the estimate from those minutes for the cost of the project and one thing I did want to call out so that kind of second column with money that talks about property acquisition and feasibility study so that was approximately a million dollars that was spent before the initial Bond article so when we talk about the $2 milon 90,000 we really should add that to it we're talking about total project cost so we're already at about $3 million from town funds and that may have been part of the you know increase from 2 million to the number uh that I mentioned last time and we will get more into exactly what those numbers are uh you can see as we kind of move through time the the initial 2016 we didn't necessarily have a design stage um and really the the bulkhead was not even uh considered at the time by 2018 we had a rough estimate for about a million dollars to include a bulkhead and really that bulkhead makes the area much more functional uh makes parking uh feasible in a lot of areas increases the ability and safety of the area and um so at this stage in 2018 we now have a conceptual design and when I'm talking about these design stages uh Ted Keon our Coast resource director will get up after me and kind of show you these site plans over time so we have our conceptual design and now we have a 10% contingency uh the increase has to do with you know a better idea of what was proposed at the area you can see it stay consistent between 2018 and 2019 by 2020 it has um uh still you know relatively consistent but now we've uh identified some outside funds that was one of the uh SEC grants for engineering and 2021 is when we get to our first 35% uh design due to that at SEC Grant uh but so now we're able to get a little bit uh more you know granular numbers in there so by now we've gone from $3 million to about $5 million of town funds some of this has to do with the 20% contingency a little bit better estimate of what that bulkhead is going to cost um and then moving from 21 to 24 that's really where our largest increase has been uh but I did want to call out some of the components of the project like all the way over on the right of that table the up wheer perod The flopsies the dredging um we've gone from a 35% to a 90% so our number should be you know much closer to reality when we go out to bid but that said we've increased our contingency up instead of going down and this has to do with the very large increase in costs going forward uh projects really across the whole state and Country um and and you know as T Keon gets a chance to speak he can tell you some of his conversations with Engineers it's not just us when we're looking at some of these discret uh project numbers the bulkhead is pretty much double what it was estimated to be in 21 uh very similar with the pier and the flopsies dredging is significantly more than we thought it would be for that particular project so um eventually uh t k will get up here and kind of show the overall foot of the area and you know how things have or have not changed over time but I wanted to kind of go through the numbers how they've changed over time I I really don't think that you know things are getting added that weren't part of the original intent of the project a lot of what I've heard for this project is it was really unprecedented the amount of coordination and cooperation between the various boards and stakeholders groups in this town um as you know each person has a minute or two to speak they can mention the various stakeholder groups they represent but there's been a lot of vetting about these projects uh specifically 90 Bridge which has gone before the select board many times over its relatively early lifespan and Greg if we could just I'm sorry jump back to that I wanted for the sake of clarity so to be clear all the thing that's in the gray contingency and bulked all feed into the numbers in your town funds column uh either the town funds or outside funds but yes of the overall project yep good thank you and then this is um sorry just go back here so this you know is how it's changed over time and this is our current estimate so I I know I had presented a number that was about 12 a. half million that was inaccurate um the amount of total Town funds estimated is uh about 9.1 million outside funds would be uh 2.3 million and you know that's starting for now we're obviously going to be looking for additional outside funding hopefully additional SEC grants I think I explained some of the uh potential options into the future and these outside funds would you know bring down the cost of the bond over time hopefully we wouldn't be using it as quickly with these uh outside funds being used so I I did add a couple of things from the last time you saw this just kind of calling out that you know property acquisition for the million dollars being kind of in the beginning and then those grade out areas are money that's already been spent and then those white areas really uh uh still are left to go so that's our overall cost uh presented and I'm not sure if you wanted to talk you know about the numbers right now or we could uh have Ted show you kind of the site plans over time and you know all of us will certainly be available for questions uh as you see fit so why don't we see what the committee would like to do uh do we want to tuck into the numbers right now do we want to get a kind of a more comprehensive overview from Ted of the site plan and the like Jan please thank you Mr chair uh just one question what will it cost you to finish the Bridge Street uh project you mean additional Town funds additional Town funds that's what we're looking for right now right yes um well um if you're talking about specifically uh the new Bond or overall Town funds I I could give the new Bond what will it cost the taxpayer to finish the Bridge Street project very good so out of the new Bond it would be about $4.5 million but I don't want to indicate that's all the town would be spending the overall Town funds are projected to be $9.1 million we hope that would come down with additional grants but that's where we're at right now okay so again you project to finish 90 Bridge Street it would cost in uh Town funds $4.5 million just from the Waterfront bond that we're putting before the finance committee right now there's additional funding from uh the wolf from uh the coastal resource dredging funds from the existing bond so there there's other sources sure so there could be aili ating uh figures to the 4.5 million that we're projecting now well it is Town Fund it is projected to be 9.1 million of additional Town funds but 4.5 million of those funds we'd like to come from the new Waterfront bond that we are uh putting before the committee right now are we still talking about Bridge Street yes project 90 Bridge Street project yes the overall cost would would you like the overall cost you said something about an overall cost I'm just looking for what when we go to the taxpayer what can we tell them that they need to pay for uh the completion of the bridge this one project I I'm I'm very sorry so the overall cost from town funds projected right now is 9.1 we still have another 7.6 left to go just see Joan bottom right corner under the town funds middle column Town funds we have left to go 7.6 million for total spend of 911 668 and we're talking about Bridge Street 90 Bridge Street yes 90 Bridge Street and I'm sorry 4.5 would also be coming from that 7.6 I'm sorry if I was uh not getting your question thank you other questions Andy please um I I mean we can batter around the numbers I'd also like to know what we get for that so the S plan I think that's that's sort of the the the Ted presentation so why don't we unless other people have sort of imminent questions on funding why don't we go into the site plan and kind of see what we get to Andy's point of for the uh for the 9 plus million do Ted K Coast resource director so I'm as Greg indicated and as we talked at the meeting last week showing how this project really hasn't changed in concept over the you know course of um the last few years as Greg also indicated the original Bond was really you know put forward before any conversations with other committees really had occurred other than the concept that we would like at this location to have a multi-use type facility with an upweller as a component to that so as um again Greg indicated we had a uh unprecedent um group of all the Waterway related committees uh having joint meetings over the course of close to two years coming up with various Concepts uh we engaged The Firm stantech at that time to you know walk us through listen to all the different interest groups that were being you know presenting uh different ideas and ultimately again after a number of iterations uh this was ultimately the I don't want to call it the crayon drawing but the You Know sketch plan of what the ultimate idea was going to be and we see the upweller uh Pier with the float system around it we see the modest extension of the existing small Pier that's on the site and the float and gang way off of it and again as Greg indicated really almost from day one it was recognized that the key component for the site is the bulkhead you really need the bulkhead for this site to work for anything almost out into the future so that was the original plan this is we we changed horses if you will we at that previous stage we were in a feasibility um contract with the with the uh um contractor the engineer we then went out for proposals to now get into the real design phase and and we liked a proposal that came in from our current uh engineer uh prior or before the or instead of uh stantech and this is gei the current engineer that's on the project this is their first um kind of detailed design that was completed in 21 at this stage we were still um before the boat house concept was in play and this was the what we referred to as the purpose-built building that was designed at that stage but again I want to highlight if you look at the site plans it's essentially the exact same site plan nothing has changed as far as what the goals were what the facility was going to provide for it just now that we're into it let's get into the real design and see how it fits and and what's all associated with it and then here we are as the current plan as again no change essentially in the layout of the facility the most obvious and I think everyone is familiar with change was the opportunity came to the town about bringing the boat house that used to be in stage Harbor back to the site or back to chatom um and as I indicated last week we were within probably inches of the footprint of what the original design was going to be and what the footprint of the boat house already is so there was a very you know long lengthy discussion about should this you know facility now be you know turned in or should this boat house become the upwelling uh facility and and would it work so we actually had to go back out with our engineering crew look at the existing Boat House confirm that it was structurally sound and would it work essentially as a future upweller in the conclusion would it would that it would so um the board then endorsed this they accepted the the donation to bring this building back and I think we indicated again before that it is the on the onus of the private owners to bring the boat house back to chadam have it prepared meaning the floor has to be taken out and then placed onto what presumably would already have been constructed which is the footprint and the pier foundation for that building to give you an idea of what it or well what has already occurred in N Tucket they did in essence a very similar conversion although it is different they don't have a upwelling uh Nursery facility they actually have a hatchery they took the existing uh boat house that's on uh nantua at Brand point and they converted into a full-blown uh Hatchery which is sort of the stage before the nursery they're growing um from I'm not even sure exactly all the details of that I need Renee on that one but they actually have algae growing inside the facility to feed very very very little um shellfish and it's primarily I understand for scallops to for their local scallop industry I think that's the primary focus of that facility but essentially it is the same concept they took an existing Boat House repurposed it into a shellfish facility and then um I think you've seen this uh rendering before that is essentially the same type of building it's a very standard design for the boat houses throughout the nation at that time for the Coast Guard and that is approximately how it would look the layout of the peers and deck is similar or is the same to what we showed you in the plan View and that is a 3D rendering of what our internal uh upwelling facility would presumably look like uh we've spent a lot of time with our Consultants on the seawater and the upwelling portion of that that took a lot of time and effort to come up with what it would be appropriate to get the capacity um and production that we're looking for in this new facility so that's what I have as far as you know how we got to what we you know now are proposing and again you know the takeaway here here is because we've all heard the concept of project creep there's been no creep and expansion there's been a lot of creep in just the cost overruns um as Greg also indicated some of the anecdotal um you know other types of projects I spoke to our engineer uh on this project who has a number of projects throughout the region he gave me an example of a project he's worked on that in 2016 he had a number for and and I guess it didn't go forward because of whatever reason at that time that exact same project went out the bid it was a in 2024 so in those eight years it went up 160% for exactly the same project and then I spoke to our uh owner's representative earlier today and he gave an example using our own Firehouse he said that when our Firehouse was built the construction cost were $350 a square foot he just worked on a newer um Firehouse in some other community that was not as sophisticated quote as ours and the price was $750 a square foot so again the Takeaway on that is the uh construction costs across the board have just gone through the roof covid supply chain issues ETC so that really is almost exactly the reason why the costs for this project have you know gone up substantially Mr chair please join thank you U Ted please humor me for a moment absolutely and uh so you're in agreement that alone The Bridge Street project as part of this bill the cost of that would be the Bridge Street project everything that we uh associate with that project what is a the cost of it just tell me I want to look at the figures on the board please humor me well I want to make sure I picked the right one I want to I want to I want to be able to tell the taxpayer if they're going to vote on something like a a complicated project like this what is it going to cost them he will kick me in the shin if I say the wrong number probably but I believe based on this table to get to a final project with estimates the best we have completed 7.6 million of additional Town funds 76 million of additional funds this is the very beginning of what we're talking about so we start when we're talking about the bond Bill we start with this part of it number one Bridge Street project uh $7 million but some of that would be coming from the existing bond that has not yet been Bond dead and how much of it from the existing bond sorry the existing I believe 2.3 Greg can you give the net amount that's left to fund the project from the existing bond so you I think Miss brg is asking how much it's going to cost the taxpayers in the new Bond bill but with that I see the explanation has to include what is left from the existing bond bill so for exactly thank you yes so in what's left in the existing bond bill is the 500k plus 1.8 is 2.3 million and we're planning to use that for 90 Bridge so that would be you know still to be spent from the existing bond Bill and okay let me interrupt you just a minute so not talking about anything else say this was article all by itself we have uh the 90 Bridge Street project and we have it's going to cost $7.6 million to finish and what we are going to do we could do is subtract $2.3 million from this ask because we have that left from the previous Bond Bill to spend on 90 Bridge Street this time that that's actually Incorporated in the 7.6 just answered this one one question if we have one one issue and 90 Bridge Street you project it would cost us $7 million all together but we have $2 million left previously so we need to ask for 5.3 million no okay explain so there's 2.3 million left in the existing bond B that is planned to be part of the 7.6 million but out of the new proposed bond that we're talking about right now it it wouldn't be the full amount of that Bond used just for 90 Bridge it would be $4.5 million from the new Bond that would be part of that 7.6 million that still needs to be spent thank you sure so I think to try to clarify this a little bit I always fall back on sources and uses right our uses are 7 as of now which of course is not a static figure it's anticipated that our current uses are $76 million correct to finish the project yes okay the uses are 2.3 from the 17 Bond Bill 4.5 anticipated from this Bond Bill the extended goes forward incremental woof figures million bucks or whatever it was right yes so again just trying to keep it clear we're talking about another 7.6 to finish it it's coming from a variety of sources including the prospective Bond Bill the former Bond bill from 17 the waterways user fund and other cats and dogs hopefully grants but yes grants yeah I mean the grants that we are going to pursue would lower all those numbers as far as Town commitment but we didn't want to taint the the numbers until we actually had those number grant conservative Carrie please thank you Mr chair um so I just want to um add that whatever we don't use for borrowing we would resend so it would come off okay so is that clear yes okay Eric please and not to further confuse that part of it but the outside funds number shown there does that also include the CPC number or is that not included at all in these numbers it does it's within the outside funds and that may have been part of the confusion from last time is I had something called other funds that was just everything other than the bond so I tried to remove that ambiguity this time and just have Town money and grant money and I know CPC is you know kind of gray that way but that's where we put it yeah and then just while we're rumbling around in the the numbers and the complications of that the way I read this chart just to be clear to everyone we're talking town funds and outside funds funds funds spent and funds we haven't spent we're talking about $1.4 million for this project it's not it's not 9.1 is my understanding we're talking about 11.4 million Allin for for where we're going with this cor correct can I can we get a verbal reply to that please correct so including what the town spends and outside funds it is the 11.4 approximately thank you and we we do have Renee uh available uh virtually if she could say a few words sure yeah please Renee can you hear us uh hello hello and I'm I apologize for not being there in person um and uh and thank you for for letting us all speak to you today can you can can everybody hear me well yep we're good thank you all right good I'm sitting in my truck okay well first I I have to say that I I am am remissed that I didn't take the opportunity prior to the 11th hour to give this committee a more in-depth presentation on the town's propagation program and specifically the history Mission and the current conditions of the existing up weather it's old it's tired and it's uh it's losing its um its um desired capability um but for this meeting I think I I'd like to talk more it's more important to talk about our constituents I know this is a multi use uh uh uh proposed project but I'm going to talk about our shellfish program and the constituents that we serve um the uh the report to the demise of our commercial shelfish sh excuse me um has been greatly exaggerated to uh somewhat quote Mark Twain um chadam still boasts the most lucrative wild cot shelter fishy in the state of Massachusetts those are 2002 numbers I haven't received them for 2003 yet but we've been uh number one in the state for The Last 5 Years um preliminary numbers from the division of marine fisheries value our total commercial Landings at 3.5 million and for specifically the Cog um it's 1.7 million and those are wholesale values those are the numbers that are going directly into the pockets of our local shell fishermen um if we use multiplier effects which many Industries do the industry standard is 3.1 that's a 10.5 million industry and for cogs alone a 5.3 and I want to emphasize that commercial shell fishermen must be domiciled residents and so they are year round they contribute to our Co our economy year round and they're part of their taxpayer base so I just wanted to qualify that um we also sold 2,819 recreational permits last year with 2,000 of those being sold directly to residents those are uh again our local taxpayers um it's a popular activity and um if you look at any given Sunday over at the causeway you're going to see 100 or more people there and um those are the folks that that this uh this program supports um so I I wish I had more time to talk about uh the the details of our upweller and our comparative Mission with the upweller that you've heard about over at Haring River but I just think it's important to know that uh these folks are part of our our they our residents and um and they they there's a good great contribution to this program to to those folks so if you have any questions um I'm here thank you reenee so questions for any of our presenters or otherwise Andy please Stuart before you get away how many uh Moorings do we have in town Moorings about uh 2400 okay and um so all those people they go get their boat and they come into a town landing like you know Andrew Harding's Lane oh wait a minute you can't use that anymore um how about hallway Street no oh wait you can't do that either unless you're good swimmer you know maybe you could Comm into Battlefield Landing if you're one of the first 10 cars um but that's about it mean essentially our Waterfront has been under assault for quite some time between sea level rise erosion and a booming population of commercial and recreational shell fishermen and Boat Owners you know 90 bridge in my mind is one of the few opportunities we have to increase the usability of a very nice little spot on the river Harvey Bloomer used to love it right but you know this is our opportunity to love it and you know I'm not real happy about the escalation in the prices but I don't see anything in here or in the presentation that indicates that this wasn't a subject of some kind of you know public process before it got to this stage now the ultimate process will be a town meeting but you know we have an awful lot of Voters that I think would love to have something like this available and also commercial fishermen um so I mean you know we are going to always have pressure on our Waterfront and this is an opportunity to do something I think that's quite unique thank you steuart please sure yeah I would agree um it is one of those few opportunities and I don't want to sound Draconian but maybe the last opportunity in stage Harbor to uh accommodate any additional um or enhanced uh access to the water for the public um you know Renee has spoke very well on the upweller I just wanted to touch on the other aspects of this uh of 90 Bridge Street um if you review the uh town meeting warn article in 2014 and the South Coastal Harbor management plan and the committee discussions including the waterways Adis advisory committee the shellfish committee South Coastal Harbor plan committee and the atlas Cove committee which is not easy to get all four people to agree four groups to agree on this uh and they did um over a number of meetings it is a multi-use facility it's that's the proposal um so everyone has some sort of Buy in on this facility it is not strictly for one user group or another like our other Town Landings like Ryder's Cove Barnhill fish Pier are all used by commercial recreational and the general public and I think that that's an important aspect that we not lose sight of uh that was the original intent and that should continue we don't want to get to the end of this have we've seen this before funding issues and fund one aspect of this this project and not another one we are in desperate need of commercial fishing offloading facilities we basically have one in stage Harbor we used to have two one is now a yach club and the other one the town bought and is a single Dory single boat offloading facility at uh next to our office the ones in front of our office the commercial fishermen use uh but it's more used for recreational but they both use it just like the fish Pier more used for the commercial industry but because of those losses at Andrew Hardings and Holloway Street we have a large contingent of recreational boers that use it as well um the so I just wanted to emphasize that the a leas Cove committee had a great deal of discussion about this as well as the other as well as the other committees and that component of a multi-use uh facility for the shellfish folks for the for the general public for viewing for commercial fishing offloading at the bulkhead that really is the fundamental discussion here today um and the concrete float proposed closest to uh stage harb Marine that you saw on one of the slides um is all important components we don't want to lose one or two because then those folks that supported this will be loud and disappointed so um you know we have almost 500 boats in stage Harbor and uh you folks are very familiar with the facilities we have it's in front of our office and and the trap dock thank you steart please thanks steuart um I think my comments on where we are is I I completely understand and agree that the upweller is a is a critical component of our local local shellfish industry and and and needs to be supported um all the points that Andy and and Stu made about the Waterfront access and the the the need for that and the opportunity that's here for that are critical so I I I agree with all of that what concerns me a little bit is that we have um the process that we're going through here it seems that through the from 2016 till now the project has been much better defined we have better estimates we have a better understanding of the costs um and I guess for from my perspective is there a reason that it needs to be in this Omnibus type um arrangement with with the bonding it it's an important enough article that isn't it something that if we that the town should be able to get a single bite at and and decide that they that they want to do this project at this level of cost even amongst this group who I think has studied it very closely and seen it year after year the numbers are confusing there's last year's this year's you know Town funds out of town funds so bringing it in the package that it is now with the 11.2 or whatever it is I think adds additional confusion and in some ways can could create a situation as maybe how I'm feeling and how I voted the last time this was in front of us that there's it's it's a little too loose to do it that way if it came I know personally if it came with to me with the full package with the with the with the value and the definition of it and knowing the importance of it I would probably support it I just am concerned with the way not the project or that it's embedded with these other projects it's that it's that it's been loose and it's and there's there's really no true definition to it and I don't think really doing the right thing for the taxpayers by not giving them the opportunity to say yes or no directly to the project other observations uh Christian please so I believe I was on the south Coastal Harbor plan committee when we uh were discussing this uh as this project was developed and um you know everything that Ted said this was looked at as uh multi purpose use was was the what everybody wanted this was the the best part about this property and this project and to Andy's Point yes we are losing our water access points we are a Seaside Community um this particular project obviously uh is more than just a feel-good project we are we are supporting our local economy we're providing Public Access for for boating and fishing and swimming uh access to water for everybody and and um I think it's just um a super important project uh together with the historic um aspect of it and saving that building um the whole question of the bond probably U Jill or somebody else can really speak to the to the value of having um a waterfront Bond and why we did it the first time around um but I think that we have a lot of projects that that need some work and if I what would be the pitfall if this was just a single article thanks John please yeah I guess picking up on on Eric and Kristen's comments I mean you know the flip side is true too I mean having this in the bond bill could sync the bond bill from some people's perspective maybe you I've heard from a bunch of people that um it's a lot of money for some upw wellers and as we've heard today and you can see it's a multi-use property um or project I guess my question would be why is it not separated out why is it nestled in a bond Bond bill or a bond article that um I think goes out five years authorizes borrowing for five years is that right it's the bond cycle is 5 years but the actual borrowing borrowing duration could be up to to 20 years to pay off the projects and so what the decision to not let this be a standalone item was just one of efficiency ease the project would span multiple years well I I think the original idea for the bond back in 2017 was almost like a waterfront strategic plan and understanding that permitting for these projects can take a number of years sorry I'm not getting choked up over it just allergies it could take a number of years and then you know there could be with the bond and the original intent and and moving forward to keep it in that same format is you know there's while we're working on 90 Bridge Street there's other projects that could begin the design understanding that it is a five-year Bond and we're only going to borrow once we get to the point in the design that would move us to construction but I think it would allow the natural resources team the ability to start planning and permitting other priority projects and that was our original intent and with some Bond remaining in the exist in the current Bond and with the new Bond to get us to complete this and a few other projects that we weren't able to do back in 2016 when we were costing it out I I think this provides the most flexibility and the probably the the the greater um the greater way to actually accomplish what we want to do in our strategic plan for water Waterfront resources um well thank you for that it makes sense um you know certainly we need we need to maintain and hopefully improve capacity for folks to access the water both commercial and recreational um big supporter of improving or modernizing our upwelling facility um it's amazing Rene's had it going as long as she's had I don't know if folks have had an opportunity to go down and visit it I know they do an open house once once a year anyways if I could ask Renee a question if she's still online I'm here John hi Renee uh how much more capacity will this new facility as spec out provide to the community uh we estimated it at um a a onethird more than our current capacity we didn't really want to go any further than that John because we want to make sure that the monies we receed from the revolving fund are able to um um you know uh our expenditures are are are funded by the revolving fund so we didn't want to make outrageous um I'm sure it could fit more because the the entire system is going to have a much higher velocity as far as water so we're going to have a lot greater growth um the the project proposes to have the flopsies around again that's a secondary growout system so the system itself I'm sure would be able to raise far more but we want to have realistic expectations with the monies that we have so the capacity is is improved increased with the potential for expansion capacity is increased and the growth capacity is most definitely increased because our our our main objective is to get those seed as big as possible and if you know our current facility we have a two-tiered system so those bottom tanks are getting leftover Waters from that top system and this system each each tank will have its own water coming into the system so it's going to have ma maximum growth potential and those were calculations far beyond my capability um they were they were done by our our our previous um propagation specialist and and Dale levit um who's this he's an expert in and I'm sure anybody in the field knows Dale's name thank you well um so I was in the negative um two a week or two ago I can't remember when we took the vote um obviously I voted to reconsider it um I think I think the the board uh sorry the the the staff um and the community done a really good job explaining to this this panel and to me today that something like this should go forward to the community for consideration on town meeting floor um I'm not happy with the growth of the the budget uh for this specific project um I guess I'm sort of comfortable with the bonding process but um I think there's been a lot of good points made today about all the different or groups stakeholder groups that have plugged into this process the select board has plugged into the process along the way um and we'll see how the town town meeting takes it uh it's a it's a big pill to swallow but um I'll vote to support the the Bill thank you John Renee we've got a couple more questions but have you got a A ballp Park number of how how many animals we anticipate this facility being able to grow in the course of the season well we currently uh purchase between 2.5 and 3 million so we're uh I don't know if I can do the math that quickly in my truck about four to four to five million um uh c-hawks annually uh um Dan is standing right next to me so he did the quick math okay that's helpful thank you Joanne please yes thank you Mr chair I understand and believe fully in the value of the waterfront to chadam that's chadam that's why we are who we are on the other hand we are dealing with other people's money when we talk about all of this it's not just well gee that sounds good to me let's I'll vote for it I don't feel that way I can't vote to recommend to the taxpayers that they borrow a little more than $1 million for fiscal year 25 for Waterfront projects if I could I would recommend commend to the taxpayers that they appropriate $6 million to fund their highest priority projects and then ask the administration to return next fiscal year to ask for the funding needed needed to complete their next priorities and I keep emphasizing priorities because when we're dealing with other people's money I feel we need to prioritize them our uh the projects so that from our estimation and the the uh what it's going to cost on the tax rate to be able to recommend to our taxpayers so I'm not going to vote for this article Mr chair thank you Joan Andy please I'm not sure to ask this of maybe it's you Tad or for you I think you know previously I recall you saying that that the existence of previous Town authorization I.E the previous this Bond uh helped to attract some of the grant money uh because the the grantors knew that there was Town backing for the project and that they could match up funds very easily um other than 90 bridge in the proposed article are there other projects in there that you believe would Merit Grant funds uh absolutely the writers code project will be another targeted seport Economic Council Grant I hope and expect that they would support that um Joanne I understand your prioritization issue probably everything on that list except perhaps the Barnhill bulkhead is a high priority type project this project 90 Bridge obviously were were already in process and further delays would delay the process and obviously probably increase costs uh the fish Pier we are right at the goal line to finish what was already part of the original design which was to add the walkway along the southern side so we'd want to keep that going ryers Cove we started that uh project a few years ago um we have a very good design we're already near the final kind of finishing touches as far as getting ready for the permitting process uh we paused that while these other projects were you know underway like the fish beer and the trap do that's another priority because that facility the bulkhead is deteriorating I mean there are holes in it we have holes above on the parking lot side because material is wicking out of the bulkhead um so that is something that needs to be done so and little Mil Pond that Pier while it appears to be fairly sound if you go bang on the piles you realize that many of them are Hollow so prioritization is sort of already a established in the projects that we've presented the um Bond allows us as was already indicated all right we're ready for construction here but let's not wait another year for some of these permitting issues because permitting for these projects when you're going into construction is a year by itself so if we wait to start the permitting then we have a whole year potentially of additional time just for the permits before we then go back in for construction so the bond has been extremely helpful for getting all the projects that we've already done in a seamless fashion so I I think the Bond approach was a godsend when we were you know recognized that the town needed to invest in its waterfront infrastructure may I respond Mr uh yes I I understand your priorities but at the same time I'm thinking of the people who are going to pay for this and I'm thinking that over the past 11 years they have have had an average increase on their value of their property of about 5% so therefore every year that's not going to go down the valuations keep going up and so we have to look at not only the Waterfront bill but the whole warrant and decide how much do we think that we want to ask the taxpayers to pay for the whole budget so I would agree with uh again paying for the most important project certainly $6 million from my point of view and that's just to throw out there what I could look at as asking the taxpayer to pay this year and uh that no matter what we say of importance and this is highly important everything thing on our warrant is important to somebody and this is important but I still think we have to consider seriously of what it's going to cost the people who live here who live uh through having the value of their properties inflated 5% every year and the fact that uh we we're just recovering from a high inflation year and we're going into as the Federal Reserve says a less inflated year maybe 3% not 5 to six 7% as we have known in the past 12 months or so so thank you for your explanation I do appreciate I don't argue with the value of what you're saying or the importance of what you're saying but I have to connect that with what just like any other family or any other business would have to do prioritize what can what can we what's most important to us to buy first Eric please um I think just tagging onto that and what I what I had said before you know again I I I do support the concepts of all this it's it's the the funding mechanisms and I think one thing that we don't know and and and may or may not matter at this point but in 2016 the estimate was about $3 million now we're at 11.4 so it's not just 100% increase it's a dramatic increase and the original funding for the previous Waterfront bonding Bill had I don't know what number it doesn't really matter it was probably a $5 million in there for the for the cost of cost of that and the town supported that for all the reasons that we all are saying here that these are important um but would they have supported it then if it was $1 million and and the and the the creep is real and it and and it happen so they may have and that's what I'm saying I just I think putting you know creating the buckets that that that make it much easier for the town to move these forward I you know I understand that that piece of it um may serve the ultimately getting to the end but I don't think we know that the town would have supported it if it was at that level of of of cost so um that's my concern about the the funding mechanism that we're we're working with here thank you John please oh sorry Greg reply to that um it is related to it yeah go for it so I I did just want to you know add with what Ted was talking about it's not just the flexibility you provide staff but there is actual cost savings to being able to use the bond if we identify issues that come up during a project for example the fuel system at fish Pier or some of the steel columns they can be addressed along the way without you know stopping the entire project and one of the things that we can see pretty clearly is the price never went down they're only going up we have contingencies built in that our Engineers have given us but contingencies are being expanded and you know not that we would want it to overrun but if it were to overrun slightly that might stop the project until we could go back to town meeting to request more if that happened the overall project price would probably be going up just due to the additional time span so it it's you know the flexibility is very important but I do feel that this mechanism can actually save the town money oh and uh just before you know potentially a vote is taken I did want to mention that you know Waterfront space is a premium obviously the availability and the expense I think multi-use is key and uh we do have two chairs uh present if you would like comments from them we have um uh the uh shellfish advisory committee chair we may have the uh historical commission chair online I'm not positive but that's one you know aspect about the project you may not have heard completely but they're available if you would like thank you for that and I think we probably would like to hear from them but I know John's got something he'd like to say and perhaps others or I believe okay well let me invite anybody in the audience who may wish to raise their hand and approach the podium thank you good afternoon my name is Bob Davis I'm chair of the uh shellfish advisory committee and uh one of the aspects of almost going last is almost everything has been said uh I do have three observations however one uh very quickly uh our propagation program and the and shell fishing generally are ingrained in this community they're part of the fabric of chadam and bolster the whole notion of our being a fishing community and the Cornerstone of all of that is our upweller if we don't have an upweller much of that goes away secondly uh the elephant in the room actually it's obviously in the room it's not hidden any longer is the cost and uh it's interesting there was an article in the Wall Street Journal just yesterday the headline reads we still don't believe how much things cost I think we're all reeling from that in our individual lives as we sit here together so that's a factor and add to that the economists are talking about this issue as being something called sticky inflation meaning this isn't going to go away it's our new reality the third observation is I would distinguish between price and value um nobody's happy about the price of this thing it it is different than the value and it's difficult for us to individually to place a value on these projects on behalf of the taxpayers only they in May will be able to determine whether these projects constitute value for them in their lives thank you very much thank you I see Mr Marina and referred to Mr Marina's whose hand is up please on online hi thank you very much I appreciate the time and um and I really appreciate the effort that you folks are putting into consideration of this uh I guess I'm speaking as chair of the historical Commission and and personally and I know stud number for the last 25 maybe close to 30 years have been trying to find a way to save the US House and you know lightning struck when we had the opportunity to potentially integrate it and to the what's being proposed Frank Frank let me interrupt for a moment your your audio is sketchy at best could I possibly get you to call in to the uh to the meeting we'll do I'll leave it come back let me give you let me give you have you got the number and the ID let's hope Frank you there now you there Frank can you hear me now Frank can you get us you may be muted Frank try that again please hello yep that's better hi thank you very much and I apologize for that uh without you you folks are really doing a phenomenal job here in analyzing what needs to be done and I I'm wearing my historical commission chair hat and you know as I was saying we trying to stay before for the 25 or 30 years we've been working hard to try to find a place to save and bring the uh Coast Guard building back to chadam and uh so I know it's not your primary consideration in terms of what you're doing but please don't forget in addition to everything else that you're do doing here we have an opportunity a rare opportunity to bring this historic structure back to Stage Harbor and uh thank you very much for your time and your uh and your deliberations and consideration of this I believe the public multiple Town meetings have supported the Coast Guard boat house and I think they would continue to do that and I don't think it's a detriment to the overall uh uh Waterfront structure I think it probably passed unanimously when we voted for that structure and I think it will so uh thank you very much for your time I appreciate it opportunity to speak very good thank you John back to you yeah I mean we've been focusing on the The Bridge Street project but that's not what's going before the town that's a component of what's going before the town $1.4 million um car's given us the the cost of that debt service based on a variety of examples of a million and a half dollar home a million or million two a million and I mean that you know to Joanne's Point that's what people people are going to look at that right they're going to look at this they're going to look at all the other projects and asks that are before them and apply it to their own circumstance and you know uh as I said before this Project's been on the on the drawing board for a long time and our experience with projects that take a long time to get a thumb a full thumbs up is that every time we look at it it goes up 50% 100% 200% um that's why I you know as hard as I I said as hard as it is to vote Yes on on the full package um I can't imagine missing the opportunity now and then having to revisit it in two years what the number is going to be um and I can't imagine chatam without a functioning upwell or a thriving shellfish um opportunity commercial recreational or access to the water so um I guess one last question if I might so this this goes forward this gets approved by the town my understanding has been that the town will managers will then borrow as we go you're not going to actually borrow $1.4 million the next day correct that's right so it's not going to I'm just showing you how much it would be once we get to the total amount right but um yeah so if we only expend a million dollars then we're only going to borrow for a million dollars's Noor and no borrow um no not for the bond that would be 2026 and maybe it can't be done maybe it can but any guess as to how much we would borrow the first year first two years based on the list of projects that are part of the bond bill here comes Greg Bond article so it's our hope that we're able to um finish the 90 B Bridge Project within fisal year 25 and 26 and we also hope to have the uh fish beer walkway completed during that time now we we are hoping that the cost of the fish beer walkway goes down but you know ballpark that first fysical year could be up to $5 million something like that there's usually a lag between when the project is substantially complete to when we actually do the borrowing yeah I guess the reason I went through that question and answer was just um this these numbers that are presented aren't going to hit everybody year one right people people benefit from knowing like this is the worst case scenario if we came out of the gate borrowed all the money right away and just started into the tax roll that's correct John and also um again if they get all the grants and the subsidies that they're talking about we won't be using all of the 11.4 we can resend that so we might only need you know six or seven um well to that to that point I mean we you know the state right now is going through its economic development plan planning process and you know I personally and my organization work really hard to make sure that fishing was in the plan it wasn't in the last plan not even the word fish was in the last plan the Commonwealth of Massachusetts um so we've also been working really hard to try to beef up uh The seport Economic Council um Appropriations I guess you would say um because we're not the only Community going through what we're going through and um you know up till now a lot usually the big cities and the big ports get a lot of the the um the funding but um you know chadam has done a really good job drawing on the on the seport Economic Council so all right I think we've got Andy Tracy then Eric I'm mindful of the clock I'm mindful of the fact that our report is due to the warrant next week we still have to hear on the transfer station which is not an inconsequential project um so let me start with Andy please um maybe just a brief technical question could the article be revised amended so it only presents the 90 Bridge Project anybody I can't speak for the select board but they've already placed it and voted favorably on it we have one meeting left before the warrant closes I I don't know if that can be decided today or tomorrow for placement on the select board uh agenda for next week but again in proposing the bond that it was a 5-year Bond and it lasted seven years and if we take just the 90 Bridge Street project out in it fails then I have all the other projects and again it's it's it's just presenting the facts that we've had earmarked as priority will have to potentially come back come up so this year we thought for financial planning was a good year um the other only other substantial project as you'll hear is the transfer station but we didn't have a Wastewater borrowing authorization for this year and no other capital building project and so as we looked forward a few years this seemed like the right time and where we are with the projects don't misunderstand me I meant to amend the article so that only 90 Bridge was put forward and all the other elements were taken away well if I understand Greg's analysis if it's another 6,000 six million or so to finish the project the other projects wouldn't be able to start permitting until we actually had an authorization to I understand I'm just trying to round up support for actually getting 90 Bridge finished this year understand all right that's a just a thought yep I mean it would come notionally at the expense of all forward progress on all the other projects oh yes yeah and that needs to be acknowledged yeah okay thank you uh Tracy please I guess just a just a point of clarification um just if I'm asked the bond is the 11.4 117 I think right right 11.4 the the original one was 11.75 but if somebody asks grand total what does the 90 Bridge Street project cost from start to finish that's 11 as well as of now it's 1143 066 I just wanted to be sure I wasn't confusing my 11s but I would not hold on to that number as a static figure Eric real quickly okay sorry that the for just for I to make the point so there the pre the 11.7 the previous Bond we haven't borrowed against the the last balance of that so we're talking about in this year taking that um money and then in addition to that 6 million so we really are executing the bonding for close to that that full 11 million it's coming from two different places but uh I I just wanted to clarify though that the existing bond has the 2.3 million that would be used and then um all of 90 Bridge from the proposed new Bond would be 4.5 thank you further comments or questions Joan please just to just to review with the administration again what you sent us was uh for this inre prese Summit tax bill for the Waterfront Bond bill for a house of a value of $1 million and the valuation of the town at 10.9 million which I understand is 11 maybe 11.3 million and the average value of a home now is 1.2 million but again in fiscal year 26 the increase on the that average taxpayer would be $988 now that doesn't that's one increase that doesn't increase any of the rest of the tax increases that come about because of the other articles whether it's operations or school or whatever on on on the warrant um yes that's correct this is if we borrow for the full amount of 11.4 it would have like you said if it was a million doll home it would have a $98 increase if we borrowed for 11.4 million in that I just noticed that sometimes you use 1.2 million for the average value of the home and sometimes you you use 11.4 uh billion uh valuation for the Town versus 10.9 billion for the valuation of town I don't know what she's talking about I understand what you're talking about so in the past we've shown what the like median home value is Carrie in her in her forecast is actually implementing what the principle and interest rate would be to each home at a different value okay she's she's showing if if someone out there has a home that's 500,000 that they could see what the impact is this isn't just the one thing that youve I and I think the impact is very important uh to consider uh for our taxpayers because that's just one article versus everything else thank you okay other comments or questions guess my my observation having listened to this and having had the benefit of a conversation earlier this week with some of the Town staff it's clear that I think Andy and chrisen kind of nailed it right this is a as Mark Twain said they're not they're not making land anymore um and we're certainly running out of it in this town at at some level for a public access so I wholly support the I the idea of the project I think what troubles me about the project is what Eric others have have referred to which is the fact that the this thing was put to the taxpayers in 2017 it's somewhere between $2 and $4 million or 16 17 it's somewhere between $2 and $4 million interesting I went back to look at the 2017 report annual report of the town of chadam and there was an observation by natural resources that the select board had directed this project was too complicated and too expensive at $4 million and wanted it downsized um obviously that never took place um I just wonder if from a process perspective there isn't a way to give the taxpayers and I guess technically yes at town meeting they could be but somewhere along the line between 2017 and 2024 a second bite at the Apple or a second look comprehensive look at the facts that this is a project that's gone from pick your Baseline let's let's call it for to nearly three times set $1.4 million and I think it's fair to say we're probably not done yet so I'm going to support this I support what the broader initiative will stand to do for the Waterfront in this town I get the idea of having an available pocket of money but I I I just I can't believe that we're dealing with an optimized process around how this is all going down from the taxpayers perspective and it's not going to happen for this waren article I get it but I would really encourage the political leadership and the the administrative leadership of this town to think about whether this process is highest and best and if there's not some way that the taxpayer could benefit on a going forward basis from a revision to this you know oneandone process that leads us ending up you know in this instance with a $4 million project that's going to turn out to be a12 million project perhaps at best so that's where I land uh other comments or questions otherwise I'll take a motion to support uh article XX the Waterfront part article in the amount of $1.4 million so move second second thank you Joan no thank you Barbara who has joined us no Tracy yes Kristen yes Tommy yes Andy yes John yes Eric no thank you uh chair votes yes so that's 6 to3 same same vote different way exactly all right thank you guys thank you everybody who participated in the conversation we appreciate it very much a good uh Exposition thank you and with that Carrie or Rob I think we're on to the transfer station good afternoon Rob phy director of Public Works find okay so I'll give you a brief update of uh kind of where where we've been and where we're planning on going um I know we we've been here before so I just want to give you a brief update so just a recap spring 2023 annual town meeting approved 4.82 million for the construction of phase one uh priority two which is the recycling area in that big orange I mean yeah big orange circle and phase two garage staff building Priority One which is the red circled area um we also had $215,000 remaining from our uh design contract so that left a total of 5.35 million for construction phase work so phase two um it was estimated at 2.1 million uh bids came in over the winter came in at 3.8 52 million uh contract was awarded to JJ cardosi um we also realized there's an additional $295,000 we needed out of that original appropriation and that's for construction Administration by the designer the uh owner's project manager uh material testing a bunch of ins silary things but it totals $295,000 so that brings the total cost for phase two up to 4.14 million so we look at the um the current status um recycling area priority two again was estimated at 2.72 million bids were opened over the winter they came in at 3.17 million we did not award that contract it's been a long believe that the uh staff of the transfer station was the higher priority they had some OSHA issues that we wanted to correct so um we only had money for one of those phases to be awarded so we uh we tabled phase one and we're here with uh with kind of a new design so this is the uh the project as we bid it um we look for effic efficiencies in the next iteration um during final design you see in the uh the green circled area uh we did some exploratory test pits we found a large stump dump in that area some of the depth of that stump area area is a deposition area is 15 ft deep so all of that material would have to be removed and suitable material brought back in for us to be able to build on top of that that was a very large expense so um what this is doing by maybe redesigning this we are allowed to you know leave a lot of that material in place and work around the stump dump so this is our revised layout so I in the red line here is kind of the approximate area of the stump dump um gave us an opportunity to do some refinements we conducted interviews with the transfer station staff which was very insightful I'm not sure how in- depth that was before but we wanted to figure out what was working for them what they would like to see they live there you know six seven days a week and it really they're they're the number one priority in my mind aside from the customers uh experience so again we minimize the uh I'll do a side-by-side comparison here too so so you don't have to remember what the previous version looked like and and the new version but um so minimize impacts of the stump dump improve some traffic flow and some congestion issues and integrate portion of phase three see you may ask yourself what's phase three well I'll tell you so phase three was so the finance committee may not have been a breast of all of the the different phases of the Transfer Station construction it was a very long arcing uh project to kind of rehabilitate the entire transfer station so phase three was the Tipping building uh the big blue building uh where commercial haulers come where residents drop their bagged Municipal solid waste and then move on to the recycling facility from there so this is a proposed from I think 2020 um there were some small additions added onto the the Tipping floor building it had um compactors and conveyors in there and that was basically meant just for commercial haulers to use that facility it wasn't residential trash was bringing being brought down to the recycling area estimate in 2020 was 1.22 Million Just for this and that was about a 30% design so you know cost escalation I'm sure nowadays it would probably be in the three to four million range if we look at you know all things equal so here is the side by side side comparison I mentioned so what we were able to do um here is the uh was proposed Swap Shop currently it's down here at the bottom there's a lot of traffic ingestion so we took the swap shop from here we moved it out of the stump dump area we moved it up into this area and I think with all the backing movements that we would have there's a lot of elderly residents that use that I think this would be a much safer alternative with the angled parking um and it also gets people kind of on the way in are out so they're not in the the middle of everything uh this was the proposed um difficult to manage area um it would have to be uh concrete pads and paved area so again the stumps would have to be removed below that area um we propose here to leave it where it is uh in the original design that was that area where difficult to manage waste was was going to be used for employee parking so we move the employee parking just a slight impact the stump dump area excavation wouldn't have to be that deep but we'd be able to park employees staff there and then we would remove that whole impact from the difficult to manage uh waste area originally we had uh 10 compactors and three containers in this area we've lessened that so now there are six compactors and four containers and the beauty of this is so I mentioned before the municipal Solid Waste was going to be deposited here there were only three compactors proposed in our busy summer months we have as many as nine windows open on the Tipping floor building where residents deposit trash and we still have lines at times so if we had three uh Municipal Solid Waste uh dumpsters there or compactors there there would probably be a lot more traffic ingestion so what we were able to do is really look at this we were able to uh lessen the height of some of the retaining walls um with this area this is a mirror image so one side has um glass plastic uh mixed paper aluminum you know that sort of thing the other side has the exact same layout so if residents come in here and they see this area is full they can just drive around and use this area um in this layout you'd have to drop your trash drop your you know whatever it is recycling come over here bring your glass and bring your mixed paper so it wasn't as efficient of a layout and with the new layout it also allows us in the winter months when things are less hectic we can close an entire side off and then we'd still have another side open for all residents excuse me I'm just uh going through my notes make sure I covered everything so also as a part of this um we talked about uh phase three so phase three is the Tipping floor floor what we'd like to do is rehab that floor I don't know if anybody's been there see to see that rebar is basically exposed it's popped through the concrete it poses a tripping Hazard um a hazard for our tires for a loader and it also what it does is contains all this liquid all this bacteria growth and it's a really a tremendous source of odor um it's really a more of a health concern for our employees that are working in there and they do go in and clean it out they power wash it you know once or twice a month in the summertime but it's still there's so many crevices and everything that bacteria that that stench really just gets permeated in there so what we'd like to do is you know we we've heard what the committee's concerns were you know what if commercial haulers are no longer using chadam transfer station well regardless we would still do it for the residents so it it's kind of independent of what happens with commercial haulers in the future um whether they stay or not but we really need to rehab that floor for the residents so so it has a better experience we do get complaints of odors from some of the Neighbors at times and I think uh rehabing that floor would go a long way to reduce some of those complaints and here's the nuts and bolts of it all so hopefully this is a little bit easier to to explain I uh I revised it from the select board meeting based on some of the questions that I received so the original funding approved again at 2023 annual town meeting uh was 4.8 million uh we had some remaining from design total we have available was 5.03 phase two bid award was 3.8 that left 1.1 million then administrative costs left about 887 th000 new estimate for phase one is 3.1 million and I know that doesn't seem like a huge cost savings because uh the previous estimate was like 3.17 however knowing what we know now and and where the costs are coming in at I know the designer got a little bit more conservative in their estimating and um and we just want to try to have a better product um if we add the Tipping floor rehab that's another 305,000 but that would eliminate any future phase three work so we'd basically include phase one and phase three together and I know there's a concern over scope creep but it's really an opportunity where we can put the transfer transfer station work on it once and put it to bed and we won't have to touch it again for quite a few years uh we did also add a 10% contingency I mean there are some smaller contingencies built into the estimate but this is something where we won't have to come back if if bids come in a little bit higher than we expected um this will cover our cost so we don't have to go back to the taxpayers and ask for more money so the overall left is uh basically 2.9 Million that's the request to complete the transfer station and get it up and running and and modernized thank you Rob so just for context of carrier children did action of the select board are the posting this to the warrant for 3 Mill 2.9 or what where do we stand yes that's correct okay Kristen I think you had your hand up so I I guess in my mind then to be clear about so when the function of people coming in to get rid of their trash they're still going to go to the blue building then they would still go to the blue building that's that's um one of the traffic patterns that we were trying to eliminate with the original design um but with the difficult to manage waste that would still be on that side um the traffic flow at the at the um recycling area would be vastly improved so it's kind of a it's more of a compromise um we've also clarified the gate house and the scale traffic a little bit more too uh so I think it's going to be you know much more user friendly feature yeah thank you other questions Joan please uh just notes that um the approval of this Bond would cost a a million dollar single family home $38 on the uh on their tax bill and you add that to the $98 for the year FY 26 that the Waterfront Bond bill is adding so you've got just between these two articles if they're accepted $146 on a tax bill and that doesn't increase in include what I'm talking about is the 5% annual increase in the house evaluations and over the last 11 years so uh uh I'm just saying I cannot recommend to taxpayers that they borrow the full $3 million for the completion of all these improvements to the transfer station and I use the transfer station about three or four times a week I it's important to me and important for the to the town I do think the most important part of this is fulfilling our OSHA uh requirements for our employees there so uh even though I would not recommend $3 million if I could I would recommend we appropriate more appropriately a a million dollars to fund the administration's highest priority of this which I assume is to uh complete our OSHA obligations and then return the next fiscal year to request fundings for the next projects on their priority list so Rob just to be clear though I think my understanding was that we've awarded phase two Priority One which is the ocean improvements that's correct there are some other ocean improvements uh that are sight driven not just for the building bu but the primary structure the uh the the majority were in the building okay all right thank you um other questions or comments Kristen please I just I um want to make it a clarification again about what's going on the tax rate because I think unless I misunderstood what Joanne said I think what I heard her say is that um the um transfer station's going so if you have a million doll home the transfer station is going to add $30. 36 per year but what I also heard you say is that you lump that in with the Waterfront Bond as being we're not borrowing the Waterfront Bond all in one year that's been said multiple times so I just really want to clarify that because I think that um is just kind of uh not true to say that um that Waterfront bond is going to be added to our tax bill just as the $388 36 censes the first year round I think excuse me Mr chair yeah please do it I think I quoted from the print out that we got that the impact uh in on the the tax bill for fiscal year 26 would be $98 that's the print out that you sent us I have it right here that's if we borrow all the full 11.4 yep right yep day one that's the worst case scenario yes mhm okay um I'm sorry Chris are you good yeah no that's my understanding but also to follow up with that it's very unlikely that we're going to borrow 11.4 in year 2026 on top of 2.9 for the transfer station in one year yeah good point um Rob in terms of remediation of the current tipping floor is that just a kind of a clean and an etch and a new PO on top of it or cap it kind yeah it would be uh would be some um kind of jackhammering that to get under that mat of rebar placing new rebar and then pouring more Concrete On Top okay so a little more durable all right further question so Carrie we're looking for what 2.9 on this one yes that's correct chairman Barbara I can hear you I can't see you oh good uh I have a question for Rob so Rob the fact that we've already awarded the contract for phase two means that we have no shot at all now of going back and saying gee we only had half this amount of money to spend what can you do for what we had to spend is that true that that's correct and you know there would be Financial consequences if we were to cancel an existing contract with a contractor so going forward in terms of what we're planning to award now for pH one and phase three do we have any hope that we're going to be able to stay within that budget I mean can we say to the people that are considering ing taking on the contract that that is all we're going to spend so and tell them to give us cot for what they can do for what we are willing to spend sure and um you know the cost escalation was not as great for um phase one the recycling area it only came in maybe $400,000 over Engineers estimate so it's a much more conservative increase in costs so I I strongly believe with the contingency able to get it done uh under the amount that we're requesting okay thanks Rob thank you brother Barbara other comments or questions if not I'll take a motion to support article 17 Capital project de exclusion for the transfer station $2.9 million don't moved second anybody second thank you Joan no Barbara no Tracy yes Kristen yes Tommy yes Andy yes John yes Eric yes chairs in favor so seven to two on that uh Carrie thank you thanks Rob appreciate it so we are on to a CPA General bylaw Amendment so um sorry Mr chair um the um W oh you are here oh okay never mind [Laughter] sorry no I saw Gary back there and I figured that must be what he why he's here so I took a shot Gary sorry you had to wait so long but no problem so I'm Gary Tennyson chairman of the CPC and I'm filling in for Debbie Aman who wasn't able to to make it uh what the um CPC is proposing is a update in the bylaw that the section of the bylaw that indicates how our membership um are appointed and uh do you have the the uh changes in front of you we should I do okay good a lot of nodding heads all right so one of these changes is just simply a uh resulting from the change that occurred when the affordable housing committee changed its name to the chadam Community Housing Partnership so um those names are stated in the bylaw and so we' like to update that to indicate that the um chadam Community Housing Partnership will be designated one of our members that change also uh needs to be made then in the final uh par or the final sentence of that section so replacing um the uh committee with partnership uh we also noticed that the Housing Authority which also has a designates a member uh wasn't listed in that sentence so we're also asking Authority the other update or change that we're proposing is to make it more emphatic that these committees and Partnerships and authorities have a responsibility to appoint a member to our committee and so um the the act itself of the state act the community preservation act says that these committees shall uh appoint a member and so we're suggesting that the word will be shifted to shell and we're also suggesting that the option uh where the wording is or for whatever reason that committee fails to recommend an individual to the committee be uh eliminated but that option was that if the committee failed to recommend the select board could select someone else uh to serve on the committee uh on the CPC committee um the fact is we really need members from these other particularly regulatory committees the discussion that you had about the boat house is a good example uh the CPC is recommending uh funding for the historic U Rehabilitation of that boat house once it get here gets here we needed to know that the historical commission felt that that was an historic IAL asset we also needed to know that the Conservation Commission had approved uh that development uh on the on the waterfront so we we need to have those members there and we just want to make it as emphatic as we can uh that these other committees and authorities and uh commissions have a responsibility to designate a member so that's the reason for that particular change okay questions Gary with respect to the proposed changes to the uh Community preservation act language in the bylaws Andy please just briefly Mr chair the the the material that we received today indicates that the proposed amendments so there's more than one were then forwarded to Town Council there were amendments and the one that I I gave you in the attachment today is the final one ah okay all right and then secondarily there was also Town Council note that the Amendments will require a charter Amendment as well right that's not with this one okay so this is the final yeah so they could avoid all that that clears that up thank you yeah I might add that when this was presented to the select board the Town Council was participating in that discussion and had no objection okay further comments questions otherwise I'll take a motion to support changes to the community preservation act Lang Barber Mr chairman yes thank you um if I just have a quick question for Gary so Gary the each committee that has to appoint appoint someone to the CPC they have to appoint someone from their own committees like if if the historical committee for example didn't have anybody on their committee who wanted to be that appointy could the historical committee then appoint someone who was not on the committee or must they appoint someone who is on their committee I'm not sure what the legal answer to that is we would certainly we would certainly want somebody from the committee who participated in their discussion of the project that was being proposed to us so I think um we we would certainly I think go back to them and say isn't it possible to send somebody that that actually serves on your committee uh and can represent your your Committee in our discussion thanks yeah I mean I'm sure that will probably happen I was just worried what if what if you can't find somebody does that DEC just get lost well presumably if you couldn't find somebody wouldn't it default over to the select board will to somebody according to the proposed language wasn't that what they're trying to take that's what we're trying to change in other words we don't want we'd want to present that as an option to these committees that if if they uh don't follow up with their responsibility that somehow somebody else is going to pick up that responsibility okay all right thank you okay further comments or questions if not I'll take a motion to support the changes so moved second thank you thank you uh Joanne yes Barbara yes Tracy yes Christen yes Tommy yes Andy yes John yes Eric yes for chairs in favor 9 to zero thank you thank you Gary appreciate your patience and I think we have the proposed tree protection bylaw yes we have um DD DD Holt here from um chadam friends of trees welcome Dei thank you for your patience Mr chairman Mr chairman Christian I I just want it for clarity and for transparency I just want to say I used to serve on the friends of trees board but I no longer do so I don't believe I have a conflict very good thank you thank you she's very missed so Mr chairman members of the of the committee um good afternoon and happy Pi Day big important day that's right um I'm I'm Dey Holt here representing friends of trees to present a proposed tree protection bylaw that will be on the warrant in May uh we have re received support for this bylaw from the select board the planning board park and recck commission and Conservation Commission and we will ask that you vote your support as well let me Begin by telling you what this bylaw does not do the tree protection bylaw does not apply to trees growing on private property what it does do is offer protection for trees growing on town-owned public lands more than a hundred years ago Massachusetts passed Master General Law chapter 87 the shade tree law the law was intended to protect shade trees based basically Street trees in communities across the Commonwealth it's Antiquated vague and addresses only shade tree removal it is virtually silent about replacing trees that are lost the purpose of this tree protection bylaw is to clarify amplify and fill in the gaps in chapter uh 87 it provides the tree Warden with clear Guidance with respect to process and gives the tree Warden explicit authority to require tree replacement it also extends certain protection to town-owned trees in Open Spaces such as parks and encourages preservation of the town's Woodlands again it does not apply to private property in addition to enhancing and clarifying the provisions of the shade tree law there are four additional Provisions to note first it establishes a revolving tree fund for the purposes of receiving fines for violations at other payments required by chapter 87 as well as any other monies the town May appropriate to it such funds will be used for replacement for replacement and care of chadam trees second as I stated earlier 87 does not address replacement of removed trees it leaves such a decision up to the tree Warden and so allows for its decisions that may appear arbitrary or inconsistent the bylaw specifies how and what is expected for tree replacement number three the bylaw extends protections to trees on town-owned public spaces such as Parks if the town wants to remove a tree in a park they must notify the tree Warden who will then require and advise on the replacement trees and species likewise if a tree comes down during a storm or succumbs to disease the tree Warden requires that town replace it without this provision to replant lost trees chattam May permanently lose trees in our parks and along our streets and all the benefits they provide us finally we en we the bylaw encourages the town to to take care of Woodland trees and to observe as much wild space as possible during Town infrastructure development such as water treatment plants and pump stations it requires the site plan to include areas of the Woodland to be disturbed and the number of large trees to be taken it encourages contractors to minimize disturbance and to include in the contract the replanting plan the goal of which is to rewi as much of the Disturbed area as possible without this posision provision chadam risk losing our forested lands bit by bit and as our Woodlands are home to many Wildlife species we risk unnecessarily segmenting or destroying their habitat fortunately the town has been sensitive to this in the past this byla simply makes that more explicit Rob failey Tom bar and Dan Tobin who was tree warden for 30 years and currently are interim tree Warden have reviewed this bylaw they all support supportive and Dan stated that the bylaw will give the tree Warden solid guidelines and it will better explain the provisions of the shade tree law to lay people uh in conclusion the Commonwealth encourages communities to enact tree protection bylaws both Orleans Orleans and provinc toown have enacted bylaws harch and well Fleet are considering this many communities of over the bridge also have the bylaw as a tree City USA chadam tree provision bylaw suggests uh strengthens that commitment and as as the fourth of the select board's goal and objectives for 2025 that acknowledges the importance of protecting Chad's natural resources clearly when we do as much as we can to to preserve and protect chadam trees along our streets in our parks and in our Woodlands we benefit from their many values and also we preserve those wonderful and invaluable resources for future generations and not to be forgotten we oh no not to be forgotten we preserve the and the Habit the preserve the habitat of our wild neighbors that need this ver to for their very existence before I uh take your questions I just want to make a quick note about fenit trees we are we are a 501c3 founded in 1978 with the generous support of chadam citizens we have planted many hundreds of trees on our streetscapes parks and other public places we've worked very closely with the tree Warden to identify locations and trees and an example is in the tor ttic winds we had in h July uh 2018 four large trees came down in Chase Park and uh it was friends of trees who planted four new trees in the park we have a good relationship with Rob failey and Tom bar who will be our new tree Warden we've begun meeting monthly with Tom to address projects and our friend of trees looks forward to planting many more trees in town for all of us to enjoy um with that I will take your questions okay questions for DD Hol regarding the proposed tree prodction byw Mr chair Jo please I move approval of uh creating a tree protection bylaw for the town thank you let me see if there are any other questions TR I think you had your hand up thank you Mr chair I just wanted to clarify so it does say that when removal of Woodland trees is necessary for development of town infrastructure benefiting the citizens of chadam the terms of this bylaw do not apply except for the following my I think this is great but my con concern is how it might affect say a parcel of Woodland land that the town designates for the development of affordable or attainable housing yeah that good question thank you that actually came up in a in another meeting um those are only recommendations I mean I personally I would like to see affordable housing go on you already developed land but given that that may not be the case um the the the bylaw doesn't say that has to happen it recommends that these things have that the consideration be given to just protect as many trees as possible and from what I've seen on the um the proposed uh I guess drafts we've already received from some of the possible developments of the uh the affordable housing areas we're looking at they have included you know space for trees and open space and so there seems to be already a sensitivity to that okay for the questions regarding the proposed tree protection by law we have a motion is there a second then second thank you Tommy uh support for the proposed tree protection bya Joanne yes Barbara yes Tracy yes Kristen yes Tommy yes Andy yes John yes Eric yes chaires in favor nine to nothing thank you very much thank you for your patience all right so I think that about does it for today we've got Carrie you're out on Tuesday I think is that correct yes that's correct Mr okay um Jill are you going to be joining us and we have we still have a couple of more articles we need to try to get through and I think a couple that the select board's not hearing until next Tuesday night uh yes Mr chair so I'll be here on Tuesday there's a couple of placeholder articles that we're asking the select board to place that they're not providing a recommendation and I wouldn't expect the fincom to be ready for recommendation it's just to have that as for timing to get it on the posted warrant but I think that the other articles that are not placeholders I can certainly report on them okay so maybe we can put our heads together Carrie you and I or Jill you and I on just exactly what we're going to be looking for on Tuesday and then any kind of last minute articles for Thursday um we will have a discussion as well on Tuesday about the draft of our report which is circulated to anybody if you have any media comments um typos you know better phrasing we forgot this idea don't forget that idea Etc send them over and again if there's enough of a consensus around you know us wanting to talk about XY Z then we'll consider it on our Tuesday meeting but anything you can shovel in sooner rather than later would be most helpful given where we are in the calendar on that uh and again don't reply all so there's no deliberation but just sort of flick a quick note to me on as a couple of you have around typos and wording word smithing uh anything further carrier Jill on your side no no okay if not I will take a motion to adjourn so moved seconded second second Joanne in favor yes barbar yes Tracy yes Christian yes Tommy yes Andy yes John yes Eric yes and the chair's in favor nine to nothing thank you guys very much [Music] welcome [Music] [Music]