##VIDEO ID:TOoGKbEoVe4## welcome to meeting of the select for for Monday August 12th call the meeting to order um Erica if you're okay with it uh we can move on to new business to discuss the F of the hills parking yeah is here I think we should um start there well thank you for having me um I'm C blri and I represent the um Logistics committee on the princial of the hills parking potties tents um but the parking is an issue this year because um the Reeds field is not available to us so after much discussion and review we thought possibly South Meadow could be an option and um I contacted the folus on the concom committee as well as the open space committee and what was recommended was that we um presented to the select board asking you to uh bring it to the um natural heritage because they're in charge of it um and ask them for permission so I scoped out the property and um you know it's pretty large you can see where you can come in off of shelburn Falls Road and come down so part of this outside the yellow line is the um somebody else's private property and then and then there's the South River Meadow um the parking would be essentially just half not even half of the meadow um I've circled this other map it would probably accommodate 120 cars just in this small area um and I would have to ask the um the eugin to park some there m but uh there's a walking path here and then a driving path further south and um and so I don't know if you um the select board would like to present it to the natural heritage it can be kind of wet there it's not actually I spoke to I mean I walk there almost every day well I spoke to Jason Silverman who had just um uh hated and and he tells me it is very dry for the most part unless it's a heavy heavy rain this section here holds a lot of water and it's very gooey along this Edge this is very Chris is in Jim's property very dry and down here is pretty good but this edge here there's a lot of wetland grass and stuff in here yeah and so this is a definitely I'm just saying this is a better option cuz it stays Brier we will be using that option for sure um I know the Reeds field you know has been wet true me it's been really wet that's true um but and Jason said that he would probably have a third cutting before definitely before then okay um and then so so so the natural heritage what is it they're apparently in charge of it so yeah this is this is the organization that um I have to get the permission from when we do anything that's in the South River so the Culvert that was just done on shelin Falls Road I had to have a Misa checklist review so I have the contacts there and I would just give them an email and ask them okay what do we do to get permission to do this so just we have to have the select board direct you to Y probably $300 for the mea review well you know Ian the festival we could ask for donations although we might have to do a a little shuttle too it's a quarter mile from there to here um so it's going to be a little bit of a walk yeah yeah I was going to ask about that just that small stretch of Shel and Falls Road where there's no walking path no um sidewalk right and so you know once we know what we can do with the parking we'll be bringing in Don Fates to talk about how to facilitate safety in oneway streets or whatever you know I don't know got it I going to do it he definitely will help us out okay so is that okay yeah do we have to make a motion or can we just I mean it's I think it makes sense to me like if we need to get per me I'm happy to check with it makes sense I'm just curious did the committee talk directly to the land owner about the Reed steeld um well uh yes Su uh McDonald talks to them and uh you know it's a whole the animals are taking over much of the field and we don't want to put the animals back you know I mean it just doesn't well they move those fences every day I mean I was thinking of like maybe we could get a group of people to help up I it's for like a day and a half you know hard enough to get volunteers to to do the stakes and the roping in that parking lot that I do year but I mean I totally respect your experience there um but sue you know has talked to I'll talk to her again um so not the renter the owner of the property yeah okay right yes she has spoken to the owner the owner okay so are um eugin willing to let us use I don't know I'm I didn't realize this was I didn't know this designation and so I thought it was all South River yeah I so I'll ask Chris Eugen ask on the fck ball field exactly oh no she's on the golf she's on the golf not until winter but I can ask her okay absolutely thank you so much yeah I'm more than happy to do that if I can have the one back that had the yes that one thank you thanks for all your work on this oh thank you all right have a good night thanks thanks okay um we can move to the top of the agenda uh vote to approve minutes of July 29th I unfortunately don't have these in front of me so I'm have to rely on YouTube to they look fine to me I move that we approve the minutes of July 29th uh second okay all in favor I I all in favor I I I great I unanimous all right uh moving on to next uh item on the agenda the warrs um I did look through these uh nothing popped out looks pretty standard for what we've been seeing so um I'll make a motion to approve the Count's payable warrant um the payroll warrant and the payroll reduction warrant we don't have sums on here which is strange barque oh you don't have the most recent one oh you have yeah oh you have the working version probably that I sent out do you want me do you want me to read this out is that yeah if you don't mind okay yeah um accounts payable warrant in the amount of $1 173,880 26 payroll warrant in the amount of $16,234.73 16554 great is that a motion Erica yes second all right I'll second all in favor I I hi unanimous uh next on the agenda meetings attended by select board members um none since our last meeting for me okay anything for you El nope nothing for me all right I had had nothing official I did meet up with the highway super and um the uh Fire Chief and the uh chief of police too but it was just to check in no uh no log meetings um public comments doesn't look like we have anybody here uh nothing for unfinished business so we'll move on to the big item new business um first item on the new business is to vote to sign the state primary warrant um did you all want to go through that it's pre boiler yeah I looked it over MH um yeah I move that we uh sign the state primary warrant I second yep great uh all in favor I I I uh yeah really nothing there to talk about um okay let's move on to the one I'm very happy about discussion and vote on the contract with RTE for the street light study so I should just mention sorry to you that this has been reviewed by Town Council however RTE hasn't gotten back to me with saying whether or not they're going to approve what Town Council did so I figure if you want to go ahead and sign this tonight if they want to hash out some changes later um you know I could send this to him tomorrow signed and just say here um but he hasn't you know he hasn't had a chance to get back to me so this this is what the Town Council edits that RTE has not reviewed right so this was the RTE contract that they sent to me with a couple of changes that I wanted and then I sent it to Town Council and Town Council reviewed it and this is the one that she reviewed so have the total value of the contract in here it does it should have a not it's got a not it shows you can't out at that at the value that was one of the things I had to add in that it was not to exceed amount right so it's 9950 which was what the town meeting voted right there go so if we move to approve this and then they also sign it then we're done Bic yes exactly yep all right is this the person that does shelburn Falls yes okay yeah I was just looking at I read very thoroughly through the termination because that's where in the dispute uh uh resolutions because that's where I always want to just make sure that there's nothing in there that would um make us have to pay if work wasn't completed so it all looked good to [Music] me all right I'll make a motion for the agreement with RTE Energy Solutions in the town of goneway second all in favor I and this one is just by Chris so I'll leave that for so that'll be in your packet for you to sign Chris sure I'll come in tomorrow okay uh next on the agenda which we should probably read through given um the subject is the discussion and vote on P public comment policy um so if you all don't mind I'm just going to read through the policy so everyone watching is aware okay town of Conway select board public comment policy select board May Reserve time for public comments on its open meeting agenda at each meeting the purpose of the public comment period is to bring matters of public interest to the attention of the board public comment sessions are for speakers to address the board on matters that are not related to any other agenda agenda item if a speaker wishes to address the board on a matter related to an agenda item the chair May accept public comment when the agenda item is reached during the meeting persons may speak upon the permission of the chair of the select board and must stop speaking upon request of the chair individuals should identify themselves by full name during public comment portions of a meeting members of public are allowed up to 2 minutes to speak may speak only once and only when recognized by the chair and may not yield time to another speaker public comment sessions are limited to 15 minutes total redundant comments are discouraged if multiple speakers wish to talk on the same subject they're encouraged to choose one spokesperson person all speakers must present their remarks in an orderly and Peaceable manner without disruption to other speakers speakers are further encouraged to respect the views and opinions of others including members of the S board and the General Public public comment is not intended for select board debate with the general public nor meant to answer questions without the time needed for a prop for proper research answers may be provided as soon as possible to the inquiring party is the chair responsibility to ensure that personal matters are not discussed it's a big one right there at the end um did either of you have any comments or questions on this policy I do not um I think this is it's very very restrictive but you know seems I think we can always vote to extend um discussions yeah but it has to you have to make the vote to extend it just like we would at town meeting yeah and it's also it's it's comparable to other policies State yeah we just we didn't have an efficient policy before so um I move that we adopt um our policy on public comments as presented and I will second all in favor I I I unanimous uh next on the agenda easy one vote appoint Luis Becket to the Conway currence newsletter committee through a period ending in uh June 30th of 2027 I move to appoint pleas I second to that committee and thank her for her service I I I congrats Louise all right vote to appoint veronique Blanchard as Animal Control rep to Sheriff's Office through June 30th of 2025 so for a one-year so term have you been I should remember this but I should have remembered it it turns out because I was asking them oh who's the rep for Conway they not and he said it's you Veron so iting I thought we're GNA put a ring on it I thought it would be better if we did it as an official vote okay um I move that we appoint Bary Blanchard as animal control representative to the Sheriff's Office 630 2025 uh all in favor I I I so you would still work with dragon now right I mean yeah like what so what this is is this is the the board um there's a representative from each of the towns that is a board for the Sheriff's Office and um that was one of the things that was in my ta update is that we met um because weightly had applied just like we had done a couple years ago weightly applied to be a member and we had to vote whether or not to accept weightly so that was what I was there for um you know so it's it's budget and other items like that got it and and fortunately because weightly we did accept weightly now our assessment for this year went down should saving money so all right next on new business vote to appoint election workers uh kathern whitcom Deborah Craven Margaret Kennedy Kathy llas Michelle Harris Amy Anderson phis dacey Deborah Horton and Dorothy Harris um I move to appoint the election workers with red I second all in favor hi hi hi unanimous thank you to those election workers see a lot been there before y uh next on new business vote to appoint Heidi Flanders as assistant emergency manager director uh this is right the position vacated by Bill caner yeah correct um I moved to appoint Heidi Flanders as assistant Emergency Management director she is um she's an EMT I believe she yeah she's an EMT and she's been on the um fireman's auxiliary for many years so she'll be great I'll second that all in favor I I I unanimous on all right uh so yeah berque if we can discuss this one a little more vote to approve a one day beer and wine license for the library on August 29th what's happened in there you want to take that it's uh what did you maybe some kind of art show like a social thing so they wanted to there time limit on this they wanted to have wine oh oh that's they wanted to have wine for it so it be I think 6:00 to 11:00 p.m. okay yeah yeah so it's like a little art show type you know social doesn't sound like a rowdy crowd let's put of that put on but not like the prom yeah yeah put up on the library so it's the it's like the library trustees or whatever who's asking yeah and so they just want to have wine for I guess you walk around and look at paintings with wine I'll have to check it out yeah are we invited don't see why not not if you don't give the license yeah right good point I will make a we approve the one-day beer and wine license for the libraries event on August 29th second all in favor I hi unanimous okay moving on to the next agenda item items not anticipated 48 hours in advance of the meeting none here got nothing Town Administrator updates very neat I actually have quite a bit you do good um you've been busy I've been busy it's not good to be bored um so first thing I did meet with um Beth gianini and Lori Scarboro at furog um there's the what they call the tip the transportation Improvement program which funnels Federal monies I think 80% of it federal funds and the furog is involved in part of the decision making process for the list of which projects will get done when they're already booked out five years this is a long-term you know get yourself in line for a lot of money in addition to do this um you have to have your project um designed by a mass do approved road construction engineer so there's in a list of approved Engineers we'd go through so I thought well you know if you don't get started you never get anything it's time for us to get on there and in speaking with Ron the biggest um priority is stabilizing the banks on shelburn Falls Road and that's going to be a multi multi-million dollar project so um with the board's blessing I'm going to go ahead and start preparing to apply next year to mass works the same one we're waiting for on this year but next year to mass works for a design Grant so that we can pay for the engineer to design it um don't we always use the mass do approved well I don't know I don't know the last time we did some road construction to be honest with you it something just makes sense yeah yeah um anyway so so that would be the next step in the process is for me to apply next year for the design and then the furog will be working with me on getting this you know together and on the tip and then once it's on the tip hopefully you know it it would be at least 6 years out before anything happened but if we don't start now we won't get on the list so so that's that one I just heard back I think I sent this to you all today again from the furog I reached out to them to see if they knew of any vendors who could do um an Americans with Disabilities Act self-evaluation of the town now Tom did this back in 2017 but it seems to me it's a little it's been a while we need to redo it and I wanted to especially Focus again on this building since we're talking about getting the lift and everything in here but also um with the emergency shelter and making sure that we are connected with everything we need to do to have folks um be able to come into the emergency shelter so she just this afternoon sent me a proposal which they've just done something very similar with Ashfield so now I have what I need to apply on Monday for this grant oh great yeah can I talk about that one sure yeah so I read through that proposal and I definitely have questions on it especially the billing and what we're going to get from that proposal cuz the prices were pretty high um so I I would like to talk to Ashfield to see how it went with them sure um I just you know we pay for a cog right and then we get we get um uh quotes like this that seem far-fetched at least what I read through so I just want to make sure that we're paying for something we need or the expectation of what we're paying for because it's a little confusing in that in that document so what this would be yes and I I understand what you mean I we can go over what had been done before through Tom um did we pay for that assessment that furog did the furog didn't do it the last time it was a different company what I what I have this for to be perfectly honest with you is simply to get numbers for a quote because in the application I have to put in an amount so at least I have an amount now I can put in um this wouldn't necessarily mean we'd have to use the fur Cog um but uh what was the other thing I was going to say sorry um anyway yes we can we can definitely talk about that as a matter of fact I think there's still some money left over from the last um evaluation and I think it's about $4,000 and I think it had to do with putting in automatic doors and doing other work in here um and you know if we get the grant then obviously that would pay for it it wouldn't be the town paying for a c but we we can definitely get more details they are pricey having put one in recently at work yeah no yeah it's it's and but this is honestly just the self-evaluation this is something that would just list out for us all the steps we need to take right um so you know and maybe I can get it talk it down because they could use the previous one as a really good base um anyway so that's something I I look through the community compact grants and right now I don't think there's anything else that I wanted to apply for um but this one I think the more work we can do and the more we can show we're trying to get compliant the better yeah I just want to make sure we're not paying somebody to come here and measure a hallway or a doorway when we could do that ourselves you know true true yep um so the next one is um the transfer station you all have folders in front of you big caveat this is not um how it would look in the end but I wanted to give you all an idea of what I was thinking to send to residents so basically you know I I go through it would be information on trash it would be our fee schedule how to apply for the sticker how to load your car the direction you go in the transfer station um all the different materials we take and their regulations basically I was thinking it'd be nice for each resident to have a packet that they could just throw in a drawer and if they had a question they looked at it so that's my thought and there is not a Swap Shop brochure in here yet that's one that Kathy llas will be working on for us about rules for the Conway Mall and you know some of these things will be changing um if the board decides to review bulky prices and I believe Janine is available September 9th if you wish to do that then yes okay please we really need to get that done yeah so there are obviously things that are going to change if you all decide to change the number of bag stickers given out that would change you know so there's a lot of things that will the one I really didn't have time to work on yet was the veggie oil I got to put something together for that so I just gave you what was put on the drum and then the western Mass recycling brochure so you could see um I'm sorry not Western uh rendering so anyway just something to peruse and I'm all ears for how to do this or how to make it more accessible and interesting for people you know everything on format should we stick in dividers what should you know how should we do this so I think it's a great idea I just I just worry that this is something people are going to stick in a cycling or trash can or recycling I mean it's all of this information like has been like that's provided at the transfer station well I it hasn't been provided like this we haven't done the the layout we haven't done how to load your car there's a number of things and you know we could just give it out at the transfer station by the way we can use recycling dividend program funds for this so and that's a great use for it but those are all the things that I want you all to think about is what's the best way to approach making sure all this information gets into their hands a viral video I used to do those you know I'm with Erica that if you give them this much's information one they're not going to read it and they'll throw it away because it's just overload so I think having it at the transfer station to be available to to hand out to people if they request it is great um but otherwise we're just creating more trash okay yeah I feel I mean I wouldn't want to like mail this to like Town residents I don't feel like that would be a good use of funds but um I know that my kids school had a really difficult parking lot and there was like a video like a parking video that some of the students made one year that was like this is how you park this is how you do drop off this is how you do pickup um it was very effective every year at the beginning of the year that school shares that video like this is you know this is how you drop your obviously transportation is a little more complicated than that but and we don't have the capacity to produce a viral video but well but uh well you know what we do have we do have somebody sitting with right now did this before so I had talked with Jonathan a little bit about making some videos I did actually I did exactly that with this information in South Hadley when I was there and made a video and just walked through the transfer station and showed them all what to do I'm not sure I have time to do that these days I know when if we get some Frontier kids and like an art class you know but we have we'd have to script it too that's the problem but we can totally script that I mean I feel like um yeah sure I think we should just think more about creative ways to disseminate this information great but I do but yeah I I agree with Chris like have something like this available for people to take when they're there but I but I think just sending it out to people is going to you know hopefully they'll recycle it after they read it does somebody who's like diabetic who has to have multiple shots a day they they have to have a their own box to recycle their you yeah bet that doesn't happen I don't know we do have the sharps program and that's information that's in there but uh yeah I mean my wife has to take quite a bit like not daily but weekly um but we drop them off at the at the pharmacy phes take them too I mean maybe it could be something where we condense it down to say because I bet a lot of people don't even even though we take cooking oil and stuff like that right and maybe we condense something to a smaller mailer that's just like this is the layout these are all the materials we take and then have the background and say if you want information on any of these just get it from the transfer station attendance when you're there yeah and put that in the current I don't know like fun dump fact of the week of the month when you put it in the current have a whole dump section well I used to do a column on that like that yeah I don't I don't think it got much traction but yeah okay so one thing I saw here which I was surprised about because I know some other towns take kitty litter for compost we don't you should never put kitty litter in compost best it's it's it's no it's actually certain chemicals that are in cat urine that you don't want to have ammonia no no it's something else and actually pregnant women shouldn't be around it and you just don't want kitty litter you don't want bu compost from somebody is putting kitty litter in it for sure yeah um okay so um quickly going through the rest the assessors George and I worked quite a bit on getting that um request for proposal together it went out and I sent it out proposals are due back at 2:00 on the 26th to me I will be there the vendors are supposed to give a price proposal and a non-price proposal because the assessors can use the the nonprice as their decision-making guide so I'll be holding on to the prices until they've reviewed everything and then I give them the prices and so so in other words it doesn't have to be lowest bidder that's basically what it comes down to I will be going on the 30th to the furog when the um ifb is due back um for the opening for the official opening just to see so I'll be able to report back on September 9th to you all about the public buildings bids um I'm going to create this working group for um different it vendors when we had our assessment done um one of the you know everything was glowing as far as what Roy has done for us with security and you know we're in great shape but the huge sort of Gap was that um he's just one person so if something happens we're in trouble um and in speaking with Roy he was like yeah no it's fine he's ready to kind of back away from some of his customers so he's going to help us transition and will help us review companies to take over for FY 26 so I thought if you know people like Adam and Lori and Lori and Jan people who use the system all the time every day I want them to have input in what's so I'll be putting that together um we did find out I don't even remember how recently that the select board is legally supposed to appoint fence viewers oh yes I've been trying to recruit a couple of okay um so and I thought the history that that Donna gave us on that was really particularly interesting that this has been around since the 1600s you know anyway um and it's still on the books so um Chris had asked me to reach out to zoning board of appeals to see if anybody there you know typically I would say if we had members on the Agriculture Commission that might make sense for them to be fence viewers but we don't have anybody so well I know some young people who've recently moved to town I'm trying to get excited about town governments and I hit them up really hard they're not yet registered to vote in con and com they're registered elsewhere because they just recently moved to town but I'm like switch your voter registration and then you two can do offense there you go and they were kind of psyched about it so great I'm working that ankle especially since well I mean we I we haven't had an issue come up right this is just something that I we found out we were supposed to have wait till we get our first fite fence oh that's great thank you um all right so and I'm sure at this point everybody knows that shelburn falls Culvert was replaced that they're still out there doing some work and I already mentioned to you about the ACO um last uh last meeting is what I to say the last meeting the question came up whether Junior Firefighters from out of town get the same coverage and yes they do I did speak with not just I thought it was not Junior Firefighters just any firefighter well actually any or like any volunteer firefighter anybody who's from out of town is still covered okay yeah so did we tell Chief um I can't I think I did I'll I'll make a note to make sure that I do um there was just something that I found which I didn't realize even included Conway businesses so I just put it in there the sheld andf falls.com and we actually have some Conway businesses who are advertising on there because they're they're incorporating a lot of towns into that website so I just thought that was interesting should we advertise for Road workers Highway staff I know do they help yeah Help Wanted Bo um well this is more of like a visitor things to do and all that kind of yeah okay and then the fer Cog did host a meeting um we talked about this at the meeting um last month sometime where there was going to there's talk about increasing the electric capacity going from New York to Northfield and that will impact Conway because they're talking about potentially widening um the right of ways that are going on to be able to get more electricity through these areas so the fer hog hosted a meeting with um our representatives in urce just to have an initial discussion about that so they'll be giving us more information they're supposed to be sending us some um documents that I'll forward on to you just to let you know this is the Department of energy that's you know in charge of this so furog is and ever Source are both giving their feedback to doe Y and other than being on vacation next week that's it y great great thank you is the highway department making any progress with interviews or hiring or applicants no I no we did not get anything from um the currents or from the recorder I did post just recently on indeed and we have one person that Ron wants to interview okay so we're going to get back there's also a western mass.com which is a jobs thing Western mass. I can try that I hear him on the radio all the time but indeed is still kind of where everybody goes yeah yeah okay thank you vinique um next item select board member comments or concerns any the moment no okay um great are are we we had some letters that need response who do we do that or letters oh you're talking about mail yeah Bridge oh right yeah you mean the bridge yes so I did respond and we're meeting um Grace and I um there at 9:00 on Wednesday so i' let her know that I'll be reaching out to her after that is that the one that used to be Fred and jeans Adam H is that who used to be Fred and jeans what the is that the property where they had the it's the Bas of the Reeds Bridge all the Wisteria that's growing there yes yes that used to be a restaurant friend be yeah before my time but I know it still lived on and so that's that's where they're concerned about the erosion yeah I mean that is there's a ton of erosion there I'm not sure it was from the bridge construction but it's definitely I mean that whole I mean it's just it's the river there that river is just the it's kind of mindboggling really the erosion cuz I walk it so frequently like it's you know you'll be there one day and two days later a whole another section's fallen in M um you know it's used to be a road a cornfield a road not a road but you know there used to be a little beach yeah but my aunt built her house out B yeah when I was a kid like my cousin and I could walk out you could put a towel down and now the river is stuff but it's it's very much changed it changed its course like it's come in and it's taking the bank down and it's like it used to sort of swing out and now it's basically just going right through it like took down a big apple tree you know and then you get to like the Oxbow before the Big Dam yeah um and that whole area's changed I mean that river is just changing drastically all the time so but I it definitely would but you can see there's the houses that are on it you can see there precarious position yeah like all right well good we're responding to them okay um no mail no announcements uh anybody have anything else they would like to discuss good oh great so next meeting we I did stop I did stop by Bakers I knew you were there I know you were going to stop by at the last thing they did get a letter from the state saying the state wasn't going to be responsible I think on Thursday they got that um but they're trying people are being very much community-minded and helping with donating money through GoFundMe or just that Greenfield savings cuz GoFundMe has a percentage they take off of donations um but they're definitely you know they stop gas they stop selling gas auge um y yeah I talked them last week yeah so it's just a big it's a deal for the community it is it's huge and I you know I I called a few people and let them know that as well I talked to Natalie and she's very aware of um uh the the impact of not having Bakers would be on this community so it's a sad situation like you said that Riverbank is just it's just eroding everywhere y uh okay um next meeting is going to be August 26th uh if there's nothing further I'll make a motion to second I probably will not I'll let you f going be there Clayton leaves for school oh I think yeah uh all in favor I I I great yes thank you all appreciate it