[Music] good evening everybody it is Monday March 25th 2024 is 6 p.m. and I'll call to order the Freetown border select meeting um in today's meeting we will be going to Executive session and then coming back into open session so um in a moment I'm going to have to ask everyone to leave after I um have that motion um so today's meeting will be recorded and will be available on YouTube um so with that so I'm going to entertain a motion that we go into executive session oh sorry for the following reason thank you I I forgetting something Master Law chapter 38 section 21 A3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining with the free Town U the town of sorry freet toown full-time firefighter Association public Union Union Local 272 Lona all bargain units because it open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the P of the public body and the chair so declares and I do so uh with that entertain a motion to go into executive session motion me second all in favor I I selectman Lopes yes selectman Zer yes selectman Matthews yes we're now back in Open Session um item two sorry TR your M's off we're now back in Open Session uh agenda item two is uh for exective session meeting minutes from 3:4 2024 so with that I'll entertain a motion to approve but not release the executive session minutes from 34 2024 motion made second all in favor and now we have the Open Session minutes from the same date so with that entertain a motion to approve the Open Session minute meeting minutes from 3:4 2024 and 320 2024 motion second all in favor all I all right now AG four so we have a uh presentation from sered um on the 3A MBTA communities requirements um soctor want to kick it offer yeah so sorry no it's okay um hi uh Victoria alaro planning and land use administrator um so we're here to present myself um and Rob and Taylor from suret our regional planning agency are here to uh present the proposed amendments uh to what's now what's currently known as the Puma District um so we can comply with the section 3A requirements for MBTA communities towards [Music] you oh I guess I do need it thanks for bearing with me folks appreciate it start off do this yeah if you just want to give like a brief introduction yeah thanks Victoria so um you know thank you for having us and I will say we you know we'll go over this in a little bit of detail but um our process has been working with the planning board um at at planning board meetings to come up with you know what we think and what the planning board thinks and working together to try to decide what is the best method for compliance that's what this presentation is going to outline we tried to look at that and you know we started with a range of options and then you know as we've kind of iterated we've kind of gone into different details of how to approach it and best meet the compliance and we've always tried to do this in the way that we think follows what we need to do for free Town's obligations but in a way I think the planning board has truly been very thoughtful about approaching this and uh trying to do it in a way that works as best we can for free town so um as this loads up I think I'll just describe some of those requirements that the Commonwealth has for what a district has to do and those really are the benchmarks that we're trying to achieve um so those are multif family housing permitted by right at 15 units per acre uh 50 acres in size and free Town's capacity every Town's capacity is a little different it's 750 total units um So based on those requirements you know I mentioned this but we proposed a few options to to the town and the plany board looked at them and and there were a range we could get into you know folks want to know what some of those were happy to talk about them in detail but the one we did land on was modifying the plan mixed use District that Victoria mentioned um there's a few reasons for this first is that it's close to the Freetown station site so that is a requirement for town that has a station so whether it was part or all the district it was always going to have some of it was going to have to be close to that state and the Pud is close to that um if we look at the Spirit of the Pud um some of you folks may remember when that was I think it was 2012 is so before I was was before I was a planner to be honest um but the the language in there and the intent is about a mixed use walkable district and probably if we think about the goal of a 3A District some of that stuff is similar to what we're thinking about uh with a 3A District so that the spirit could carry over into this and third one I think uh frankly is that the district is I mentioned the 2012 it hasn't really seen a lot of development you you folks in tell might know some of the story of that better than me but when we look at it um if you wanted to meet the intent of a mixed use District in cix use development probably to be appealing to developers you might need to modify that District anyway so that was a that was a consideration is that you know do do you leave a district there that's not really living up to what it was intended to do in the sense that hasn't seen any mixed use development yet or do we try to you know align this goal that what the town has to do now with with that so those are kind of the big three things we were thinking about and okay we got the map so uh we made it this shows uh the Pud which is hatched in this sort of orange color that that is the Pud which is now the plant development District so we didn't change the footprint of that we kept it exactly the same and that purple dot there is uh what we believe to be the future uh free Town station um you know so uh you can see just above it is the Stop and Shop Distribution Center um it's bisected by South Main Street there that kind of runs through it so uh that's just generally the location and so that's just really a broad overview of this I'm going to hand it off to uh Taylor my colleague now who's going to talk a little bit about uh you know some of these modifications we made from the Pud to the PDD again with the spirit of complying with the 3A bylaw and and oh I should mention too I I think we passed over and I wasn't looking at the screen this is something we're really trying to do too is just to be as transparent as we can with um what we're actually talking about here and the thing that Taylor clicked on there are two documents one is sort of the final draft bylaw that we've worked through with our planning board sessions and this one is a looks crazy but it's a it's a red line of what the original PUD has and so the track changes are on so you can see what's actually changed to the plan development District so hopefully with some of the stuff we talk about today that'll explain maybe the why of all that red text and slash through and why we made some of those changes and yeah so any questions on any of that before we keep going uh the only question I have is can I get a copy of all those track changes yes of course they are so this is publicly available and the links to the track changes are online we can also make sure that they're distributed to you folks more information out there about yeah of course totally see if we can we can get it we we can get it to the website sure that would be great M thank you I have some questions about wait till after the presentation might answer them before I yeah sure so I'm gonna walk through some of the key differences again between the Pud and what we're proposing in the PDD um you know like Rob said we really did do our best hopefully to you folks and agree to honor the spirit of what the original pmod was you know intended to do while again achieving compliance with 3 so I'll just go through these are some of kind of like the key highlights obviously there's plenty more changes in the red line that you'll see but I think these are the you know the main takeaways that we want you folks to be aware of and so the permitting processes in the original PUD all uses were permitted by special permit in the amended PDD residential and mixed use are permitted by WR and all other uses remain as special permit site plan review required was originally again required in the Pud and it is still required in the PDD that is acceptable under Section 3A and it is required for all uses just as it was Prior and a big you know portion of the P originally was this idea of a Village Green and having open space integrated into this you know the developments we wanted to honor that and keep it um you know applicable and useful so the way we've kind of modified it here is originally in the peut it was required at a minimum of a half acre in size for you know on a per project basis here what we've done is a percentage based requirement of 30% and that does come you know there's all stipulations within the bylaw about conservation restrictions and you know conveying if necessary um we worked with our environmental Department to kind of tailor that section so hopefully again it lives up to the spirit of I think what the original PUD was trying to do the allowable residential density and we'll kind of talk a little bit more about this if we you know feel it's necessary in the original PUD it was five units per acre seven with a density bonus if they were doing age restricted units here we've brought it up to 16 units per acre for residential and mixed use and there is a reason that we're opting for 16 rather than 15 um I can get like more detailed in the math if you like want after the presentation but essentially we have to run a compliance model that the state provides us to make sure that the math you know comes out correctly and we're meeting all of those check boxes in 3A um again one of those is a gross density of 15 units per acre allowable and so the Commonwealth also Prov provides us information on what land is excluded from gross density calculations what land is excluded from unit capacity calculations and so if we set the gross density in this spw at 15 when I put all of that information in the compliance model it actually comes out to 14.8 so just shy of compliance so you know we brought it up one unit to again keep it as close to that 15 as possible while getting us to compliance I add a little clarification yes of course so like for my brain when I think of the gross density what it means almost is like an on the ground density if we could imagine like a hypothetical scenario where someone's entire District they say okay it's 15 units per acre but the whole district is like the park and we know the park is going to be a park forever the effective units per acre would be zero because nobody's going to build a house in that Park so there are just these chunks of land and it h we've you know done a handful of these compliance models it comes up on every one so sometimes you have to Tinker with certain parameters to get the on the ground units per Acer to actually read as 15 what the Comm considers what could truly be built there potentially yeah and we have the compliance model you know at the end of this presentation again if anyone does have questions we're happy to pull it up it is you know fairly Technical and um sometimes it makes me even go cross-eyed you know staring at it and going through it but again I'm I'm happy to do that if folks have additional questions at the end um just getting into the dimensional standards in the original PUD it was based on uh you know a project basis and there was an F 45% um the allowable uses were defined as percentages of a whole project area and the dimensional standards weren't necessarily very clear so what we Tred to do in the amended PUD uh you know the PDD is make it very clear it's just a standard you know table of dimensional standards we have a 70,000 foot minimum lot size which was decided by the planning board we have 100t minimum Frontage with 25 to 50 foot setbacks 50 ft if it is fronting South Main Street and we have a three story 35t maximum height we knew that was really important given the kind of limitations of some of the emergency services and Victoria you might be able to speak better to that at the end as to like you know the details about that but we wanted to be cognizant of that and then there were design standards in the original PMA again I think a lot of them kind of pertain to that Village Green you know orienting buildings around um you know an open space Etc we've tried to retain as much of that as possible and then you know we would like to eventually have a kind of complimentary project to this down the line where we do a more fleshed out series of design guidelines to inform this bylaw so that would occur again you know after a vote after we get this in a place where we feel good about it we could you know support you folks with an additional kind of set of more in-depth design guidelines to again achieve the spirit of what the Pud was trying to do and then can add to that one too yes of course and and I think one of the things the planning board is very focused on um in our meetings with them is maintaining you know um site plan review process so providing as much information as we can to the planning board because ultimately this is just a zoning change and it's going to occur on a project by project basis if something comes in so to give the planning board the power to sort of weigh what if they think this meets the spirit of what what works for Freetown so maintaining the the control there wherever wherever possible was a big Focus for the planning board so we tried to work that in however we could right um kind of going off of that again you know we did maintain impact statements so fiscal and um portation impact statements that was originally required in the Pud it is still required in the PDD for all uses um again you know I we our current understanding is that all of this falls under the purview of site plan review and it should be fine if our legal understanding of that changes we will obviously be attentive to that but at this time this is you know our understanding is that this is totally fine to include particularly impact statement so I just wanted to leave a note on that and then this is just kind of a note on what residential density is and how it's calculated it's you know all of this is measured in units per acre so we just have a quick visual here explaining what that looks like so if you have a one acre plot of land and you have 16 units on it that's 16 units per acre um and then we just want to give some examples of what that can look like at the upper range of 15 units per acre but we do want to note you know all things there are so many things that can limit density whether it's the you know presence or absence of infrastructure like sewer and water if they need to have you know a package tree treatment plan or septic Etc um you know Wetland boundaries and construction costs so even if we're showing you know 15 units per acre here you know it might not look like this or it might but we just want to be again as transparent as we can as to show and give folks kind of an example of like this is what this looks like in other communities so we have an example here this is Sudbury um this is a you know townhouse style development you could see it's three stories Max and then we have a similar campus style development in Med fields which is another one at three stories Max so again these are you know coming out at the top of 15 units per acre but I don't know anything about the infrastructure situation or whatnot on there that might have actually limited it just again a note on that and so let's just kind of bring ourselves back and you know give everyone some context like how did we fund this work where did it come from Etc and so we initially applied for a grant from Massachusetts Housing Partnership otherwise known as MHP um they had a 3ata program which was super helpful for us and we've you know utilized it for a number of communities in our region Freetown being one of them so we received a $20,000 Grant from them initially for this work um which funded us through the end of the last calendar year and then we applied for a One-Stop for growth Grant which we did receive to help all of our rural communities who are subject to 3A comply so all of this work is being done at no cost of the Town um and then again a quick overview what planning was done to get to this point last year in May we kicked off this project again through the MHP Grant and you know pretty much through the early summer to the fall we were working on you know what options we had for the town how did we want to consider compliance and I've linked all of these green highlighted sections in this presentation are links and so you can click on these and see the original presentation we gave you know we hand it off to Victoria to give to the planning board initially on you know how do we want to site our district what should we consider um so you can scroll through these all of the time uh it should be available and then you know once we kind of decided that the Pud was the direction we wanted to go and amending it we met with the planning board in November and again the presentation that we gave at that meeting is here um you can click on it this one goes into a little bit more depth about you know what we knew we had to change in the Pud Etc um and then again like we said the MHP Grant wrapped up in December um we received our new grant funding from the onstop program we met with the planning board again on January 16th to discuss the first draft this is a link to the first draft again this is a Redline version so you'll be able to see kind of again as being as transparent as possible this was the process Etc so you know not everything will be the same from Red Line to Red Line but that's because we're incorporating edits um as we meet with the board and so then again we met in February via Zoom with the planning board to discuss the second draft um and then we met you know we finalized I think Victoria brought a couple more small iterations of like minor changes to the board um and then we finalized you know our proposed District in March this month um and we did submit it to eohc the executive office of housing livable communities for pre-adoption review and so this is kind of the last thing obviously public meetings for anyone who might be interested in learning more about this we have this one today um and then we will be having a public hearing with the planning board next Tuesday April 2nd um and we will update this if we have any future meetings and so I will pause here because then we're just going to get into a little bit again if you feel this is necessary to reiterate the you know what is the NBT communities act could you pull up that map the original with the original P mode sure might F exactly just try sure right so if I'm do my math criteria right so within that Circle we're saying there's going 47 Acres of potential buildable like that that' be the criteria right if there's I'm taking that saying there's 750 total units is what we our requirement is right and then if there's 16 Acres or 16 units per an acre right so just we need 40 within that Circle 47 Acres of buildable of like reasonable buildable property right now the question is like stoping shop obviously being a big chunk of that right if they're in the people if they're if they qualify even though right now it's stoping shop right if we just change that zoning unlikely so that's not going to be stoping shop anymore but potentially that will meet the qualifications for us to be in compliance or is that excluded from you know um is that excluded because it's already being used for stoping shop because and I'm I don't want to cre off because one of the things that you had said was something about Parks right so that if a park was in that zone this was going to be one of my questions so that's why I'm going to ask so you have Park in there then that excludes from that piece but if there's an existing business within that piece does that exclude from that piece so that's actually a good thing as so this is is in there so half the park would be gone within that Circle if they got that place no but the Park yeah so the park be the Green Space right that you would have to almost pull from that right you would have to put it somewhere else deduct it from it yeah so this might not be a great visual representation but I can try to speak to it a bit um you know this is the half mile buffer that you also see on this map right here and you know unfortunately I don't have the pmod PDD boundary on here but anything in yellow this kind of yellow color right here that you're seeing is what's excluded from unit capacity so you can see like you know Stop and Shop is up here and um you know pretty much none of it is excluded these dark blue spots are like wetlands and areas that are excluded from gross density calculations but again you know most of the area that the Puma Falls in which is you know predominantly on this side of the road um is included and there are some excluded Parcels that are close to the MBTA Community or the MBTA station I should say so like you know this section right here some of this down here which is in the Pud is excluded land but that's because it's state-owned you know by the highway department so um you know if it's state-owned if it's a right of way if it has a per conservation restriction those are the types of things that you know the Commonwealth has identified in this orangey yellow layer here as excluded land but an existing business or you know a commercial use would not be excluded already expanded the circle to factor in the excluded space yeah so I mean that's a 16 in a way because I mean to to to speak in sort of like simplified terms when I say Park uh we would say probably like a piece of land protected in perpetuity that there's no realistic way that that could ever not be a par because you would you would you know but like like sto shop for example not like they right now it's stopping shop but hypothetically future they could sell it to a real estate developer and it could know it could and that would be fine and so if I could probably try to interpret maybe where some of this questioning is is going is if we we get a little technical here but not all of freet Town's land would have to be within that Circle we're showing there just a portion of it just What It Go 40% 40% 40% then where would it go okay that's important so then you could step outside with the other percentage because that was some of the scenarios we talked about early on if we go back like a two subdistrict style Z one sub on the other side of town we felt it was simple to do it this way and the planning board did too but if you wanted to jump outside the circle for a portion of it but this 100% of it other we thinking this is 100% of the requirement this would meet the requirements I don't I don't see you putting 750 unit in area I just don't see it gu right legally it says we well legally they can say whatever they want legally but whose property owns what right like where's it going I just want I know there's a couple things I know the Copart parcel is within there we've included the portion of the Copart parcel it it actually intersects the peod so we had to like subset it to include the 40 acres that falls within that um you know the going back to like what I think the the nature of MBTA community act in 3A is um you know it is not going to fall on the behalf of the town to produce 750 units once you pass this bylaw the idea is that and again like the the way we've done the math using the gis layers that the Commonwealth has provided most of the Pud is not excluded so they're viewing it as potentially developable down the line whether again it's you know a a Redevelopment or a new development Etc um that potential is there in the eyes of the Commonwealth and all that matters is that this zoning district has the capacity to support that in you know per when we put those numbers into the compliance model it does not matter if you know you produce 750 units in the next 10 years no one will be tracking production the intent is again it's it's a capacity um building exercise so to speak sorry go ahead yeah just quick so and I've seen this in zoning laws before where um if you know single owner owns two pieces of property that but that have different zoning use so say one's commercial and one's um residential there like it can happen and we have this issue like with um you know when our properties are being combined right I just know this lost you recently so pretty much what can happen is they can select to use whatever the most like um profitable or advantage or advantageous uh uses right so what I'm thinking here is like if stop aop you know say a third of it is within the circle would they be able to say well it's one piece of property the entire property is can be fall under the the new PDD I just want to make a note too this this circle is the half mile buffer from the M Community station the yellow part is yeah yeah so um you know the fact that the Stop and Shop Distribution Center falls into this doesn't mean necessarily that it will be I I actually don't know I I'm pulling up the gis right now to see if I can if my computer will allow me to run it um but I I can actually hopefully show you folks where the parcel line of the Stop and Shop Distribution Center ends because I actually Victoria you might be able to speak better to this I'm not sure my understanding is that I don't does that fall does any portion of the Stop and Shop property fall within the Pud right now no I don't believe I don't okay but you so co-art though cart does huge parts of land and what I'm thinking right is like if if there if the way that the law is interpreted is that if a portion of it touches the Zone then they can utilize that entire property to be that zone they can build it you know enormous amount of 16 you know 15 or 16 units per acre for that entire piece of property would be a huge development so I don't think the way we understand it to be or and again Victoria you can correct me if I'm wrong is it would be the portion of the Copart parcel that falls within the Puma but not the additional back portion yeah so it's like a hard drawn line so to speak into what the two pieces would almost have to break apart well that's good because I think like get if it's a preference to take it out I can't see any reason why we couldn't explore that and run the calculations so I but I I think having it in there yeah will probably make sense okay I because I think it's going to have the least amount of impact because they're in business to make money not to sell property so I don't think they're going to try and say oh geez we got this property now it's in his district let's sell it off to them but he brings up a valid point point they have you know 40 acres or whatever over there more than that and one acre falls into it and now all of a sudden we have X amount of units I can get added to so it's you do want that reassurance and that's there's a lot of big Parcels still within town that are still owned especially in that area too if there's a preference in any way when we explore this to sort of change the footprint I mean I don't see any part of this that we couldn't explore that with you guys I appreciate it I mean I do want to R some on the planning board as well right that's what they do so I can I can speak to at least the math portion if we removed the 40 acres of the Copart parcel completely um it would bring you folks under the unit capacity requirement because I've looked at I think it contributes about you know 600 and some odd units in the compliance model again this is all hypothetical the compliance model makes a lot of assumptions that you know frankly probably overestimate a bit you know what we could see on the ground but it the part parcel is a substantial portion of the district and achieving that unit capacity requirement but if you folks are concerned about the split zoning aspect of it I mean there can always be you know we can try and write some language in there that unless there's language elsewhere in your zoning which I have come through Victoria again you might know better I don't think I've seen any explicit language on split zoned Parcels or Parcels that fall within an overlay District but you know we can always do our best to make that very clear that it's the land within the boundaries of the overlay heard is lot of our zoning unfortunately kind of goes out the window as it relates to this right we don't have as much of a say as we normally do as if something on the other side of town is happening right so I would really feel comfortable to have something in writing somewhere um and approved by the right people to prove that yes this parcel is in here but only the section that's within that district is valid right I can try and see the language we used in the beginning so I do remember this coming up um um and again this is why we didn't model the parcel at the full you know I know it's not it's much larger than 40 acres it's why we specifically subset it to again make an accurate representation of just including that portion within the overlay um and I know you know here in the applicability section um PDD shall be designated as an overlay District um appli to the land within the PDD and again we can make this more specific um if is not any other provisions on split zoned again or split Zone by an overlay in there yeah I just feel comfortable having it in no away away from our our actual zoning like we understand that split Zone lots are problematic in every context in every town so it's yeah Point totally acknowledged yeah I had a question this zoning change is is the original P but it's not expanding it it is not so the original zoning didn't it follow property lines I think everything except the Copart parcel followed property lines if I understand correctly that was the only one that we had to subset okay and we've generally I would say the the preference on the part of the town and the Commonwealth is to to rectify split zoning if we're creating a district or modifying a district or whatever so you know it's sort of it's a preferred outcome for everybody if there's a way to reconcile it or make it very nobody really likes the ambiguity that that Parcels represent yeah problem I have a question so 750 units can you break that down for me what does that look like in terms of each one is uh affordable housing senior housing family housing you name it break it down for me so I can kind of I can do my best um again this is all a hypothetical it really is on a development by development basis I can tell you what section 3A allows us to not you know there's certain things certain restrictions we cannot impose in a bylaw that is intended to be section 3A compliance and that is age restrictions we cannot limit the number of bedrooms within a development um we cannot limit the size of the units and you know anything that kind of again would limit that development because the big thing that this bylaw I think is aiming to achieve in my understanding of the way that the Commonwealth has marketed it is it's meant to be you know a market rate family you know appropriate for families with children I'll get to that in a second so my question is out of the 750 like for instance right now on Freetown Street in Lakeville they broke it down for us right 50 this 50 that you know what are we looking at for here like rough numbers I'm not holding you your feet to the fire I'm just trying to figure out uh I I have a bylaw question in a second so we'll get to that um out of 750 how many are for seniors well I think what what we're saying is that we just create the zoning that is all byright multif family with no specifications so we we couldn't really give you an estimate don't know what the developer would do they would deci theoretically the developer could come in in in my eyes the developer is not going to want to come in and put an age restriction on something they're going to want to leave it open they they have to yeah right because they're not going to come you understand what I'm saying right so 750 units that's we can say some of them will be age restricted no developer in their right mind is going to restrict an age as to who can buy it they want to sell that unit so they're not going to they're not going to put age restriction I they say that's out the and we the the I think what Rob was alluding to is we we in this bylaw we cannot require an age restriction under 3A by we understand that so my f on question was what I'm trying to get to is we hear a lot about affordability and everything else right obviously I want more for my seniors because that's really the targeted area and some families right that's if I would have a choice I'd have more of that CU our seniors need a place to live right what's a Target home what's the average cost for a a home one of these apartments condos whatever you want to call it 4 500,000 I think it m it matters if a developer comes in builds like super highend oh it's all like this is just really it's a very broad on the pictures you presented us right with the family park and everything else what's the average of those units right there I couldn't tell you off the top of my head to be honest I mean I know the way the market rate rental and um affordability or excuse me the the affordability is set by the Department of Housing and Urban Development the federal level and so that's based on your area median income and there would be very specific numbers that would be set for affordability based on the number of bedrooms in a unit the area meeting income um or again if it was an ownership unit that's also again regulated by Hud so to add some complexity to that we proposed having an inclusionary component which would make up to 10% of the units in development affordable so at those deed restricted rates but at the time I don't think the planning board wanted to proceed with adding that into the bylaw sure so I did some homework for this meeting and I looked at Zillow and realtor.com and everything else trying to get a good idea of what things cost so looking at these communities that have a rail you're looking at houses anywhere from $300 to $500,000 not really affordable right especially when it's a condo or an apartment so let's take that out the window right the biggest issue I see here in Freetown is quite frankly this isn't a popular idea all right the the fact of the matter is we have to put up the town vote at some point right I'm not sure I don't know if we can all say 100% sure this is going to pass right and I know that comes with the pros and cons of that right uh the state has their own legal I know AG Campbell has come out with some strong lettering saying they going to sue us and take us to court that might be the case I don't know I can't speak for the residents that's going to be up to them right so you know I think at 750 units you know I'm looking at over a thousand people potentially right um where you going to put them where where's the Su and water coming from so again this is I'm going to I'm going to scroll down um because I think and again I'm going to let Victoria speak to I guess some of the while I'm kind of scrolling down here um you know this is the section we were going to get into is what is the MBTA communities act and what does it require and what is it not and so again just to be very clear MBTA communities will not require the town to put forth new infrastructure you will not have to seek a sewer extension you won't have to seek you know any sort of new infrastructure to support housing the idea is that you know it's a private Market tool where the developer come in and do the math and decide whether or not it's profitable for them to have a package treatment or to you know try and plug into a sewer line that might be nearby Etc so you know we could do our best to speak to what that could look like but honestly it's kind of Beyond I guess my understanding of expert but can you understand our concern here we are we we got handed a MBTA station let's face it nobody wanted it right let's just be honest right now we have the 750 unit requirement that again not many people people are on board with right a lot of resources are going to be taken away from this you're essentially telling Freetown hey you could to be a suburb of Fall River and that's essentially what's happening you're putting it right there that's just that's just let's be honest so you have a Sona Village that's been here hundreds of years right we we don't have SE and water we're we're on Wells we have Co um another facility coming up to 700,000 square feet they're going to be sucking a lot of water out so there are concerns so you say we don't have we don't have to connect to sewer and water but we're planning unfortunately this is going to make free Town grow right so we have to be able to connect the sew in water up and down the street so how do that connect with us how the how will the state work with the town because right now we're working at your level but as far as infrastructure wise how is the state helping us right now you're throwing more problems at us at the at the moment sure I think there is two on this I just I I saw I just want to see that circle is because it's on a Stop and Shop so there actually is zwer yeah there which makes sense yeah we're trying to tie into that ourselves further but like for instance for River got $450 million to take down all their wonderful Apartments to turn into Green Space right Freight toown hasn't got a cent yet maybe we will I I I'll I'll pray to the grant gods that we get some money like that right would there be any incentives grants coming our way to help it sew in water the short answer is yes okay um so I can speak on behalf of how sured has services to help with this and then also how we tie into the Commonwealth services that are provided for this and Rob I'll let you speak to this I think you'll have some thoughts as well we can explore there's a new program that is coming out I think in response to NBTA communities which is the Housing Works infrastructure program it's through the community onstop for growth program which is the same program we use to receive funding to provide technical assistance to you folks for 3A so that will be specifically intended to support infrastructure improvements related to housing so if you folks did decide you know despite like again just noting it is not required but if you felt it was something you folks wanted to pursue and that it would be beneficial there are grants like that as well as mass Works which you know both are aimed at infrastructure improvements particularly sewer and water and that could be you know uh Rob I think will speak a little bit more clearly about this but that can be hard infrastructure can also be like the studies and whatnot Etc correct yeah it's my understanding as well and and you know to be to be clear and to acknowledge your concern completely we would be here to help you write those grants of assistance it's not a promise that you'll get I I understand that that's a concern you have well I know you can't promise anything my concern is this right we have we'll take Main Street right where like where juniors are and everything else right they're all using septic essentially right there's no sewer right right so for those businesses to grow and absorb the people coming into our town right you take the the marijuana Place American they're going up to 4 500 employees then you take 750 units plus all their families there really isn't the infrastructure in the Sonet to take all these extra people in let alone the bridge that's halfway collapsed let's let's face that right you guys can help with that let's let's throw that out there as well right what incentives do these individuals that are now freet tonians right Freetown of soning residents do they have to stay in Freetown versus going to Fall River where they're building all this jazzer size area green area what what do we do for freet town because right now it seems like freet Town's getting the shaft let's be honest we have not just one line two lines East Freetown secondary and primary we have an NBTA station but yet we getting people yeah we get some tax revenue for the for the building not really for the land but what else like it's it's what what can I tell my residents that are sitting here today listening at home that this is a good idea at the end of the day we have to vote on this right now it sounds great it sounds solving a problem of Housing and I truly believe that every family deserves a place to live I do but 750 units that's a little much to take in for a small town yeah I that's just the honest truth I can't so I think there's a couple things I'm trying I had my thought and I'm I'm losing it no passionate about this but no no no I I appreciate that for sure um I do remember it's coming back to me now for your critique is valid and I think it's one of the like most common critiques we hear especially in rural communities you know and again a large portion of the region we serve as sered is rural so we're kind of trying to you know thread the needle on this as to like what that looks like for our rural communities but I think again the the critique is valid I you know as sured and not the common wealth can't speak to again why this bylaw is written or excuse me this law is written as kind of you know all stick in no carrot I think that's what I think a lot of people refer to it as um so it's I can only speak to again what this could look like for you folks um and again just to reiterate to you know 750 units is the requirement but like I said that could be limited by so many different things um it's really difficult for us to project what that could look like but again I understand what you're saying um Could It Go could it go higher could go above 750 units so to be frank the way the math works out don't know so that's kind of scary this is a 118 acre district and I believe about 90 something of it was included in the compliance modeling due to the fact that we removed some excluded land the total estimated unit capacity from the compliance model was about 1,300 units however this makes some assumptions about all it does because again this is a model that's being calculated in Excel it's not a spatial model it can't do complex geometric things and you know make an accurate site planner prediction it takes the open space requirement that's removed it makes some assumptions about parking based on your bylaw and removes that space and then all it does is create like a hypothetical building footprint and extrude it up into space and it's assume that every unit is only 1,000 square F feet which is just not realistic in this market what developers are doing you're not really seeing you know 1,000 ft Studio spaces which is why I was saying earlier that this number seems really high but in reality you know it might be vastly limited by other things whether that's the size of the unit that the developer opts to build whether or not the developer you know wants to just do septic in which case they're limited to probably 90 bedrooms under Title 5 whether they want to do a package treatment PL and that is profitable to them and you know there's a big kind of Gap in Project size but that still can sometimes look like 2300 units but not 750 so this is you know and I think this honestly I think this is good news like I think the way the that I think the planning board and with your direction working together I think that that specific area and reusing that P mode like based on based on what's really there I think if it keep us in compliance and I think that it will mitigate the impact on town is my my opinion on this I feel like that's and I'm sorry tror to cut you off I do feel like I feel like when they did this you they were really trying to figure out how we could go about it with the least impact on this town correct that seems to me that's way way I'm absorbing it and I'm not saying I'm in favor of it I'm just saying that it seems like when they went to bat with it they said okay here's the spot we can do it that will will theoretically should put the least amount of impact on no I agree with that I I really do where they they're proposing it they really there's not much there right it's a lot of land and I understand that right and and it's a good idea to putting it there but you got to also understand there's people that have been here some generations right um and some of them are are annoyed yes some are scared and some have a lot of an a lot of questions and our duty is to give them those answers right at least try to provide them right yeah right um there's a lot of wh ifs right again I I don't know what's going to happen and it's up to them how they vote right um so we talked a lot about you guys talked a lot um chapter 3A know everything else now we know as a board we've been getting a lot of Grants right from the state federal everything else now we go about and we vote and we and the vote comes back negative when this is a big no what the how does that impact the grants that we currently have in place with the state right so the what our plan of and the reason we're go we're aiming for a spring town meeting at this point um which is again you know why we're having our public hearing next Tuesday why we're speaking you folks now while we've been kind of working on this since May of last year if this does not pass at Springtown meeting we have one more opportunity at fall town meeting to you know if we need to amend the district if we receive feedback Etc whatever the outcome of the vot vot is it gives us one more shot at that point after it's kind of hard to say all I can say is that after December 31st 2024 if there is not a zoning bylaw adopted that does lead to you know you are now out of compliance with the law I know I just saw this in the news recently so I'm trying to I'm blanking what community it was but so they are sued and I want to make sure that's just everyone understands the impact as that's where I'm leading that's where I'm leading towards I me it can it it's going to be very expensive uh and you know doing getting a lot done with these grants and not just the grants just just the the like administrative nightmare will be to go through right that kind of uh lawsuit and everything else I mean right and so right and get it right and so what that means for the folks listening and folks here is you know we've done a great job this Administration and and Debbie and all our folks and yourself Victoria done an amazing job grabbing all these grants for everything around town right saving the taxpayer dollars right and what AG Campbell has said is if we're not in compliance by December of 2024 that the town essentially be penalized which means right now we have an offset right we pay 80% they pay 8% we pay 20 by us not being in compliance the state will come back and say hey now you owe 100% of that Grant right so they're essentially he telling us we don't comply well you don't qualify for the other grants that you've already applied for some are already already to be in work in the works so that's something to consider you know full disclosure right we're all adults we have to make the decisions based on the information we have not the vision we want to hear right right so those are the things we have to make sure it gets put out there people need stand the pros and cons right yeah some may love it some may hate it that's fine right that's their decision to make um yeah my concern is a lot of things I have a lot of concerns about this it's a lot of moving Parts yeah I'd like to just I'm sure some residents are here to talk about this so does anyone have any questions and I'm just going to ask people to keep their questions short just because you know we only have so much time tonight so just keep it to a minute or so possible yep please say your name for the record an pazera Island Road um when I came to another meeting they said it was 261 units that they were trying to put in free and we thought that that was an awful lot where's the 700 number coming from so that he thought 261 was way too much do you did you have anything to add for yeah just real quick so the so the meeting you're um referring to was the master plan committee meeting from a couple weeks ago so that 261 number that you're talking about that was about developable land in other areas that had nothing to do with 3A so I think so what yeah that was about the master plan and a different topic than than this just want to clarify that so to go off of that too and again there are two current projects occurring here in Freetown right now one is again the Freetown master plan which is led by my colleagues who are looking at you know their own analysis on developable space and whatnot but that again is not that's not Commonwealth related it's not related to the MBTA communities act so you know apologies for the confusion on that it's it gets kind of like uh you know a little odd and hard to keep track of things when there are multiple projects going on at the same time talking about housing so I I totally get that 750 comes from the common the Commonwealth determines all the parameters for each of the communities who are subject to who is the Comm the state the executive office of Housing and livable communities I could attempt to give you some names um I mean there is a team this you might have seen presentations with Chris kutchman for example she is the director of livable communities at eohc this you know initially came out via the economic development Bill back in I think 2021 under Governor Baker's um Administration so it's been a long time developed I could not give you an exhaustive list of names of people who developed the law but I can only point you to the fact that it was formerly the Department of Housing and Community Development now the executive office of Housing and liable communities is that helpful no I we'll do our best to get that information on our website so you can get some names absolutely if I can one one more thing is I heard a lot of people talking about well we have to do seti we have to do Wells when I go in 1988 I had all kinds of guidelines I had to go by 100 ft from my well to my septic if I was to have a bigger house I had to have a bigger holding tank so if you're talking all these units is all that thrown out from what I had to do no that's all under regulated under Title 5 which is four septic regulations that does not change all of the developments you know in this District are still subject to that and that's why we were talking about septic limitations and the fact that under Title 5 you know 90 bedrooms I think is the maximum that you can have on a private septic system before you have to consider a package treatment plant or you know other aspects so that all the environmental regulations still hold regardless of that one other thing they talk about connecting it to sewer I don't know if you listened to Jim Phillips on 1420 on Saturday and the whole gist of that talk was in new Beford he had on on as a guest one of the plan boy and I was sub system in newford is way down the South de and they were saying that there were issues with all of this and that's why they wanted to push people out of newford into the surrounding communities so what I'm looking at is if nuod is already having issues with their own people how are they going to take us in be be Fall River because it's an Aon so we' be hooking into the Fall River sewer system which we already are stopping shop is already hooked up into it which is in a it so we would just be continuing really it's it's where this most of the land here that could potentially have units on it they would be able to just pop right into the uh already existing sewer line right some people in already have river water I I do for example yeah yeah and I think this this gets to some of what Mr Lopes was kind of grappling with is there is some unknown about this and if we stick to the the parameters I would say of of what Taylor and I you know forgive me for the kind of the sports talk but like what we can control you know like when when you're playing your high school basketball team what we're trying to control here is sort of the bylaw that we write and how it works for free town because that that's sort of um that's the realm that I live in so that's what we've really try to do with the with the with the planning board and with Victoria and you know when we talk about something like the boundary of the district or something it's well within our capability to continue to revisit that with of course we want to honor what the planning board has has done but we will always continue to work and try to produce that best bylaw within those rules that we can right believe one [Music] more give her a mic we might want to give you hold on one second we might want to give you a microphone so people can he I was at the meeting a couple weeks ago with the master planning they did talk about the 750 units and units per acre um in that meeting and then I don't remember for sure how they little it down to 261 but so are you talking that that you're proposing 750 units here and 261 somewhere else with no so I again I I apologize for the confusion that kind of two concurrently occurring you know projects might have imposed upon folks the 200 61 units is not something affiliated with Rob and I again I think that's like a napkin math calculation that our colleague Philip I don't want to call it napkin math and undermine it but more so like you know they have come up with their own way of determining it and this is not a development proposition by any means I think it's just you know our colleagues with the master plan committee exploring development outcomes but again it's just it's a thought exercise that is not a proposal by any means just in the same way you know this 750 unit requirement unit capacity requirement I should really reiterate is again determined through the compliance guidelines that the Commonwealth promulgated it's based on land area and population there are I can I'm happy to pull up the calculations within the guidelines to show you how they get to that number but we are fed those numbers and again it's we're not proposing building 750 units we're just saying this is a zoning District that has a capacity for 750 units with a lot of assumptions behind it again um so I think I think like importantly really what's we're talking about here is the state thinks that the state thinks that Massachusetts needs more affordable housing and they want people to use more public transportation right right like that's really what's happening here so and towns are not going to do that on their own so they're using a stick rather than a carrot yeah and they're and they're making us do it like that that's what's really going on here so and if we don't comply then we will be Su so we have to try to comply in a way that mitigates the impact the least impact the most sorry so that's really what we're talking about here yeah and I don't think free toown is alone in that concern most of our communities that we're working with on threea related initiatives want to you know for lack of better words do the bare minimum and that's totally fine in the eyes of the Commonwealth it just matters that we you know like Rob was saying we make a bylaw that honors the spirit you know for this example of what the Pud used to be when it was voted you know in past at town meeting in 2012 here that can do this while again is still is what works for you folks ultimately our biggest concern here so earlier you talked about uh impact studies right vehicle impact study are you talking about serter and gotra and everything else is that where you're is that what you're talking about or the vehicles coming and going from the apartment buildings that's it's more about vehicles coming and going through through the apartment buildings that is uh going to be regulated under site plan review um which it is now currently for all projects that that are applied for um an applicant would have to submit a traffic trff impact statement which which goes to the the vehicles coming and going it has nothing to do with public transportation so staying on public transportation for a quick second you know MBTA comes with it's it's not there for free you know so folks so you guys know we we have to pay a yearly assessment to have the train there right and we'll also have to pay a yearly assessment for Serta to come into town as well um any additional assessments that we may have to splurge on for this type of housing is is there any financi impact other than fire and police which I'll get to in a second but any additional Financial impact to our citizens here in Freetown for a 750 unit facility right is there any additional like serter or the MBTA charging us assessments per year is that is there anything there I'm not aware that you know of I'm not aware of no good I like that great answer um thank you um that that is that is good as far as and police obviously this is going to be an impact on them right for fire emergencies uh police emergencies and things like that how do we go about is there any incentives from the state coming our way for that or is that going to be funded through the taxpayers again just question I'm sure I know the answer but I want to make sure I feel know the defense they are are assisting us and become you know compliance like that's I think yes and if I do if I'm coming off a little strong I'm sorry I I I'm just really like I've been I've been waiting to talk to you folks right I respect you guys are here I love that you guys are here and I I'm happy that people are here and be people watching but these are the questions that they're asking themselves so I'm just I need to ask you you're here that's my opportunity to say hello it's none of it's nothing we haven't heard before so we're we're also here to have this conversation we welcome you thank you for being here and if I'm coming off strong I do apologize that is not my intent but at the same time the questions need to be asked yeah I mean comfortable with with all this it's okay yeah definitely and I think honestly you know to your point again it's just like I wish I could give better answers in instances like this again like Rob was saying we we're just working within the we're kind we view ourselves as serpent as like the mediators between the you know the Commonwealth and our communities and so you know what we're trying to do here again like we said is like get somewhere in the middle with something that works so it's as much as I wish I could speak and had the knowledge and expertise to give you like a round number for something like I I can't always do that um but Rob go ahead I see you and and sort of truthfully like I'm I'm a planner by trade so I couldn't i' probably be disrespectful for me to try to understand what a police officer or a firefighter does every day what what we did try to do with the um the planning board is there was there was an emphasis on that three- story limit my understanding is a big portion of that was to not have to expand fire capacity and buy new equipment and things like that so again uh this is in no way a dismissal of the concern you bring up but that's the part of it that we did try to yeah right no I I have full trust in our planning vision and Victoria and everybody else that's involved and I'm sure they they've they spoke to police of fire uh but we got to look at it make sure the residents know that this is going to be a safe and and okay place to go visit and see and everything else and that is a concern and and not to mention we'll have probably more than likely increase staff which which means more taxes it is the benefit of you know maintaining plan review is again that these will go through you know all the same processes that they've been going through again having the fiscal impact statement having the you know Transportation um impact statements again gives hope hopefully gives the planning board the knowledge they need to work with you know a developer in question who comes and proposes a development under this district and again like Rob said you know within the parameters that we can control the three-story you know height limit was something we want to be really cognizant of and you know to your point about funding and additional resources again I can't give any sort of true estimates or whatnot but I can only you know assure you that us as surpet as your RPA are always happy to hear if you folks have interest in pursuing projects or Grant you know funding because we work with Victoria often on getting funding and whatnot so if there's you know an initiative in town that you folks are like hey you know given all of this you know there's a new development being proposed now that we pass this bylaw Etc like we want to explore other options you know all I can guarantee you is that we can support you in that grant writing effort as you know the the mediators so to speak well we do support that we thank you for that sure question just to be clear I apologize if this has already been covered the definition of these units are they condos are they tow houses are they apartments are they if you I have a condo can I rent it out to someone yeah so so first all you give your name for the record I'm I'm sorry Ken Hoffman and I just want to make sure like I want be CIS clear about this we just have like they have nothing to do with what kind of buildings are built or what kind of development it's just it's really it's we currently have have bylaws and reg and zoning laws that are super restrictive and are totally outside of what the the state is requiring us to do so so you have no control who builds what or how we're just allowing uh potentially in this zone right giving the potential opportunity for developer to be able to to have you know um higher um in some of these areas yeah now now like I want this is important I think is that want everyone understand this we could do this pass this this this new Zone and literally not one new house to be built right right and if if a develop if no developers see this as an appetizing place to invest right literally that could and then we're a compliance we don't get sued everyone moves on happy that's the case with the p right right now place people are not utilizing it's to your point of what we do what what gets built is up to the developer right whether it be single family condos or whatever that's really the developer to look at it and say I want to put condos here or I want to put single family houses right it just changes the district yeah as far as what can be put there and how close they can be put together we have a lot right now that that's like I mean in this in the Pud and it's been sitting there empty for a long time never no one ever finished it and so like nothing's going to change right like there potentially like you know there's a reason for a bunch of different reasons it doesn't make economic sense for a developer to do to to invest there maybe it still doesn't right so I want to make sure it's like I want to make sure we understand that like all of a sudden once we pass this if we pass this law there's not going to all of a sudden be 750 units won't crop up tomorrow right it's this is not unrealistic development proposition by any means the end of that is is a a really interesting point too because uh let's just say that development occurs it it would take time to realize the construction of buildings I I don't think usually I I again I can't promise you and I don't want to but usually it's not everybody's trying to build the building in the same neighborhood all at the same time it's a little bit unprecedented because we are passing all these bylaws in the next two years because of the Mandate but my my educated guess and that's the best I can offer is that it would take time to realize any kind of potential you would see maybe one building right away I one one example is there are there are cities that have passed their zoning already and for example Taunton I think has a building on the books but there's significantly more capacity yeah even in a larger City like Taunton than is currently being realized in it may someday but some of it right now I think is like a Target or Wendy's or something like that and it stays that way for a while and some of it uh may be a different kind of building in the future but it takes a little time is all I'm trying to say yeah so I guess to kind of go back to answer your question it's hard to say exactly what it could look like there you know we can just speak to the dimensional standards and that it can't be taller than three stories um you know we Define multif family as three units or more so you know it could be row houses it could be town houses we have mixed use by right there as well so it could be mixed use you know on the first floor and there are uses you know stipulated within the bylaw for what types of mixed use we could see um so it is hard to say and I do think again your point of just making it clear like this is not a development proposition it really is just truly a capacity exercise and to Point again like this is happening not just here but you know in 177 of the community subject to this we're all working to pass you know bylaws around the same time so it's really difficult to predict like the market and development outcomes as a result of that given that it's occurring you know in half the state essentially at the same time but I hope that answers your question thank you yes in deit one thing and then I think we got to move on just because we have a long agenda tonight one point and I we don't really have to deliberate it but you had said that you passed over the 10% affordability option my only concern was that if you did the 10% affordability here then we could preclude future 40 BS right if we meet if we if we meet that so that may also reduce the impacts to the town if we do think about incorporating that 10% affordability piece and also help to reach the goal of having some affordability I mean I I would assume that the planning board looked at that but I just I don't know if they real the impact would be that you could prude future 40 BS um uh from the town so you then have some control right you no longer will have because a 40b can be built anywhere on any piece of land in any part of the town until you reach that capacity so something to maybe think further about than that that's really all I want to say that yeah I was Rob did a great job of like emphasizing that and I'll let you speak more on that kind of like you know we did try to highlight that and we understand that everyone has sort of a different perspective on this there's you know there's a lot that we're grappling with here but we we did have that discussion and I um I try not to you know I don't I'm not we try to present information and not go too strongly with what I think free Town should do you know we try to but my professional opinion it it's a good thing consider it can always be amended and add later Pro if it's not something that this bite at the Apple works but something to just think about and and to have 0% and to realize capacity is actually a net negative in terms of you would lose ground on your Shi yeah when when it's reevaluated in 2030 and if you have you know a bunch of new market rate units and 10% isn't it for 40 40 yes 10% is the maximum you can do for a 3A compliance and that's a break even for the units being produced to you know you don't lose ground on your Shi right yeah just something to think about all right anybody else car I just want to say well should I grab yep [Music] please hi my oh can you hear me Green's good good my name is Kayla Churchill so at Mass um Chuck Carlos I just want to say you do an amazing job representing us tonight with these questions every question that popped up to my mind you already were asking it um even the last question about the police and fire that's my concern is um not only police and fire but our schools I don't think they can handle this much if you do 750 S four people roughly that's like 3,000 new residents I don't that's going to be a lot on our police fire and our school and I do you are you guys is it State going to help us with any of that so the one I at least the data point I can speak to is that I do know that regionally um and you might know better from the master plan process that school enrollment is declining so there is you know that's something to consider is that we you know the enrollment is declining obviously that's part of the EB and flow um in terms of State incentives it's a I don't do you have any in mind off the top of your head related to none that I can think of specifically related to to school age children but Victoria I don't know if you had any additional things you want to yeah I just wanted to add that um you know like we had mentioned earlier the the existing District that allowed for a higher density nothing has even been built in the 10 plus years it's been there you know so I don't think um you know obviously we can't really predict the future but at the rate that that has has been utilized I don't think there's going to be this quick and fast impact uh to the school system yeah stoper shop and coparts would have to sell their property developers yeah right not to mention a bunch of private homes that are currently you know just regular homes on Main Street would also have to sell to developers all of them at once and then have to go through it like it's just it's just not a realistic kind of situation it's and all we don't care about real estate we care about you know uh like legally could happen right like that that's the bar bar we're trying to set here so yeah I think the end of the day like that's like the worst at the worst case I hate to say worst case but the the highest rate possibility we're looking at 750 right the biggest one that's going to impact our communities potentially looking at 750 units right um and like to Kayla's point like I said earlier like a lot of residents have reached out to us with these questions and it's you know our duty to make sure we put them out there right um and we and like Trevor's Point yeah there's a lot there's a lot of wha ifs right Copart being the biggest and stopping shop and all the P private owners is that an incentive for them we don't know but we want to make sure that you know if these are the cards were dealt with to make sure we have a pretty good hand ourselves right we want to make sure that the the residents of our town get as much for this as the new residents are getting as far as brand new housing right we want to make sure our infastructure is there they're using our shops our stores and we can grow with them right and still maintain small community right so it's very important to us that we understand exactly what you're saying and doing so my suggestion is when you have your public meeting next week right um keep it simple yeah common language common terms throwing throwing numbers out on 3A and kind of jumping around the just be trans as transparent as possible and answer them be patient a lot of them are concerned as well right we have a great Community but they also have a lot of questions we hope to be there but we don't know what the future brings right who knows but just do your best if for us um to answer them as plain language as possible so that people understand what you're trying to say and do and move and how we moving forward for sure right try alleviate some of that angst that people have when they hear about 750 unit 3 4,000 people potentially come into our town right it gives me angst right yeah we will be there as long as we need to be to answer as many questions as we can we intend to be there on the second if you know we need to be there again on a following date we will be there um you know we're also planning on making an informational video for town meeting if we get there for spring and everything works out um which I believe is the plan now and that will also you know for folks who can't show up to our public meetings or you know don't for any reason there will be you know hopefully something there to play that gives a little bit more information some context Etc um but yeah I mean you know my email is in this presentation this presentation will be publicly available if it isn't already I think it will be on the website um you can feel free to reach out to me if any of you have questions that haven't you know able to be addressed here now um we would welcome folks to come again next Tuesday to be with us again um where you know we'll have this information here and you know we can spend as much or as little time as necessary answering everyone's questions to hopefully the best of our ability the things we can't answer right well you've done a great job and and uh we do appreciate you coming here in Victoria as well um as you can see we have questions concerns and a lot of love for our town and make sure we're doing the right thing for it of course so all right thank you folks very much appreciate thanks everybody thank you all right now we have another presentation so presentation of the potential program survey to Residents from the community program director the last 10 minutes was like completely different I thought they were like I did I thought I [Music] did they just it seemed like they were like demons thanks for coming thanks forting [Music] fitting she had a devil on be on that side we're GNA do [Music] thank you my cop looked at it I thought it was good movie night all right ready to go all right still some out we keep busing each other I know how are you I'm good how are you good nice to finally meet you we'll say hello [Music] afterwards hello everyone my name is Kylie Patell I'm the new community program director um so I made a simple survey at the request of Deb it's just to gauge Community interest it's a very simple survey it starts by asking you know your age um your gender and your town of residence just to get idea and then I led listed out a couple of events and programs that I thought would be fun um that maybe people in the town be interested in participating in I ranked it from not interested to very interested just a gauge um nothing's worse than spending a bunch of money on a program that no one wants to attend um so that's why this is created and you know feel free to look at the programs I have listed and if you have you know any ideas that you would like me to put on there or any programs that you would like to see from me feel free to let me know um but again it's a very simple survey um it doesn't take long at all maybe five minutes probably less um does anyone have any questions for me c can we add a uh a selectman's night comedy night yeah sure let me write that down one man show I would love to see it yeah any other ideas uh yeah I got a ton of them yeah uh well years ago so many of you may know Barry French right longtime resident great with photos on on his social media so one of the things and I'm also on the fireworks and prey committee so full disclosure um and one of the things that Barry has been putting out there is like the old log roll and the the you know during the fireworks pting contest you know like I'll challenge both of you selp to a p eting contest that gets people out there all right um and I and I aim to win that contest but those are the things I want the community to um get together more often right and being not just be a community members but be neighbors once again right when our town was small saw a lot of history a lot of great photos and now that we've kind of spread out a little bit kind of want to bring everybody back in that's really the the the vision that we have for this for your your position um the full disclosure you folks town uh the town voted this position in to kind of get all these different things from Parks Rec the seniors together to make sure that we're utilizing every square inch of our town um in facilities from State Forest boat ramp to you you I'm sure you've been I know you've been running around talking to different committees so You' been you've been killing it so great job on that thank you but definitely the peden contest I think I could take Jared out I was even thinking the CH competition or something I thought that would be kind of fun we just got to talk to the board of on that um I think it's a first great step and you know like from this you know just um I think we'll just get some momentum going and you know if there's something that really stands out we can move forward with it right thank you I also would like to plug that we're doing an Earth Day event on April 20th if anyone's interested in volunteering all the information is on the Freetown ma website and there's a registration link um on Google forums um so I hope to see you guys there I'm also trying to help out the open space committee on a family fund Day event I believe that's in May I haven't got all the details um but I'm trying to get involved as in many programs as possible and try to create my own I would love to do a summer concert series that's something that I've been looking into but I would love to get everyone's input um and see what you guys are really interested in so think you're doing a great job thanks Kylie thank you appreciate it all right thank you so much thank you that's okay for her to just yeah so should we vote on that just so just to make sure that because I think at the end it gives so so she's saying Hey I want to you know ask other people their input as well and that's on here to share their ideas right so it kind of will allow people to give their ideas of if they want to have a pie cont yeah I just want to make sure that it's okay for for to disseminate that I'll just make a vote Yes I'll a motion for the community program director to distribute the survey um as as shown with the addition of a p contest I love it sure thing any flavor you want Trevor any flavor you want motion second all favor I thank you you gonna have to I'm I'll grow the beard out everything let's do it okay challenge goes out through the hwn now we have um the fourth of Ju Parade route yes yes so Mr chairman as you know over the years we've uh used krr for staging and a lot of our volunteers of you know um our veterans and some seniors and it's tough walking right from KR down the street down Main Street although it's only about a mile and a half it's still taxing on them so last year we tried to hybrid uh between KR and ridg Hill Road right uh I think was successful you know some of the Walkers were ridg Hill Road and then most of the vehicles were staged at krr well that presents issues as Chief will tell you in a second and one of those issues are one we need a bypass agreement through Stop and Shop Right easy enough that's just an email and they come and remove some barriers but the biggest one is and this is what Chief is going to jump into is the blocking of the Highway by his officers chief good evening everyone uh thank you for this time to speak about the uh parade and some of the challenges that we've dealt with over the years and uh long time standing the route has bypassed uh South Main Street in Route 24 and having our offices in place uh to deal with the traffic flow uh by closing down the ramps has been uh problematic um in the past the traffic has uh built up up in uh towards the uh the highway uh main traffic area and uh potentially could have caused a more serious problem uh potentially we should have been uh spending more time working with the state and applying for a uh permit to actually shut down those ramps but uh over the years uh we've been uh lucky and fortunate that the state hasn't been more involved in uh in changing our practices but here today that um you know this was suggested that we uh you know shorten the parade route to assist us and uh avoid the the ramp closures uh and mainly just redirecting the traffic for that short period of time uh in a in a separate Direction so it wouldn't affect the parade and uh not impact the ramps of the highway and um looking at the uh po potential stag in area of Ridge Hill Road and Campanelli Drive and even the property belonging to the MBTA would certainly benefit the town as a whole and the whole parade and fireworks committee to safely uh stage and uh deploy the uh the parade uh people and the floats and everything in a safe manner to the uh South Main Street and obviously would definitely benefit the uh the uh the senior veterans who are getting up there in age and walking that shorter distance uh for that Parade route from ridgill road all the way to hathway park yeah sense to me I was actually stuck in off ramp last year I was I was late on the way home and I was stuck in there for a while so those pros and cons to it right so even krr you do have folks from the Sony Bay shores so your your neighborhood so that's something to consider as well right so uh yeah but I think that the safety concerned about like blocking the highway there I mean we are lucky that nothing's all right because if it backs up up onto 24 and I think we know how crazy 24 is right that's a that's a problem right and if you could legal legal ease wise we're breaking the law by blocking a state highway locally right right there is a permit process through um District 5 and um what you're supposed to do is apply for a permit they will assess it for for the needs then they would uh tell the town the resources that would be required to shut down those ramps and usually what that means is just like any other type of uh you know traffic construction area there are Barrel cones and then you have to pay for a State Trooper detail rate to be up there to shut off those ramps and the uh impact and burden of that expense would come to the town um yes we have avoided it over the years we've been very lucky um and no one's come down hard on us to uh you know do it properly um but what I'm you know saying here tonight that there's an easier way out and uh using Ridge Hill Road makes so much sense it's safer for everybody and for the people that uh you know aware of all the floats and the children that are involved what safer place to be is off the beaten path and having their parents and their kids brought to an area where there's minimal traffic and less action of someone getting hurt by getting run over by a car or whatnot he was there when I was a kid on Rell Road um I remembera no I'm sure I remember I don't know I don't I don't think I don't remember it being K but that was a long time ago 25 years ago it would definitely significantly impact the police department and its Personnel I've we've always struggled in the assignments and by reducing the parade rout I can foresee F four to five officers not needed now because you're not dealing with the off ramps and the other intersections past uh that location uh heading south like Narrows Road and uh copicut Road area so I can use those resources now um north of ridill Road and along the parade route yeah all right that makes sense to me yeah it does to me as well I mean you have a pretty good turn out of people right last year as an indicator how many people were out there even in the porn rain rain was awesome only rained from 10 to 12 the started right the the minute I broke the parking lot entrance with with the golf cart and turned on to the road the rain started coming down and it was gorgeous beautiful day so I mean it will put I I just I mean I think we'll have a lot of people but that's okay because people parades are used to being kind of you know next to each other and um yeah I I just don't see anything wrong with it so we would literally just put a hard shut off right at the bottom basically the offer ramp of rill and say from that point forward yeah yeah correct so um you know off the cuff there would be officers that are you know in place right at ridg Hill Road in the highway at some point in time when the roadway does show shut down for the parade we have to redirect the traffic everybody that's coming off the ramps southbound towards like Stop and Shop for that brief amount of time for the parade usually it's wrapped up 45 minutes to an hour uh once that's uh done we just open it up and uh you know carry on with the rest of the day like we usually do all right yeah I I mean I don't see an issue with that sense yeah on behalf of the parade and fireworks committee I know they they're also on board with that as well again we have a lot of Veteran organizations and things like that that you know enjoy the sh of walk and a guy as a guy that uses Prosthetics I enjoy the sh of walk myself so all right yeah all right so I think we'll vote on that right yeah so I a motion um to have the pre rout um I guess end that or begin at rill Road that's fine yeah motion me second all in favor I I right so then agenda item s is that no longer necessary can we amend it um I ask for the amendment would be last year sworn it was on here earlier but must have been another thing uh so last year we decided to as far as the the fireworks night right we authorized the parade and fireworks committee to take control of hathway Park and work directly with the police that way in case anything happens the police know who to contact last year we voted on that um she if you could add to that sure um over the over the past years um we've encountered uh issues that have taken place like any type of large event and uh when these issues happen with the property we're looking for the proper direction and authority of the property that's uh in place what we're talking about is hathway Park so if you can imagine an incident takes place we'd be trying to contact you the board of Select for some type of Direction and resolution of the property but uh for the evening of the fireworks it would benefit at least the police department if you can give the authority to the parade and fireworks committee that when there are issues on the property that need tending to we can get direction directly from from them versus bothering you folks and again it's only for that one evening night and um it would resolve a lot of issues that we can uh deal with on a direct basis with the parade and fireworks committee yeah I think should be on another agenda we'll get that WR put on I just wanted to make sure it was as an amend thank you it might be just too different to amend the ex no no that's fine I just uh I could have sworn it was on there but it could have been my notes our was our meeting minutes that's where it was so all right thank you so I think we're good there Chief appreciate it thank you thank you Chief all right so J item 8 this is discussion vote whether to approve an extension of the agreement between the town of Freetown and B's bro Trucking Inc for curbside trash and recycling collection Services through 6:30 2027 so a little bit of History you know that um the trash contract went out for bid uh probably three or four years ago and then um the the bid was awarded to Borge's Brothers um part of the history was there were so many complaints when we had Republic um and so the town voted to go with boes uh trash is excluded from procurement so it doesn't have to go out to bid uh we've had such a great uh relationship with bores that we asked them to give us their prices for the next three years um they came in a little bit higher than this I said hey is there any wiggle room can you get these down a little bit lower and they did um they came down I think right now we're paying $58,000 so you can see the increases so this vote is just to determine that we're going to move forward with a continue a you know another three-year contract with board just I'll draft the contract but I just wanted to run it by the board um because it will be expiring at the end of the year makes sense to me one of the best decisions we ever made as a town so um you know we have in here we also have the blessing of um our Board of Health agent talking about you know how good they've been um I I I can't say enough good things about B's brothers and how they've treated this town so absolutely absolutely 100% on board with this full disclosure before getting to this position and really looking at town I really didn't know who Borg's brothers were other than seeing their trucks and everybody else but to your to your point and piggy backing off you you're right they do so much for the town that uh they've done an admirable job in the time that I've known them so good good job to them and above and beyond there above and beyond absolutely yeah and so are we locked in with kpo Hill I going forward to I know that's Hill I believe we got two-year contract with them so that's going to um expire and then I don't know where we're going to go right that's something that we we've been we keep continuously working that's a problem that's going to be a problem it's 47 Acres near the stoping shop so and and I guess just so everyone understands what we're talking about is Borg's Brothers collecting the trash but where we bring the trash is two different things right so crepo Hill is where we're currently bringing our trash in crepo Hill is a landfill landfills only have so much space and can only take trash for so long so and they're not in a hurry to create new landfills in towns or in the state at all so we've talked a lot about what it means to us down the road it's great we have B's brothers picking up all the trash they don't have anywhere to take it we're screwed so yeah so um you know we've talked about different Alternatives so that's that's what's being referred to so yeah and there's like some other facilities that are like zero waste facilities where they like you know French burn the trash create energy out of it but that EXT way more expensive per a ton for the for those kind of facilities so it's just an we keep hearing C Hill is going to be tapped Out closing soon so that's just something we we and we don't have much control over what it's just a something we need to plan down the road we've also talked about and I don't want to drag this on but it's if it comes to the point where say that landfill closes and now we have new beod Dartmouth and Freetown just to name a few facility a few towns cities that are putting their their trash there what does that mean to people trying to go to these facilities right they're not going to be as quick to take Freetown on that you know generates 10% of the trash is new beod they can they can get more dollars out of new beod so we don't really want to be on the back side of it so it's like how do we be proactive right that's all right this is something completely separ yeah we're not going to solve that all right I'm have a motion sorry was that sorry to interrupt I have a question um so I know you said um trash was that excluded from contracts because I know you said they did a contract three years ago but then you said they they were excl excluded from procurement meaning I don't have to put it out to bid okay and get bids which it was bid last time and there was higher biders lower biders but uh bo just was the best suited for the town so it's excluded we don't have to do procurement pretty much everything else we have to do you know put out to bid and we have to take either the lowest bidder or the best value for the town just depends on how we bid it okay um this it's exempt from procurement since we're exempt from procurement did that so you didn't put it out to bit obviously cuz they were already in good hands with Borg's trash um so who was the other places that you put out to bid like who was other people that put it hasn't gone out to bid at this point right so three years ago I'm just out remember I know Republic was one I don't remember the other company the other company was quite a bit more money but I can't remember the name of it but I can get it for you it was overwhelmingly passed at town meeting that the the town residents wanted to switch over the board away from it knowing even though that the trash was going to be more slight was going to be slightly more expensive right yeah no I'm not saying anything bad that we shouldn't have them I just curiosity I I can't I didn't I don't remember because like I said I wasn't even here then but I can pull that information oh you have it yeah what the bid minutes and just to clarify for those watching at home this has nothing to do with the town trash bags this is just the pickup from your receptacle from your house to crepo Lane I don't I want to spelling check on thatp hill crepo hill maybe it's my New England accident it kind of sounds like crappo versus crepo but I digress so uh Lan was able to pull up the three that actually bid was borous Republic and easy disposal Republican easy disposal Easy E the letter e and the letter Z disposal could I see what they U what their bid was like we can get it for you yeah I think what was B was 800,000 just Clos it hold on minutes one moment please there was two different options yeah just this is the automated this is the traditional so that's the one that you want Republic was uh roughly 2.3 W just was 2.4 million and easy was 355 okay thank you do you mind just emailing that to me I'm do you mind just emailing that to me sure thank you okay so with that so I'll a motion uh to approve the extension of the agreement between the town of Freetown board Brothers Trucking Inc for curbside trash and recycling collection Services through 6:30 2027 motion made second all in favor I I all right uh next we have a donation um so it's from coparts for $750 so well thank you coparts appreciate that um it's going to be a great event uh so with that I'll entertain a motion to accept the donation in the sum of $750 from Copart of Connecticut to support Earth Day event motion made second all in favor I I gen item 10 this is vote whether to approve the contract between the town of Freetown and gemman pson Inc GPI for Paving program of chipaway Road and several side streets um in the town Freetown is just a contract for the to bid the job for the highway department yeah yeah yeah yeah all right any questions or concerns no looks good all right so with that on t a motion to approve the contract between the town of Freetown and GPI for Paving program of Chip Road and several side streets in the town of Freetown motion me I second all in favor [Music] I um now we have agenda item 11 this is um whether not to approve the sign change order for Kelly Drive and quog road for Road improvements had some change ERS on it end up being cheaper it's actually less money it's it's what I was shocked by that I read it twice I was like less when is it l so yeah so or this original contract price is 480,000 and it's been reduced by about 40,000 or almost $41,000 so that is wonderful yeah so now in a motion to um approve the sign change order for Kelly Drive and Quant Power Road for Highway uh for roadway improvements motion made my second all in favor I I all right J item 12 discussion vote on laying out GM way this is a pretty much approving this is just yeah it has it just has to be this language specifically so when it goes to town meeting SEL have to lay out D and then it'll go to town meeting warrant but sort of a formality and procedure you've already looked at this and yeah I remember this yeah any questions or concerns no all right so with that I would oh I guess so what's the motion here what's the uh this is the motion would be to lay out GM way as presented y all right so motion to lay out GM way as presented motion made second all in favor I I all right so this one's pretty cool yes so this is discussion to vote whether to approve the proposal for infrared roof moisture and roof conditions evaluation for the Freetown Elementary School and this is it looks like it's a drone but the infrared camera yeah this is you know I think I told you I brought to the board's attention about the Freetown Elementary School roof getting near its end of life and one of the recommendations came when we had um the feasibility study looked at was that we should do this just to make sure there's not it's not leaking in areas because obviously if it's leaking in areas and we don't address it it's going to cause moisture in the insulation and stuff to sit there so for the 5,000 I think it's $5,750 to do this um myself and kle the Building Commissioner and Greg Goodwin of the school thought it would make sense just to make sure we don't see any active leaking uh we're not aware of anything but it's a big roof and um this is sort of one of the process to avoid you know bigger costs all right and so yeah makes sense to me yeah short money to to make sure that we save ourselves some money yeah doing it right you know that's what it'll give us it'll tell us and they're going to provide a bunch of you know photographs of it infrared images of the identified wet areas and uh drawing so that's cool yeah they're going to take some of the um rubber roofing off I think and measure it and see how thick it is see how brittle it is to see how long you know we're looking at I I think we have maybe three to five years left on the roof so we're actually trying to work on you know starting to put some money aside to plan for the $3 million expense of replacing the roof um which we can do in phases so we could do like a third a third and a third of the roof um so something that you'll be hearing more about as we move forward um in planning how do we place that but this information will all help us determine the best way to do that and if you're doing in stages which stage you know is an area that seems to be more problematic then we can start with that stage so yeah good point all right so any questions or concerns guys good good okay so I intend a motion to approve the proposal for infrared roof moisture and roof condition evaluation for the Freetown Elementary School motion me second all in favor I I right then item 14 um vote whether to ratify the board of Select chair Board of selectman Chairman's letter of support for request for funding from Congressman aena for Combined seal a library building I'm all for it let's do it this was just a a grant that Victoria was submitting to uh Congressman aen gloss to help with engineering and planning fees related to the new building and she needed a letter of support so this is just to ratify that letter that went off with that application awesome any questions or concerns no no all right great so that on a motion uh to ratify the report SEL with Chairman's letter of support for request for funding from Congressman a CLA for Combined COA Library building motion made second all in favor I I all right uh moving on we have ambulance abatements and writeoffs so um 9,346 90 so without AR a motion to approve the ambulance bment write off for February 2024 in the M of 9,349 motion made second all in favor I all right uh item 16 this is um discussion vot whether to accept the donation from Excel recycling LLC in the amount of $1,813 55 this is just the remaining amount yeah I I actually I should reach out to to Town Council to see if we actually need to accept it but I would just to because it's our procedure because it's probably settlement not necessarily a donation but have it on there to accept it yeah and it's just it's going to the general fund right that's how it has to it doesn't go to the general fund it goes to um a donation account basically that sits there that can be used and and um last time we did use it to buy a trailer for the fire department that's right yeah so this is the the $25,000 less the cost of the trailer yeah gotcha all right any questions or concerns nope all right so that I'll a motion to accept the donation fromel recycling LLC in the amount of $1,835 motion made second all in favor i i j item 17 this is um whether or not to approve the agreement to the town of Freetown and sing explore create LLC for a one-day music therapy program at the council aging that's awesome absolutely anyone have a problem with uh music therapy no Senor citizens no okay all right that's great uh so that intend a motion to approve the agreement between the town fre town and sing explore create LLC for one day Music Therapy Program motion made I second all in favor I [Music] I all right I'll kick it over to Personnel thank you thank you Mr chairman all right item agenda number 18 discussion and vote whether to approve the appointment of Gary Sylvia as truck driver effective 326 2024 through 6:30 2024 so our Gary Sylvia we thought we all thought the same thing but not our Gary Sylvia not the former police fire chief different guy but um we we he did great interviews had all the the things that the highway department was looking for so great selection seems like a great guy so awesome all right I ATT the motion to approve the appointment of Gary Sylvia as truck driver effective 326 2024 through 6:30 2024 make that motion I'll second it all in favor hi I all right that's some big shoes to fil that's right um item agenda 19 discussion vote on fiscal 2025 health insurance rates our favorite subject so like everybody else uh insurance rates have gone up this year um this year's rates were went up about 5% 4.98 for Blue Care elect preferred uh that's both family and individual Network blue came in also came in at 4.98 and surprisingly Delta blue Freedom came at 0% increase so um great to have the numbers in front of us so we know what the rates are for coverage for our our employees but at the end of the day um we're Limited in what we can and can negotiate so this is uh not bad I heard as much as 89 10% other other areas so so the monthly family rates 3,300 bucks for the PO is um the monthly rate for po was 33 21 um then going to 34 right yeah 3487 crazy um we with the PO we Char the the distribution rate's a little bit different it's a 6535 on on that with the network blue it's 20 uh 7525 the Town pays 75% so that's going up to 2723 for a family plan and 1,39 for an individual plan um I consistently reiterate the issue that we can't sustain where we're at with the health insurance that I proposed to change it to 7030 contribution rate or bring in a lesser plan than what we currently have which has zero deductible and $15 co-pays still um and offer that to new employees so grandfathering are existing employees and and I am sort of talking to the unions about this you know they they're still not um this so we'll see how that works I'm consistently trying to um convince them of how difficult it's going to be to sustain this but for this year this is the new rates and we don't have a choice so yeah yeah all right thank you thank you de for and contined discussion with the unions and also our retirees as well that's uh things that we got to discuss uh coming soon so um but for this uh discussion uh any additional comments concerns as just standard rates um in that case I entertain the motion to approve the fiscal 2025 health insurance rates make the motion I will second it all in favor I I all right thank you so agenda item number 20 discussion on Beach and boat ramp Staffing for 2024 um the reason why this is brought up is because of we we don't have a lot of people um we've been fortunate in the past that we had Lan helping us with this um it's not something that we need to continue to do we can't rely on Lan to do this um we've talked a lot about um the issues that we have there right um but where our our biggest issue at this point is having people that staff it um so I guess you know we we had talked a little bit about some different ideas um and L you can feel free to jump in at any point um you know of how do we go about getting staff and um you know we one of the things we talked about was you know bringing in front of the board and see if anyone has any ideas because we're we're posting at places we're doing things and we're getting uh very little I think we have we have one lever to pull yeah more money more money well well that's the thing previous discussions and over the years we weren't getting many people as far as we get interviews but then they wouldn't accept a job because of the of the pay so over the years we have increased to pay right um and now I think the discussion is again we we've been lucky and fortunate that we had some college students you know um seniors that went to college and they would go come back for summertime and that would you know they did great did an amazing job for everybody that's worked in that so thank you for them uh but you're right we need to um once again discuss how to get people down there um the stay has done a great job cleaning it all place up we got new shed new new gate and potentially a new ramp going in in the near future but we have to make sure people are out there right I think that maybe I mean part of the problem is not necessarily getting the staff we can get the college students right it's that they still need oversight and that still falls on the way and it still falls on somebody has to go down there and address the issues when they're either not doing their job or they have questions or they have problems so my thought right I mean I don't know if we just get somebody that's more of like an over like a manager but they'd have to work a shift there but then pay them maybe you know $24 an hour or $25 an hour but they responsib if there's a phone call if it's not their shift and there's a phone call because whatever's happening somebody doesn't have any cash or they don't have this or the machine is jammed um that they deal with it or or somebody calls in sick and there's no coverage then they're going to have to go cover the shift and I don't even know at that that we could get somebody because it's every weekend it's it's all summer long on the weekends it's when it's the busiest like Memorial Day weekend and Fourth of July weekend is when it's the busiest at the boat ramp and you need to be there um but it is not fair at this point Len ends up working seven days a week summer it's not just the the working it's the to your point of calling too right so you can think of working as some people will think of working as physically being at a location but it's the the phone calls that come along with it and everything else and it's it's been easy for us because Lan who is who she is to to always kind of rely on Lan but it's not a good long term solution right it does restrict you she can't go away for the weekend because she's to be close by in case there's a phone call right it's it's it's not fair it's not she's been such a team player and she's picked but like I wouldn't I wouldn't blame you if you just said absolutely I told her I would not want right like honestly in all honesty it's just not fair to work seven days a week during the summer it's not like a weird pickle right because like it's a state boat ramp right but like we have to operate like can we go to the state for help like we just like we can't get anyone to work here but I'm sure we Le don't care if you staff it you can leave it open and not staff it the issue then becomes it gets so chaotic that it falls on our Police Department because we you know we have fights and we have drunkenness all sorts of fun things happening throughout the night but what the answer your point Trevor was we met with someone from uh the state and he told us that every boat ramp except for one had these same issues as far as whether it be staffing issues or security issues or whatever right there's all these different problems and Freetown is not it's not unique to free town I think we should complain though even if they can't do anything about it just I mean he heard us we we complained to him spoke with him recently to ask for suggestions on where can we find staff who would be a good quality person um he suggest um you need like he said senior citizens maybe someone in the um senior workof program for tax credit or something like that so I did reach out to the council and aging to see if they could maybe recommend someone to see if anyone was interested there we have the lawn signs the state said we can put lawn signs out that are saying that we're looking for seasonal boat ramp um positions because we do have an um posting now in various locations for a manager and the attendant positions I do have two out of the three um kids from last summer have said that they want to come back one has applied I have another um person applied just came through this afternoon oh great so um that's that's awesome good those are so they're not for the management thing yeah we did talk a little bit about that and I I think there is also something to be said about needing you know asking a senior who's on senior work off is great great on paper but once again you know they they're not going to I don't know that they're going to want to be dealing with the boat ramp every single weekend and um it also there's a lot of issues that are down there right so we worry about you need someone with a certain strength to be able to go and deal with these issues whether it be the staff or people trying we we doubled up staff right um just for safety reasons down there um I I don't know I do think if we get somebody to just overseas that's the schedule for for the staff I mean it's a huge step in the right direction and and so I don't know what that would take I think it would take more money I don't know the other thought and I don't know again anybody in the town hall would want to do it but to pay a stip in to somebody that would want to take on an extra job in terms of you know doing something in addition to what they're already doing at the Town Hall we were able to increase what we charge based on the fact of what we're spending right yeah we are we could theoretically pay someone more money and increase the fees I don't think the state will allow us to increase the fees we were pretty much one of the most expensive boat ramps already and he said we were already like pushing the limit at $10 um per parking we do bring about $25,000 in a year Revenue yeah yeah I mean right now it's pretty much Break Even we do sustain ourselves but we also in that we brought in police details I think for cost us four or5 thousand last summer um and we didn't have very many of them because you know they're yeah the year before was really where we had the bigger ones yeah we had more um so if we didn't if we had a stronger staff we wouldn't need maybe the police details at $5,000 so yeah I think we could afford to pay someone $25 an hour there is money in the till if like that's been in the revolving account cuz it's supposed to you know so if we did run over we'd have a better sense of that by the end of the uh the year where we were at um but right now it kind kind of breaks even and and that's what I was really after was okay how do we break even with this I'm not you know we have ways of generating money right I don't think that this is something that we should be using as a revenue stream but I also think of it as I don't want it to cost us more you know so if we can if we can help control the losses when when's it opening it up I always forget the dates once's the when are we planning officially to I think we we was planning Staffing at Memorial Day weekend we have the attendance there Memorial Day weekend and if we can find the seasonal manager we'd bring them on a week ahead to train them because they would be the only one that has the keys to the Vault system that's in the which is what the kiosk which ends up being the big problem because you can't leave that on site right um for security reasons so whoever that manager has to have those and be able to go and they get a text message that the bill is stuck or whatever yeah I know we I know last time we we discussed maybe even multiple people having shifts but that goes back to stiens and everything else and just trying to staff somebody's taking someone's weak in the way you know if anything Lan I'd make a motion say no Lan ever again at the B ramp you know maybe two two managers they work alternate weekends so they get some time off um you know just pay them a little that's something yeah no that's a that's a good point maybe I mean even if it's four employees but two of them become yeah like manager level or something and they work every other week they're on call every other weekend I should say then that way they they can plan accordingly yeah um that might work yeah set the rates one for typical employee second for manager and they if they do assume the roles as just the for us a simple pay Ro thing right to pay them extra but it would solve some of the coverage but then you still need to get the bodies so we're now what two three you said Lan two two right I have two that have actually sent in applications one that say he was said they were apply right so so okay do we have a management pay rate that's different than the attendant I think we said we were going to do 24 or 25 I think the last one you had was 24 wasn't it I don't know I just asking do they need sounds right had the pay R before I know we increased it a couple times to to get people to come in again it's one of those positions that your summer your your time and and then your weekends it's the things that people love to do in the summertime it's not tax dollars right it's it's it's it's the money that we're collecting from the fees that go into our evolving fund that pays these so I just want to make sure that taxpayers realize it's not their money it's not taxpayer dollars not that it it could we could run the budget but um we do have money sitting in a revolving account so we would know if we ran out over this year that we would know okay we have to do something differently next year well maybe we reach out to a Long Pond Association maybe they have some folks that I say that's what um I thought Doug Cameron had said too that usually those people that live on the pond have a great interest in the pond that they would have take a real um you know interest in keeping the order there yeah um I just don't know long Pawn Association yeah maybe they they might somebody retire that's a good yeah that's a good place I think to start try right because you do to your point you have a lot of passionate people about the pwn so yeah start there and then cast start them net wider if needed right we need to get somebody soon because otherwise here we are again if there's anywhere else that you can think of to put it out we've sent it to mass High our website Facebook like you D I did the handshake that does all the local colleges um I have the lawn signs suggestions welcome yeah those out there listening and watching if you're interested let us know this this conversation spawn what what she's saying right now is what spun us putting it on this very agenda was to try and get you know other people's ideas and long F associations maybe we would be open to saying oh we're going to have a boat rent manager maybe we have two of them and you just do every Saturday right or so you're not giving up the whole weekend either way either you alternate the weekends or you do every Saturday and somebody does every Sunday right you know you get the text messages when I get them too would it be abuse of Freetown flash to send out you know for employees couple it together with like the um we just updated all the board and yeah we have like a holiday or the board and um the board and vacancy page was updated with what's available so we can kind of like couple of message together sense like just just to kind of you know like I I think it's if if you're like a college kid like living home oh great job on the water all day you might deal with some crazy people but yeah and the way we did it last year and over the years is like you you stagger the shifts right so there's some overlapping between two individuals either in the morning or in the afternoon with some overlapping uh throughout the day right so you can help each other out especially with parking and and collecting fees so there's some pros and cons uh one thing I would like to expand on is uh the work the veteran work veteran program and the senior workout program can we add that to the language or is that something we have to vote on the like a town meeting I know the language is pretty specific I think it's a great idea I just want to make sure we're in within compliance and that can can we add that to that to the that already in place so want to if we could get a a veteran that wanted to do that job they certainly could use their hours towards that perfect um or a senior that wasable of doing it you know but we want to be careful for safety reasons oh sure it's not an easy it's not it's an easy job unless you get those people that are unruly right which has happened we've had incidents down there so want to be very careful no absolutely because we do the buddy system why we've had the two staff members down there as opposed to the first year I think it was just one by themselves but I was I just concerned so we do do a lot of overlapping right so that you have somebody else there and it works it's busy if you've been down there when it's busy they're running around you know it takes the two of them and the piggyback off I believe either either Trevor yourself said is the Long Pond Association has they're committed to where they want to be there but you also have people living on the pond that don't necessarily want us there either right so there's a mix of both sets right great that we're there kind of helping shutter like like move people along but then there's people there go hey why you even here I live on the pond I have my water rights and all trying to do is Control the Chaos in a sense right make sure it doesn't get to the point that people are getting arrested right we don't want that right um and that's what this position is for is making sure everyone's doing what they're supposed to do at the proper time and you're done for the day thank you for coming see you next time pretty straightforward all right yeah I have a question um just for the folks at home what is the pay the hours and the qualifications for the program yeah well the we have the job postings on the website and I know the um attendant positions they hours are like Friday Saturday Sunday and like they said we stagger them so we'll figure out what they're going to be when we know how many people we have they're $18 an hour and then the manager I think we were saying that we were going to do 22 to 24 and that posting is also up on the town's website okay and when do you need to find somebody by Memorial Day May May we really want to get them trained and deployed as possible yeah okay and what is there any qualifications for this like could we reach out to the high school kids pass the background check right just school and seniors are good for the attendant position like college kids we need someone who's a little bit more mature and can deal with the confrontation or whatever may arise especially dealing with money as well yeah you know only they've got to deal with the kiosk which is can be challeng a challenge yeah and we'll train and we'll provide as you know there's a new shed with I believe there's air conditioning now right NOP no air conditioning yet I take that back there's a new shed new fence so there's something you know the state and and some of the funds we've recouped from the kiosk uh it looks better than it used to right and it's going to continue looking better right I think the states looking at uh improving the ramp in the near future right pavement of the pavement Paving Before Memorial Day right so it's should look nicer right which is great for the residents live nearby but we should see someone that's responsible enough to handle the the duties there and we'll train them right the police will train them we'll train them um so if you know anybody anybody listening High free toown Lakeville neighboring communities let us know come on down all right you all set yeah yeah any um really old business right Town Miss report no just I'm I'm going to try to start doing some announcements so I can reiterate things that are happening around the community y you know you heard uh Kylie's talk about Earth Day on April 20th but I'm just going to start trying to hopefully she puts together she's going to be putting together uh a newsletter that's going to go out via email on the Freetown flash which will have all the local activities so I will probably just read from that at the selects meetings while you guys are signing I can just kind of tell people what's going on around town just as um an added you know bonus so we get try to communicate more information so just that'll be coming as we get it up in morning so someone um recently saw that we were posted that on meeting so he was he asked me if I could make an announcement today it's friends of Freetown is also going to be doing a cleanup of the State Forest but it's unfortunately on the same day as our town cleanup but he did ask me to make that if I could because he saw that there was this here and I said I'm you know I can I can announce it so I I didn't get a lot of specifics but it's friends of Freetown and they're looking for volunteers they're meeting at the main gate area for the fre Forest Road yeah and they're going to you know trying to do some clean up within the forest love it absolutely love it yeah absolutely so not to steal you thunder I just sorry someone brought it to me so I wanted to bring it up I just wanted to start doing that as sort of a routine for the residents to hear some of the stuff going on around town I'll get more and more information and you guys can sign while I'm talking and that way we don't take up more time but but just trying to get in the habit of doing announcing we have a lot of great programs actually when you start getting into it a lot goes on in this town and the more people that can hear it the better it will be you know more people can utilize the programs that we already have in place yeah did you guys see the new uh kayak um holders over at catway Park cemented in looks like it can hold six kayaks right off the where the the ramp is so if you're a kayaker you need a break pop on in halfway park that's awesome that was funded by a grant as well that um Victoria was able to get all right any public input open space I think I don't want to give the wrong person credit good all right awesome so we're going to sign and then we will adjourn I'm sure we have a good amount of signature just a couple fantastic gorgeous Big Stretch Big Stretch yeah moving tables around today throwing mics around it's just like a metol like [Music] yeah just do for the it's a cool logo it's very cool yeah I like thato you know I want to ask is like is it g to be a drone but then you see the see the picture like it's gonna be a Dr no need to [Music] ask that goes to every I'm losing it losing it I apologize get to work too physical therapy is just you I forget how to sign my name vacation need I know just made and that is your health insurance rates which is also just you I figured everyone was gonna ask if it was the same Gaby syvia once it popped up we asked that same question everybody's asking that and he's he's always been open to do just about anything right so surpris me with he's retired what's funny is I was at Junior getting pumping gas and there he is I was like hey did are you the one that apply for the job he's like I'm retired all right so with that I'll entertain a motion to adjourn emotion second favor [Music] all