okay good evening Hatfield welcome to the April 2nd 2024 meeting of the Hatfield select board I'm going to go ahead and call the meeting to order um we did just return from an executive session um and now we're just heading into the regular sessions and as always I'll open the meeting by reading our public participation policy the Hatfield select board welcomes everyone to its meetings and all other public meetings of the town of ffield all regular and special meetings of the boards and Committees of the town of Hatfield shall be open to the public and shall conform to the open meeting law executive sessions are closed to the public and will be held only as prescribed by the statutes of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts it is important to recognize that the open meeting law affords the opportunity to listen to the proceedings but not necessarily participate during meetings of the select board an attempt will be made to find a balance between hearing from members of the community and conducting the required business of the Hatfield select board um it doesn't look like we have anyone here um for public forum does anyone have any announcements Ed no I don't have any announcements today no I don't either I think of um so we'll go right into our consent agenda which would be the approval of the March 19th minutes I'll make a motion that we approve March 19th meeting minutes well I will second that under we're we're under March 19th right the meeting minutes yes um on wine 8 uh under post after posted business topic two wine 8 I think the it should say take oper funds to either raise or remove two receptacles above the new floor and it should say Min splits yes yes so those are the only two items I see that need to be addressed slip slip oh just probably an auto correct yeah probably an auto correct yes good catch Ed so okay so a motion's been uh made and second any further discussion no we'll approve them with those um noted changes all those in favor I I it was just mini split and what was there another one yes what was that the other one was about the receptacles she wants you to repeat that oh yeah either uh to uh raise or remove oh okay to raise or remove to above the new Flor move okay above okay right on time you guys are good um so our first um Topic in Open Session tonight excuse me is a meeting with our library trustees and Library director um regarding the sick leave policy did um you want to come up to the microphone okay you can bring up an extra chair if you want welcome maybe just introduce yourselves so that everyone at home knows I'm Dodie gardette I am trustey chair I'm Kathy Shen I'm a trusty I'm Eliza langhans I'm the library director welcome um so I'll turn turn it over to you you asked to be on the agenda about the um part-time sick leave policy correct um the state of Massachusetts does give part-time people sick acal sick time and uh and municipalities are exempt from that but we are requesting that the same law that applies to mass the rest of Massachusetts also apply at least to Hatfield to the library um we're not talking a lot of money at all we are talking um people who are dependable and reliable and have given no indication that this would be abused whatsoever if it were um we could deal with those people individually or Eliza would deal with those people individually um it would be a a really nice way to show these people that they are appreciated they work hard it would give them more incentive to stay at the library and turnover can be an issue although it has not been a really terrible issue but it would be one more reason to keep good people at their job for which they have been trained so Also to clarify this would only apply to people with set schedules so like you work every Thursday okay so Eliza can you explain just for the benefit of towns people how it works now and what you're proposing so right now anybody over 20 hours gets personal vacation and sick time and we're just proposing the Massachusetts standard which is one acur sick hour for every 30 hours of work the applied to people who work less than 20 hours so it would be applied um to about 36 Staffing hours a week because only about half of our staffing hours are worked for people by people who work less than 20 hours sorry that was a lot of numbers but it actually wouldn't even if every single person used the maximum amount and I mean lots of times if someone calls out at the last minute we sort of we don't actually get pay for extra staff we just kind of shift things around but the most it would cost us is like a thousand dollar and that's out of your line that exists because it just right we wouldn't be asking you for that money because we also supplement our salaries budget with the state aid money that comes from um that comes from being certified it would just be they'd be paying being paid for hours they were scheduled to work they just weren't there right only be for already like so it would be again someone who works six hours every Thursday um so you would sort of over the course of the year you would acre like if you worked one day a week you would really only acre basically the equivalent of one day a year it's not very much and you would be able to just have that to use as a sick day if you needed it did you have any input on this in terms of how it I've looked at what communities are are doing most of the communities um do compensate um or I say uh yeah a grant sick time it for 20 hours or more but there are a few Northampton is one they're Union though the libraries areion mostly right now there's a few smaller communities like Leverett just recently um added a policy like this um but mostly it's the slightly larger unionized towns like Northampton and ammer um well since it's the first time I'm hearing it I'm not saying I'm opposed to it I'm just saying we'd like I I'd like time to look into this because this doesn't just affect the library this will affect everybody that's parttime for the town we can't make a policy change for just one Department it would have to be townwide so before I was ready to make a decision on this I'd have to find out how many employees are infected how are budgets affected and how does it and all that apply so right well and I think that's why we came tonight we wanted to start the discussion right um over the year we've been looking at all our policies and we've been looking at personnel and trying to update things and one of the things that was glaring was the fact that those part-time employees had no sick time and they're you all know that they're the ones that are working fre jobs um and that one paycheck away from whatever so you know we just wanted to keep the good people that we have yeah and we're very very lucky with that the employees that we do have working less in 20 hours is very few yeah be good to know what departments they're in and in other words what departments might be affected and um because this wouldn't affect would it affect seasonal they work more than they they work more than um 20 hours a week I'm pretty sure I don't want to interrupt seasonal seasonal yeah they work okay generally yeah they work right right that's right okay okay the people in the library are permanent right no no I understand I'm just think I'm asking in terms of other departments that might be affected yeah we didn't really have access to that information so we couldn't like look at it in advance but my impression is that it's not a lot of right but it's a good point yeah yeah and and we we should do our due diligence with that because if we make a a a policy that changes things we need to know really what the implications are so um maybe for our next meeting Marlin we could have oh yes absolutely maybe a little information about what other departments because I don't know what the would the school have to go by this policy or do they have their own the HR policies are separate from the schools okay so it would be just the town side employ okay not the school district right correct I would it would the Council on Aging maybe be affected like drivers um they could they could yes okay okay Department rec department at all uh the people they employ in the summer summer camp that's seasonal though right that is seasonal that's not permanent summer camp runs I think for so so it wouldn't affect season right yeah I believe so um COA drivers um I think the senior driver probably works 20 hours at least firefighters that are sometimes part time how does that affect but they're perum yeah we we need to do a little yeah pum I hadn't even thought about the pum fire yeah so we we do need to really think about the ramifications I totally get why you're asking yeah I mean it's a reasonable request but we just have to sure make sure that if we implement it that there aren't sometimes things that sound easy aren't aren't that easy yeah that should be our motto here to bring it to you now we have so we could have the discussion yeah I was looking at policies for a lot of different libraries and it's it's very confusing to try to figure out like what this applies to and what exactly it means so um but yeah any information you need from us just just let us know okay yeah appreciate it no I appreciate you bringing the matter forward and we'll we'll see what we can do thank you you're [Music] welcome Eric how are you good how are you good to see you um good to see you too Dave we're ready for you we're right on we're um moving on to topic three here um which is to meet with our uh Engineers about the wastewater treatment plant um upgrade bids um as well as the sewer assessment management plan planning project you yes just quick question they pricket with DPC engineering marleene did the does the board have a copy of the memo that we sent out a couple of days ago that two-page memo um yes they do yes right here you have that in your hand out okay I thought you had something else I brought cop they do have that yes so uh long and the short of it uh give you just a kind of a quick update in case you had didn't have a chance to scan it all that much we we did open the bids we only had one bid I figured we might have one or two it's always a roll of the dice when you go in um it's pretty small pool of candidate contractors for this type of work so that's always a challenge um bottom line is that the dollar doesn't stretch nearly as far as it did when this project budg was conceived five years ago pre-co so I feel like a broken record in these forums with all of our clients where a lot of tough conversations the long and the short of it is we can move forward and we have a plan to move forward I would describe it kind of as a a a two-piece approach so the first half of the approach is we're here this evening to have the board consider um authorizing marleene and and Phil and Eric and Ken and I to award the project for the base pit amount and that is within the project appropriation that leaves a pretty skinny 5.1% project contingency going into construction which you know I'm an engineer i' I'd want I generally like to have 10 15's even better five is doable um but probably I'm sweating it a little bit going in because we haven't put a shovel in the ground what the amount for 5% uh the amount for 5% is about 600,000 if I recall 500,000 480 480,000 so that's that's the first piece I'll pause there yeah okay um this um this uh company that bid you have experience working with them WM Schultz they're they're out of uh they're just north of Albany um I've personally worked with them in great Arington and Lennox on Project in the past several years um they're certainly qualified they have all their decam certificates that are required um to bid a project like this their references check out I believe they're financially stable Etc so um they just were awarded a project that we're working on in Hardwick so I think this one was uh was appealing to them to have a couple along the Route here to make the uh the commute worthwhile yeah on these projects what might be unknown that you're going to come I I know i' I've worked projects too so there's unknown things so I would categorize them as kind of two or three categories I think the biggest one is we're we're providing a a major electrical overhaul and anytime you get into taking apart panels and looking at wires and conduits that are it's just kind of a Swiss cheese of uh of infrastructure there's always electrical change orders you know related to getting loose rounds out and things like there's just always stuff related to that the second piece would be anytime we're doing work underground we think we know exactly where things are and sometimes you have to make adjustments on the Fly sometimes those adjustments you know result in changes uh to the original concept but um I would say those are probably the two biggest ones I don't know if Eric's lived there for too many years so he he probably knows where where everything's hidden but uh and actually I'd like you also to to discuss on the alternative AES that you're hoping for why they're important to do them now instead of waiting uh a few years down the road I think that's important on on the money part Side Y appreciate the steering there um so you may recall when we met last time we talked about structuring the bid form where it had a base bid and then several additive alternates we anticipated that we might be in this position today where we don't have enough money to do everything so fortunately the base bit is within the contingency and the appropriation and we can move forward the first few alternates and we had five in total so after the base bid the first two alternates one a and one B were related to upgrading the existing clarifiers the clarifiers are for lack of a better term equivalent to like a heart or lung like they're they're pretty Central to life at the treatment plant um I could turn the other way and Eric could probably nod his head but if we didn't get those pieces of infrastructure done I think we'd all be pretty disappointed I think that when I was here Diana when you came down to the plant I believe I showed you a bunch of pictures of inside the clarifier how rusted and corroded all the metal is in there so I think that was I mean that was two and a half years ago so that was a while get any better so yeah so those are the first two um the second one uh alternate two relates to converting the existing gaseous chlorine system into sodium hypochlorite um just really comes down to like safety issues for The Operators Etc gaseous chlorine is you give Eric and Ken anything they'll make it work but I think we'd all rather have them have something that's that's safer to use especially with a Limited crew of two on most days so those three things so in anticipation of this evening um we spoke with WM Schultz and said would you guys be willing to hold your pricing on alternates 1 a 1 and two because they did give us good pricing for those for 90 days I said we need some time I can't go to the select board and expect them to say yeah we'll be able to do that we're going to ultimately hopefully be able to award the base bit and in parallel with that part two is consider whether the town and the residents want to put you know an article on the town meeting uh that's upcoming and we figured that that 90-day window would allow us enough flexibility to at least go through the process um they only had to hold their bid for 30 days and I thought it was pretty gracious of them to do it for 90 so those three additives come up to almost a million dollars they do yep it's uh so there there's none of that can be covered in the amount that was already no that's fair so like the the pricing that they had was roughly just ballpark 350,000 350,000 175,000 so the sum of those three is a little less than a million bucks but ballpark um we have a half a million dollars in contingency so as an example what we did in Deerfield is you have a 24mon schedule each month as you move along my confidence our confidence grows in terms of what we'll experience for change orders we like get our arms around that and hopefully the shift is from dealing with change orders associated with unknown conditions to dealing with change orders that we ask for hey since we have this money left can we put it towards this it's possible that we would have contingency to maybe do part of alternate 1A or 1B um but right now looking into that I but I mean the initial part of your conversation was that that small of a contingency makes you nervous so yeah we shouldn't no I mean in an ideal world and I on page two of the memo I said you know if we held enough money for the three alternates one a one b and two and bumped our contingency back up to 10% of the base bid price um you know that's about 1.4 million dollar so the contemplation for the select board is if we do move forward with the award Bo of the base bid this evening um do we structure some form of an ask because that is money above and beyond the original appropriation okay so the original there's no room in the original appropriation the amount we went I'm uncomfortable spending it today how about that at 5% it's pretty it's like if you're building a house or something along the way you're going to want to find out you want so yeah the bid and the contingent adds up to basically of those two is the money that I thought it was 12 million we have1 million for um construction contingency engineering legal Bond counsel um engering there's soft costs beyond the what would that be like 10 million so yeah there's there's about two million in in soft costs on the project okay so I just want to get this right right now with the three Alternatives yep you looking at reducing contingency to 5% off of the base bid or is that for the whole project no right now if we don't do any of the Alternatives alternates I should say we'd go into a $9.3 million award based bid and we'd have a 5% contingency half a million bucks to work within moving forward if in parallel if you choose to award the project for the base bid after tonight the parallel Pack Track would be do we want to put together an article for consideration at town meeting for the supplemental costs for the three alternates and the extra contingency that's really the question so we'd have to find a million dollars we'd have to find somewhere between one and 1.4 yeah because I to give you you have 1,399 570 so 1.4 yeah yeah yeah and that that's those three items added up plus the for those items 1 a 1 B two an extra contingency an extra contingency would be you know if we needed to split the difference and say we can live with seven or eight% instead of five versus 10 that you know so Marlene what would we have for funding source options I mean we we don't have any right unless we ask for another override yeah we don't have any what's our borrowing capacity um well I wish the treasure was here um I I I can't say what our borrowing capacity is I don't know so in term that's the revenue side on The Debt Service side we can certainly apply for a supplemental loan from USDA would they that was my next question USDA would they uh guarantee a supplemental loan I'm confident that we can get the that 1.4 million in the form of loan I highly doubt that we're going to get a loan Grant split for that supplemental Project based on other projects that we worked on and okay I think Hatfield and Deerfield are similar communities and stuff and I and that was the we'll ask we'll try but I I would go into it assuming that um you know you're looking at a Debt Service on 1.4 million would be about 55,000 a year some somewhere in that ballpark that would be the extra mortgage payment I mean on the other hand if you look at 3 3.5% increase every year it's been five years you're talking almost 15 16 177% increases in the last five years that'd be like over two million so this this being at 1.4 million isn't really should be unexpected because it's been five years pricing last year things finally came back to just under 10% construction inflation but the two previous years it was between 15 and 20 that that absolutely crushed us Phil if we did if we were able to get a an additional USDA loan which of course the terms are really good for those would that F roughly 55,000 could that could that be paid out of um like water sewer Enterprise is there capacity in those lines for that I mean it would be I'm going to speak on your behalf here may be the bad guy I was thinking go ahead it would it would obviously result in a in an increase to the Sewer rates to accommodate that I don't remember what the budget what the total budget was off the top of my head yeah there's not too many projects water SE projects that we are funding right from from Hatfield's historically had like a pretty generous contribution from the general fund for for Capital but so we would have to sorry so I guess one question would be what's coming off is there anything coming off well we did have a couple projects go off um the rotating biological one um has gone off and there was something else that went off the books is it yeah so the second part of this formula is complicated there's moving parts right and there's some things that we can't answer in this group but I think the 90 days affords us an opportunity to move forward and get to town meeting yeah the Silver Lining here is that we got okay we got one bid granted it's from a contractor we know that we're comfortable with it's more than we wanted in the past there's been times where we've thrown out bids and rebid I can tell you in every one of those cases the result has either been fewer bids after that or and higher prices and here my concern is with one bid we have a fish on the line they've got skin in the game they're willing to you know extend things and work with you and I I think if we needed to go beyond that 90 days if we were really close I think they probably would I mean would USDA be able to provide us information by town meeting yeah so if we if we wanted to pursue parallel track two I would need some sort of a knot of the heads from the town to submit that supplemental loan application on the town's behalf so Marlene and Phil would help me put that paperwork together we would get that in and we would get um we would get like those gray terms they never give you a loan commitment until you have an appropriation so it's like the cart before the horse but I can tell you you know but they've been a good AG to work with pretty steady and reliable I mean right now intermediate loan rates 2 2.6% for 40 years it's still like really good rate so then from our end we would need to get an article approving these expenditures at town meeting and then find out a funding source and that would depend on our borrowing capacity that would be an a the treasure would be able to let us know that right absolutely I mean it seems like hopefully we would have 55,000 in borrowing capacity per year yes we may be able to do that and that debt doesn't hit until likely fy2 might even be 27 the way USDA works is you you spend the money close your loan so we've got to get through we got a 20% Grant so we've got to get through 8 m we've got to get through eight million bucks you know in other words it's even more likely we would have the capacity or if you decided we're gonna put 100% of that cost on the user fees we we have two two cycles to get the to where they would need to be in theory and I mean I think we need to make sure that we're able to you know sort of demonstrate that these are critical additions to this very large project right like we're taking the project you know whatever 90% of the way and hopefully we would invest that extra money to because it doesn't make sense to build a house and not have the windows put in I mean basically that's what you're saying you we would build this plant without some stuff and it's it doesn't make sense you know the ongoing frustration and it's got to be for all municipalities everywhere is the length of time it takes to put these projects together you know get the engineering done get everything bid and then you're we're you know because of just how everything works these days you know it's harder to find people to bid right we're not having a lot of people banging down our doors I don't care what it is we're putting out to bid um and then the costs are always so much higher like we have to I don't know I mean we're not going to be doing any more big projects anytime soon but we have to be be that that should be part of the they used to give us five years from the date of the letter of conditions the loan commitment to fully execute the project and that was fine for a long time they want them done in three years now but the reality is is that you know even a year for planning design and permitting is pretty tight and two years from construction we used to be able to build this project that we're talking about in 12 months and it's going to take 24 right now because many of the components won't arrive for 50 to 80 weeks after their approved shop drawings so like the electrical switch gear and stuff I mean Eric can attest like we wait for these things for a long time the generator it's um and that's that's that's an addition but I'm saying from the time that you engineer it and you you know we had to get our our finances in order and then it goes to bid everything has gone crazy pricewise so we keep finding ourselves in these problems with no fault of our own so this one could the base bit is higher than I wanted as we as we talk about the price for those three alternates is a very good price so we had our you know Engineers opinion a probable cost we had hoped that the base bid would have been a million dollars lower than it was but our quote you know estimate if you will for the three alternates was higher than they had for each of those three items so they may have just made a business decision to frontload some of those costs they likely knew that they were the only bidder on bid day I mean these things yeah there's a lot of things we can't control right so right now from us you just need us to move with the base bid yeah you permission to contact USDA for a supplemental loan yep and then we need to work on putting something together for possibly town meeting and then we need to figure out funding sources it be nice to know when those payments would hit so we know about our bet it would our borrowing yeah to know that okay okay do you need a motion to accept the base I'll make a motion to uh accept the the base bid as presented by Mr picket second a motion made in second any further discussion all those in favor I I'll make a motion to have Mr picker pursue USD uh USDA supplemental funding to see if we can get them to help us with this project second motion made in second any further discussion no all those in favor I I we should add that potential debt I mean it wouldn't hit this coming year no we can can cycle out what that looks like for you with when the debt would hit we can ballpark it within like a three-month window okay and then we can give you the two options either you put on the general fund it means this you put it on the user fee it means this or you split it I think last time we gave you the same kind of like formula where Had A and B and then we had a hybrid right where we kind of just did a 5050 or 7525 thing it's pretty linear if we if we do have an article on town meeting I mean we have to have a funding mechanism yes yes M so we need to add that to the list of things we talked to the finance committee about M but I think you're you know your head your point is a good one about doing the project you know doing the key components of this project right so so just to be clear if it was the 1.4 supplement it's going to be 55,000 a year I'm saying ballpark 40 Grand per million financed is rout about what USDA terms are and in my little brain here you know I'm trying to split the math of 1.4 so maybe it's closer to 60 but it's somewhere in that ballpark you know the mortgage print yeah it's it's not the answer we wanted but it's the reality of what we're going to contemplate now based on what we discussed this evening so you know we'll take it one day at a time and provide the information that we can to the voters and and see what happens I just put I just put that out there because if you wait oh I know the cost of that is going to 1.4 is going to be over while we have a contractor there working in the system and doing it all it totally makes sense the wacky thing right now is with all this inflation the only thing that has value is the debt it's crazy because the dollar is not Dollar's not worth a dollar you know 180 days after you did it but the debt has value because it's fixed yesterday's term so H yeah I would in the meantime encourage my colleagues to go take a tour up there if you haven't because it it was very informative absolutely I'm I taking a Cub Scouts there you are we took years ago we took the Cub Scouts there to uh tour that it's pretty pretty cool uh operation yeah we just have Northfield after school kids come down when I work there deerfi the academy goes down to our plant down there and they bring a couple groups a year down through there so it's it's good to let the public come in and see yeah what shap about that that people you know getting people having a chance to see what really goes on there I'm just really worried about the clarifiers and stuff because if it's if they something goes wrong with those it's going to cost a heck of a lot more than what this little bit of right contingency that they want to put on them right I mean it's and that's shuts you down it does seem prudent to do it now while the all the work is being done we might be able to get this um extra you know USDA supplemental loan and the terms are pretty good so let's explore it actually on the other hand I think you guys been pretty good at staying at some of the pricing for the last five years you've been able to come in sort of close on some of the stuff and after five years and don't forget that you've got you know three generations of operators that have squeezed everything that they can out of that with a lot of Pride I mean that's a vintage automobile down there and it but it doesn't always show like it they take really good care of it and again Eric's and Ken are like you know the third generation operators that I've worked with so everybody's pushed that thing about as far as you can well it's it's really impressive but it's interest it's it's old it's eye opening it is eye opening it's it's old it is not um stateof VR right it's one of but it's working yeah it's one of the most simplistic systems and that's probably what's made it last so long right so if it would have been more complicated you would have had this meeting probably 10 15 years ago far has it's far exceeded it's normal use useful life absolutely um and this of course will uh is a real investment in making sure that it continues to you know function another 30 or 40 absolutely yeah so I appreciate Eric all the input you've had on this over the years yeah and you you'll work up there um okay anything else on that Dave's going to discuss the the uh grants for the storm water oh yeah right waste water water I think on are you good on this front they I was just gonna say they they have the board has one page cut sheet for each yes they do have I did print out just an excerpt from the intended the the fin yeah but um I I didn't know if you were going to refer to those at all well I can kind of just big picture terms I think we talked a little bit about it different staff Etc but the the state um mdp has this you know State revolving fund which has been around forever to help with construction projects it wasn't a great fit for the treatment plant because it's a 20-year note at 2% and obviously that meant a much higher mortgage payment for us um but they just started this Asset Management planning Grant component which is pretty cool because not only do they provide money but it comes in the form of Grant so um we submitted three applications uh on behalf of Hatfield do you want to jump in go ahead okay um one for sewer one for water one for storm water so Asset Management basically certainly like on the sewer side allows us to build on what we had done through the two-phase II study um in terms of um identifying quantifying determining the condition of existing infrastructure and for each of these three categories you put up a small amount of cash and you turn that cash into a grant from d and a third category for all three of them is um they call it in-kind services so it's the the the time associated with each of the the Departments and their staff um helping with the project Gathering files assisting with locating infrastructure um being out there for for some of the evaluation but um that's just kind of a general overview I can get into specifics for each of the three or what do you end up with at the end of it at the end of it you end up with uh well for for sewer it's great because that that that yields like what they call like a seom plan and seom is something that Eric has to do Eric and can have to do in their permit it's a permit requirement um we developed recommendations for this probably four four years ago is and we kind of sat on it because of the priority of what we need to do at the treatment plant and lo and behold this opportunity came along for you to do what you said you needed to do the D requires you to do and now you do it for a small amount of you know cash from the from the uh Enterprise fund and you you know you get a significant generous supplemental Grant from s d the last yeah in the last D inspection they actually mentioned the seom when we were going to put it into effect and so they they're on top of asking so you're again I just still don't really understand what we get at the end of it just reports oh it's a plan it's a planning project yes so you're gonna have a report um every pipe every manhole becomes an asset the condition of those assets are evaluated on the field it develop you develop a prioritized basically Capital plan and and a need-based plan for all of your infrastructure outside of sewer on water is in pretty good shape storm water actually we're probably quite far behind on that as an ms4 Community we're required to do several things relative to mapping and outfalls and condition assessment and we haven't had an opportunity to do that because it's not a funded utility it's it's another unfunded mandate on the general fund so same thing on storm water and so all we need to contribute is the in kind all you need to contribute is the cash portion so there's three categories they allow for up to $150,000 grant for each application to the town of Hatfield that's like a 6040 split where the other 40% has to come from a combination of cash and in-kind services the cash is black and white that's money that Hatfield has to put up uh from the Enterprise fund or the general fund or however they want to fund it and then you get the grant the third category of in-kind services is a little is a little more Wishy washy we're taking credit for time that each of the three departments spends on those assets already so there isn't like a there's not a requirement to add new staff there's not a requirement to you know um add new costs that don't exist in what you've already budgeted it's just a matter of taking credit for those and it's a it's a month-to month you don't have to play Banker like the USDA and this one each month as things go on you we submit a reimbursement application there's three columns cash you know uh Grant and in-kind services and they reimburse you within 30 days so you wait till you get the money the town's people we'll just take one at a time I mean there's there's three grants one is for sewer y asset there's storm water asset and drinking water asset so under what I'm looking at table one under sewer asset manage management our the town contribution would be 28,600 9453 correct and that would provide you an asset management program allowance for pre CCTV cleaning of pipes and locating of structures uh uh CCTV inspection Advanced manhole inspections updated Asset Management database summary report and traffic control allowance by town so if I got that correct you did a much better job than I did thanks well I mean I just want to break it down so the people at home know what we're much more coherent what we're looking at so that's under the first one correct so of the second one I just add on that one you put up 29 Grand you get 136,000 in Cash correct and then the mass Grant would be $35,840 59 so for our investment of 28,000 we're actually getting a job worth1 6 4,537 12 on the first one it's about a 5 to1 ratio y so on the next one on the storm water management I'm not going to read them all off but there's there's like 25 things for storm water uh looking at our storm order field evaluations development ranking summarize but on that one the town would only be uh paying $ 27,878 and the Mass contribution would be 1 36,6 58 so the total cost of that would be 164,000 for just a minor investment right Y and on the last one is the drinking water Asset Management plan which is another uh item of reviewing existing mapping identification supplemental GPS coordinates and and develop all water financial model but on that one under this grant we would only we would pay $ 24,636 And1 and the state would kick in 102,000 so that would be worth for our 24,000 investment would be worth $127,450 so out of these three projects the total cost I don't know what what the total cost would be but the town the town cost is only about what 30 60 the Town cash is about 80 grand right yeah but they're not really these aren't projects they're plans these are not construction projects right so there I just want I don't want people to misunderstand that we're getting projects done it's a lot of this stuff is out of sight out of mind below ground Etc um to add on to Ed's comments the sewer and the storm water projects planning projects those are regulatory mandated projects um for each of those it would not if you chose not to do it now as part of this grant project you'd likely for each of those be required to do it at some later date without Grant funds water go ahead I was just gonna say I was going to suggest because we have certified water and sewer retained earnings that we fund those plans from retained earnings that's what most clients are doing it makes sense it's a it's on your budget renewing capital for an existing you already plugged it in okay utility so all of these three what would be we what was the total for the total of the three that the town cost that would we would be funding out of like he just said it's about 80 yeah it's about 80 grand assume the storm water 8,167 storm water would probably be the only one that would have to be considered through the general fund because I don't believe you have an Enterprise fund for storm water yet right right but we could use arpa for that for that for those plans for the storm water one oh for the stor oh we could yeah the mass DP is pretty lenient with how there's not as much red tape tied to these planning projects as there is for construction so the benefit of doing it is just for for Town's people y the benefit of doing these three is well for sewer we have to it's a it's in your permit it's in your nip per Wastewater permit for the plant um storm water as well storm water it's in your ms4 permit but you know water admittedly if you're further along there I do believe that those regular regulatory requirements emerge sooner and Tony has started to address some of those over the last few years because I believe the state's been coming down on communities to have storm water regulations in place the bubble just shifts we point at the treatment plants and the pump stations and then The Regulators shift it to we're worried about the pipes but the reality is you've got an asset under the ground for each of these three utilities that's worth tens of millions of if you were to construct your sewer system today you're probably looking at $30 million at least I mean anyone who's done excavation in Hatfield understands how challenging that is because what exists in the form of groundwater out there in the soils if the these pipes aren't attended to on a more regular basis they leak and they cause a lot of water to come into the plant that Ken has to treat and you know that adds cost in the terms of pumping and everything else so one it's required two it's you asset you don't want to let depreciate to zero because I don't want to have that conversation about replacing a $30 million asset 10 years down the road or something that would be that would be devastating so it just evaluates it's just evaluat what we have right okay I just I just don't want people to think that they're getting projects done for this no construction whatsoever and then if we don't do it you partially answered that we'll have to do it at some point when there might not be Grant funds available and I had questioned why why weren't they the capital plan but to your point they're not construction projects they're they're not construction and this grant opportunity was new last August and the immediate question was oh wow there's stuff we have to do let's throw our hat into the ring and see what sticks in you got all three of them they were a planning project not a construction projects but I can understand what you're saying by using the word project idea so I I just project off and just leave it at so two of them could be funded through retain water and retained earning water andur retained earnings and then and then we would have to just fund the um the storm water one which is Storm water's about 28,000 28,000 and that would just be another funding source like free cash or um or arpa arpa right which we have to use our arpa funds anyway so okay so it's basically like a master plan for each one of those right that's the way I was looking at it that's what basically is okay so do you want to well thanks for you I'll come up with better ways of saying it than I do anyway so do you want to put that into a motion I mean we would move to what are what are you asking us to do so in order to secure the the funds commitment we have to have an appropriation in place for the project so even it's not a capital project we would still have to demonstrate that we have a source for the money that's been voted on so the the um the sewer and the water one would have to be an article on town meeting to get funds those two correct so it's to move the plans forward and um and find the funding sour request town meeting authorization all right so that would be my motion to move forward with these um plans and in an effort to secure the grant funding find funding sources um through town meeting articles and I'll second it motion Maiden second any further discussion all those in favor I okay thanks for your help and patience working through those we appreciate everything we come back with better news TR yeah all right have a good night thank you Phil you're just going to hang around okay so you thank you both Eric good to see you um so we're um you're looking for us to um authorize the sewer and water billing commitments um so this is for commitment to Water and Sewer um the total water commitment is $338,800 $348,800 18 for a total commitment of 68656 and5 those bills are out yes yes those are out they uh were issued and they're due on May 1st so I'm just we just need a vote right I'll make a motion that we approve the sewer and water billing commitment number two for collection it state the total amount please in your motion total amount of 68656 and5 second motion made in second any further discussion all those in favor thanks Phil next you have a um new hire yes so we we have a uh job opportunities for two heavy equipment operators and we interviewed two people who applied uh one pulled out he took another job in a different community so we have one that is willing to accept the position we offered him the position his name is Paul chaen from Greenfield and uh I think he'll be a good fit to the department and again we are still looking for one it's been a real task to try to find licensed operators so in front of you you have the new hire form okay great well I'm glad you found somebody wish you luck with the other position so I'll just take a motion on um this hire I'll take make a motion that we approve hiring Paul Chap and full-time DPW hireing second motion made in second any further discussion all those in favor all right um I kind of like when we bring new employees in so maybe once um he's on board we're going to bring him in today but he had to go back to Florida for for a engagement so well maybe at a future meeting especially people will see them around town they you know that would be great okay so then there's the Pros traffic study so the traffic study for this area is step one of determining the crosswalk safety as well as speed so just for people at home this is at Hatfield Village this is on Elm Street um sort of is you're coming into town just after um Cantina correct uh a lot of people crossing there so I go through that um you know through that section at least once a day right and it has a posted speed limit of 40 m an hour as we speak today uh so what that you have the first initial step is to do a traffic study this traffic study is no cost to the town right so we are going to ask the board to approve this and we'll do the traffic study but in the meantime to try to defer a little bit of the speed on that section we're going to paint double solid yellow lines instead of having the passing Lane okay in that section once the weather is it is it's a fast section of the street and there are a lot of people walking I think there are from Hatfield they they cross and then they use take advantage of the sidewalks on Elm Street so we did we did install The Pedestrian Crossing uh signals they're the flashing signals so it helps but still it's like you say it's it's a heavily traveled straight away so people people speed down there yeah I'm I'm fine with it I think it's probably wise to take a look at that area plus it's free so it's free actually according to this it says that each Community is allowed up to two free traffic studies right per fiso year I wonder we have I talked with a gentleman Amir there at pvpc uh yesterday and um there's also reference to you know some charges for to defray p pvpc operating cost so I didn't know if you know there were cost separate from from doing the study that we would incur and he said no and he explained to me the two you know free um traffic counts if it was an intersection four-way intersection you we'd have we'd be on the hook for two of them the other two would be at no cost so here just explaining to me how how that worked it's a nice program they have for sure do we have to vote to do it just if if the board I I don't know that a vote just acknowledgement that the my signature yeah and just you sign yeah the chair signature correct right okay um no I think it's good to look into it um we want to make sure that that area is safe because there are a lot of a lot more pedestrians there than there used to be they're gonna come back with you know as far as there once they do the traffic study they might say that the speed limit's fine they might not you know you you know don't get your hopes up that they're going to reduce the speed Li you know I think it's pretty hard to get a speed limit reduced it is very hard okay well thanks to um it looks like Garrett did some of the work on this and thanks to you for that so okay so that is signed and ready okay Marlene we've got a pick up the pace here a little bit very quickly um I received just need a few more minutes yep I receiv received a request from cisa um Community involved in sustaining agriculture they're going to be uh having a farm Bike Tour fundraiser um they'd like to hold that in town and that will be on Sunday June 2nd between 9 o'clock and am and and noon um I have discussed with the fire chief and the police chief and they have no concerns about this I have provided you with a copy of the projected route at this time it could change so my question is I mean I I think that's great but my my question is do the bikes all go at once or is this like a you go at your own pace or at your own time so in other words are there going to be bikes going through town right the whole time I good questions I don't know I know there will be about they partipate 50 people participating I can find out if um I know it'll be I think it was last year we had a bike some type of bike event and I can't remember which one it was and um you know there were some traffic delays residents were not informed about it I got a lot of feedback from people who had you know people going by their house or they got you know we would put this on the website and I also want to say that we will Comm communicate with them that there's no permanent markings on the road either right we definitely want to do that yeah yeah as long as we can try to get word out about um so get as much information as possible about how many you know participants and make sure that residents know and then maybe put um just a reminder on a future agenda that maybe during announcements we remind people that um this is coming up something like that they'll do a couple of posts on social media and however else we get our news out okay we'll do that but I mean I think it's sounds like a nice event all right some we need a motion on this um I will it's not until um June so why don't I just bring this back next week and and it it should be just so towns people know you've already checked L and fire CH neither the Chiefs have an objection to this so that has been run by those two departments that's good okay and I believe that's visiting um you know some Hatfield farms in the process of the event and I I I love that idea so that's great okay is that all you have Marlene that completes everything that I have okay so that concludes the televised portion of the meeting it does great