it's been slow someone must have over compens 629 yeah just looked all of a sudden right okay ladies um bring bring this meeting of the select board to order um hello you're present on Zoom yes I'm here yes Kathy yes um John I here yes and um I'm here as well um the we will now take public comments on non agenda items we have a fairly busy meeting so I'm going to restrict comments to 2 minutes is there anyone who has um comments on anything that's not on the agenda is there anyone online please not seeing anyone now okay the first thing that we ordinarily do is look at the we have a Chairman's report I have no Chairman's report we look at the action items we have coming up um and is there anyone who on the board who has um an item to add to the action items hearing none um I do I have a motion to open a public hearing more um the National Grid uh work on our street I'm moving the select Bo open a public hearing on the petition of National Grid to install Fox 5 ft underground conduit mh3 to custom Street Becky yes Bri Brian yes Kathy yes and says yes John yes okay um recognize representing National GD Street Massachusetts this is to facilitate the customers operated service the existing con that's there is to supp um we have comments from um General Dam that he wants 48 hours prior to mobilizing the work notify the abuts um maintain traffic and uh police details and that the area be returned to the condition it was before you okay does anyone on the board have comments or questions I just have a question as to how how does this get prioritized in relation to other requests that the town has in front of National Grid a couple of weeks ago we learned about other work that we need National Grid to do and um I'm just curious as to how specifically the Transformer at Black Earth yeah how does this get prioritized how long has this been waiting and the work Black Earth that would be a supply chains whether or not we have Transformer or not do we know if it's on the list to be done it's on the list we're just waiting we're at the mercy of whatever comes in when it comes in if I may yes Becky by May yes um my understanding is that the Transformer is in now um uh we have Andrew from Black Earth on with us at this meeting um if we need any clarification on anything thank you and and I I would agree we don't want to penalize a customer who wants service updated but I also think that we need to ensure that the town's needs are met as well thank you yeah I'm trying to understand how they prioritize what work is down the town has a number of things we want done including this request how how does request get in front of us before the other first sir but there's some question about where the Transformer is yeah we need that D I won't know that standing here I'd have to go back and look would you do you do you interface with the town on all of the National Grid in other words you're you're the interface for Black Earth as well as for this particular project yes can you get back to us within 24 hours in terms of where things are 48 48 would be good okay thank you an if I may certainly um there were also some other stipulations chuck had on there um regarding the sidewalk which is a new one the town had um installed as well as um a replace placement of an underground connection to the street light at the intersection of rosale and Arbella additionally LOM and seed to match in the Disturbed areas um does does um National Grid have that list of information from DPW I do not no who wasn't sent to I usually pass I can say I could usually pass that along to my contact at National Grid once you guys approve thetion we would we would add that to the work that were permitting yep it's right yeah there was one Chuck said there was an additional section they wanted done because it was right in the same place and we want it all done at the same time even though it wasn't first come first Ser right does it Mak sense would there be a problem with replacing an underground a buried cable to a a street light that would depend on whether or not we own the street lights do we own the street lights in Manchester generally no we don't own the street light but you're on the Conduit the wire to it there was no point of demarcation like a hand hole no it goes right to the base of the light okay so it's again it's right you're digging up the you're going right by it as you dig this extension so it would make sense to make sure that that wire is upgraded functioning we're going from the P manhole right in front of his property to him uh it's we're not going if I may an yes Becky indicated the map actually shows that you're going from manhole 3 over to uh three AR Bella which is not directly in front of it it's in front it's in front of that manhole um so the it's right in front of his double window the map that you submitted shows manhole 3 further down the street and manhole 5 directly in front of front of this house so I don't know if that was a nomenclature error or or if it's long it is because when I was out there the manle was right in front of his house okay if I may an yes um looking at the map it's un I can see now that what appears to be uh number looked like number three AR Bella um I believe is number five manhole 3 yes it's in front of number three but it doesn't it's not listed on the map submitted to us as three Arbella it's just submitted as Arbella street but the the conduit we're asking about is cross the street from that you'd have to include all of that in what will submit back to us so we could do approval subject to National Grids agreement of all the conditions and we can give you the the conditions of in a an email from um Charles St um that um include as Becky said um the entire limits of the new uh sidewalk um no you it's unfair to expect you to remember all of this can can someone um if we have a motion um to include all of the requirements from the DPW director can someone else fill in the um um Mr Jeffrey I sorry I can't backa boy yes yes please go yes this is uh Jeffrey mavo 7 Arbella Street um I just had um some question s we have a request in with National Grid going back to early October of last year late September for a service upgrade where they were going to run some new cable from through an existing conduit to our house I was wondering if that might be part of this project there was no digging required that I for my understanding it was just running cable through an existing conduit it is an Associated project would that be done done at the same time it would have to be done before okay but I need this to go through for us have one other comment for the select board um you know someone who's been waiting since October um I'm sorry late September early October for this I don't really care for the fact that you're trying to add additional stipulations and additional work and making this contingent on anything for the town I've been waiting since October I've already lost out on rebates from National Grid um because this wasn't completed last year when I requested it so I really don't like the fact that you're trying to add you know new lines to to lamp post or whatever the hell else to this project as a contingency thank you two separate these are two separate and no um we have to upgrade the infrastructure to him and simultaneously do this but before us is this yes because the other one does not need an application the other one just needed the conduits to be pulled in but we have to coordinate the swap over with the secondaries which feed the neighborhood to do this seems like there's a lot of work that needs to be done in this particular stretch of our Bella I personally would like a little more clarity I I just I don't the existing secondary that is there will not handle the upgraded service for he or the new C or the customer number three so we have to upgrade the secondary okay that is fed from um another location this is just secondary there is no primary down the street so we had to upgrade Transformers and swap over loads in order to do this so my question Madam chair is if we approve this are there any other steps that need to be taken in order for Mr McAvoy to get what he needs done it sounds like this is a prerequisite for his request what I'm trying to understand is what's the whole process that's needed to get what he needs done we will need a short outage for the neighborhood in order to run the new secondary um we're not digging up the street um but we also need to put in the conduit for this customer also because we have to um intercept his in order to get to the next one so step one would be for us to approve this with the conditions that Chuck Dam has outlined step two would be you guys just coordinate with Mr McAvoy or is there is there anything else you need from us or is there how can we ensure that he gets what he needs basically just ask this one with the conditions that we're in place if if if the homeowner at three Arbella had not come up with its with the his or her request would you have you would have had to do this upgrade anyway was this a very coincidental situation it was all right so since it's come up you say oh we can kill two birds with one stone here so to speak yes okay and how how long should Mr maoy wait to hear from National Grid after this first step is completed I would have to speak to a schedule and what the underground schedule is like at this point in time how long would it take to get him an answer why don't you add that to my 48 hour okay okay that's great that's great okay um are we ready to make a motion I think I need to move to are we ready to close the evidentiary portion of the public he okay so I move that the select board close the evidentiary portion of the public hearing second okay Becky yes Brian yes Kathy yes and says yes yes say is yes um then Becky you get to make the next motion have this you don't have this of course I move that the select board approved the National Grids petition to install approximately 5 ft of underground conduit from mh3 to customer 3 Arbella Street with the stipulations proposed by the director of Public Works is there a second second are we ready to vote Yes okay Becky yes Brian yes Matthew yes an says yes yes John says yes so I I just request um Madam chair that we add this to our action item list to follow up Greg if you're going to get some answers from National Grid within 48 hours then maybe at our next meeting we could hear what those answers are regarding the work on Arbella and black in that motion there were stipulations are these stipulations already stated or can they be added to based upon the discussion here you approve your motion was to based on the stipulation and we will take National Grid's word that once the secondary line is in it will be possible to deal with the situation at five uh three five okay good to go look forward to hearing from you in 48 hours could you include your email on um that Communications yeah thank you very much thank you Mr has his hand up or just a left shoulder Mr Michael boy I'm sorry that's still up from the last time I don't know how to okay thank you the next item on our agenda are interviews um for the harbor advisor committee and see we've got a y and a z why don't we take Peter yuin first in alphabetical since he's an alphabetical yukin yukin thank you oh mistake my name is Peter yukin Liv in town 20 some years up for the position of Harbor advisory I've been commercial fishing recreational fishing charter fishing in the harbor for 20 years so sort of committed to being in and out of it and all the ins and outs of the harbor and sort of interested in being more involved in the infrastructure aspect of it and of acceptability by the public to the harbor and short of it questions John yeah uh Peter thanks for uh volunteering here you've been you've been here for quite a while um and you've spoken with folks on the harbard committee have you yep yeah I'm Chris col um Jim ducet all those people yeah okay a specific reason that you're interested in joining the committee because you've been around for 20 years and maybe everything's gone well until now you've got an opinion on something that well I mean to be honest I didn't really understand that there was sort of a position of a sort of a okay passive Observer of the entire scenario um being heavily involved in the commercial side and the recreational side I sort of have a pretty good unique aspect of keeping a balance to the harbor um i' really like not lose the commercial side of it but I don't want to make this place an industrial Harbor by any means I think there's a lot of opportunity to get the community involved in the harbor and on the water seems like a lot of people don't realize that we have such great access to such a great spot that we can kind of help them be a little more introduced to it Becky yes um thank you Peter very much for um stepping up and offering um do you have the time to put into the committee oh very much so I mean I work full-time in the summer seven days a week and then I commercial fish in the winter but most nights and weekends are wide available and in the winter I'm actually a little bit slower and have a lot more time for sort of planning and researching and such my Summers tend to be a bit hectic but I'm getting away from sort of the 6:00 a.m. to 9900 PM schedule and starting to leave a little time for sort of family and other structures thank you um are there any with your 20 years of experience in our Harbor um which has I think historically been a working Harbor um do you is there anything that you see that you feel the town needs to more urgently address from a commercial perspective well I'm finding out about the lips going on that are going in the fisherman's warp area and I think that's a great step to continue the commercial aspect to it while keeping it in a organized manner um I just don't want it to be too far in the background of once we get a few things set up for the commercial guys that it's okay you guys are all set now we're going to move on but I still want their my thing sort of addressed as well um I really like the moing setup and how we're encouraging more and more boats to be part of the harbor so but doing that in a responsible way would be a high priority mouth of the harbor is a bit of a chaos scenario and it has some things that need to be addressed so that's interesting to me and trying to figure out a way that leave people to be able to access and enjoy it as much as possible but be incredibly safe around it Cove is a bit scary to me as a voter so that's one thing that I'd like to kind of take the look at and learn more about well thank you I think uh the perspective that you would bring is one that um while we do have some representation um of the commercial fisherman um on that committee I think it's um you would bring a an even deeper um perspective of that so thank you thank you oh sorry Brian no once again Becky stole stole my thunder so I'm good yeah you my questions have been asked and answer it thank you very much for volunteering in that case um yep to Sean's no hi my name is Sean Zan I live at nine loading Place Ur I'm a recreational voer in here in the harbor I've lived here since 2005 my background is um I worked um for Delta Airlines I was a safety environmental coordinator along with the an aircraft mechanic um I was very involved with all the safety uh for the Northeast uh safety and environmental working with the harbor the harbor plans for the airport with massport and uh all the Environmental Protection act all that kind of stuff with the government bodies um I am currently retired um I serve on the zba committee I um try to stay very involved with all the things in the town I work with um currently I do a lot with the American Legion uh the rotary um and then I'm just looking for all that I can be involved with so help out as much as I can yes hi Sean thank you very much um you you've given a lot of your time to the town and uh I think the town is um benefited greatly from that I I do have um one question regarding um your application and you said that um you would like to see and I'm quoting here us move forward in a very positive and protected way serving both our citizens and our businesses and I wasn't clear on what you meant by that in terms of very positive and protected Could you um elaborate on that a little bit please sure as um as we move forward um with the changes that are going on with um like climate change and things like that as we've noticed with the rising water that we have and all that stuff we've got to move forward with the harbor um but we want to keep always keep a balance with what with our business and the recreation of voors um we want to protect both at all times and just think and also protect the environmental impact that some of these things that we two half so that's that's what I'm referring to thank you very much I I appreciate your answer so um as you say you're retired during the time you read Around the water or that's it around the water I'm yeah always always around with B you know talking with ban staying in touch with him when I'm out on the water I I constantly let him know I'm out there he ever needs help with anything um yeah try I try to stay in touch and do you obviously besides the environmental issues anything you put your finger on as to problematic look at to try to um well there's some I mean there's several things we got wait sometimes it can be kind of a little wild wild west out there some of my concerns some of the safe stuff that goes on um or you know Bayan and and uh Todd and all them they do an awesome job with the resources they have um but that that's some of my concern go on um and then just look at you know again with the environmental stuff looking at what's going to happen with all the rising water um you know this the long service I thought was a huge great thing that was going on here that we've had um working with the I handled the red white and blue breakfast I'm the one that sets that up Don mccor and myself and we used the launch service for that and what a huge impact I had for that and the amount of traffic that reduced those are the kind of things that you have to go beond on a little different things we don't realize what impacts that we have when we change something yeah just to kind of pull that thread a little bit your your experience is very varied um in terms of both Environmental Protection and you know your interest as a Boer I'm trying to kind of pinpoint where you think you're going to apply your expertise because some of the climate work that's being done is uh for the town is being done by other committees as opposed to Harbor advisory so just kind of staying focused on Harbor advisory do you have some priorities um in mind well I mean looking well I mean like there're they're already looking at some of the stuff that I had cons you know questions about like the r access fees um some of the moing questions that are going on that kind of thing is kind of keeping keeping a balance out there and keeping things where they're safe and um I think most of the questions have already been asked you did mention the launch service are you a user of the launch service or Ober just for that just for that time okay I have a slip here so okay but you got oh you have a slip oh very good so you're set setting that yeah that's our that's the big thing that came up with that that launch thing is a lot of people that used her during that time during the red white and blue a lot of those people had never been on the Harbor and that was a big comment they really got an idea what the harbor I know they shuttled from here yeah we right from here back parking lot I was aware of that so you're already out with the zba once a week you're working through the days of the week here that's is another one okay okay you have the time to do that well you said you're retired but yeah I am retired good okay um all my questions have been asked thank you very much um sometimes when we have two applicant more than one applicant for a physici we take a week to uh two week to think about it sometimes we just make a decision what is the board's feeling about this situation Becky I think we have two incredible candidates who would bring both would bring um a lot uh but I I am inclined to have um the commercial business um with some deeper representation and I'm comfortable going ahead this evening I think we can move ahead this evening I'm not sure that there's anything coming up in the next two weeks at the harbor advisory well they have a have a meeting tomorrow tomorrow okay well that's the task force it's the task force it's related it's not exactly it's overlap yeah I I think we can move ahead this evening look Brian when you said back y thank you I'm okay okay um do I have a motion do you have a motion uh that uh I guess vote on a advisory committee uh member to for a term to expire on June 30th of 2027 okay excuse me all right right I move um I move to Peter yukin here's the yes okay the Peter yukin be uh appointed to the Hy advisory committee for term to expire June 2027 fa second second ready to vote well discussion discussion sure um I I just want to recognize um Sean's experience and I'm just wondering if there would be an opportunity Greg to include I mean know he you're already on the zba ETC but we do have climate initiatives um that the town is pursuing and having someone with his background on those committees might if you're open to it I I I think that would be a great place for your experience if you're open to it but I just I you've got great experience and I I don't SC SC agreed in particularly interest yeah because you volunteered that just listening to you talk about things I have no knowledge about it's impressive okay um is there any further discussion well um I've known Peter my life pain the ass and uh he stepped up I think that the commercial interests are important but uh I do also to know Sean you I know that commitment he has to uh the har and the recreational voters that we have which are a lot more than the commercial voters and uh I think that his expertise and his basically has been able to talks you probably know half what is out there from a recreational standpoint I think that that that serves well uh in this advisory okay be able to speak to what the recre ational voters are looking at and that's that's what I'm looking for because again we weren't getting commercial voters out of s Cod a couple of years ago I know Sean was as I was on his boat so uh but I just I think that as we try to improve the access for other recreational voters and improve uh improve the harbor for recreational B that's that's what I'm looking for and someone's got the time to do it question who else is what's the makeup of the rest of the committee because that's what really what we're trying to do is make sure you're both great you know there's no doubt about it what we're trying to make sure is we've got all of the representative constituents on the advisory committee um John has the book open I'm looking at the book because I I mean that's the first thing I turned to and I don't know how much turn over there's been in the committee but right now most committees have pretty active turnover okay well listed here Dan Gray Carl DME Chris Cobb Steve lobber Bill Ley Dan Lane Sam Crocker and Steve may I will just add that my commercial aspect to is half of my interest in the voting that I'd run Charters all summer long and I'm a fishing guide in the summer for recreational boating and I run a kids fishing program so my involvement in this Harbor predominantly is on sort of a recreational for higher side and that my commercial aspect is a winter aspect and that I run commercial baths and lobsters St incrementally out of the harbor but I'm interested in the infrastructure of the commercial okay commercial in both places so the commercial folks right now Sam Crocker and that's even a little bit more unique cuz he is he has a marina yeah rather than being a commercial fisherman per se's a yeah that's correct but he's not on the list here unless uh he joined he replaced replaced somebody yeah we we just voted him in I think I don't know why and I could be wrong is Dan a commercial fisherman Dan has a commercial lobster boat in the harbor he's part-time yeah he has a full-time job but yeah yes he does have a commercial book He's resigned I thought he resigned Dan and Sten resigned right I know there was some turnover here I couldn't remember so all right so out of 1 two 3 four five six I guess that's got a list of eight people maybe two two and a half a commercial so to speak and if I may yes Becky um Bion is on the meeting um should we if they are the harbor advisory committee should we ask for bion's input I I don't believe that Bon will speak to that but you can ask um okay why don't it sounds as if it sounds to me from that list that there are several recreational there there are at least three maybe four yes that are recreational I don't know who is I I guess duet has replaced gray but Carl D Chris C Y Steve lobber Bill Ley and Steve may not to be picky but it's actually com yeah oh oh that's correct Chris okay the light of that discussion um we have a motion and a second are we ready to vote standing up so Becky this the motion is to appoint petet sorry um yes Brian no Kathy yes joh yes and I say yes so thank you very much thank you Sean we look forward to seeing you here another night with another much okay now um the next item on the agenda is the community um preservation committee project review sure Jo McDonald's on okay okay F Joe would you I'm sorry Hi everybody do do you want me to explain anything do you have any questions do we have any questions I do not John yeah yeah John we all have the list in front of us um with how many projects you have a I guess my question is were there any projects that were declined or and or do you struggle to get projects people to apply for these programs um the only project that I can tell you that was sort of revamped was a request by parks and wreck for um walkway uh restoration at Mascoma Park and after the couple of floodings that we've had in the last couple of months um we went back to them and suggested that maybe that would be money that shouldn't be spent at the moment um so we changed that into a um engineering study to uh make sure that everything is Ada compatible and um and they agreed that that was better money better spent that way for now but other than that um we have um under let's see under open space and Recreation we have one we have eight projects um affordable housing we have the affordable housing trust and if you have any questions about that I can definitely go into that um and under historic preservation we have four projects um including the church steeple at the First Parish church and a couple of projects with at the Historical Museum um so yeah I mean we have a good amount of projects um I I'll take you off the spot um my my question is have we used Community preservation money before on the First Parish church we have we did restoration on the First Parish Church before um and it's not about religion and it's not about the congregation it's more about the building and preserving a historic building in the center of Manchester thank you as a followup to that I just had a question um do any other houses of worship in town um fall under that category or is first Parish unique and it would would be the only house of worship that we would use these types of funds for I don't know that any other house of worship has approached us for funds at any particular time and I think we'd probably have to look at what the benefit of it would be to preserve another building in town um it's I I really don't have an answer a definitive answer on that but I think the Parish Church church because it was a meeting house and because it is the center of town has become the focal point of downtown and that's why um it is allowable to do that to spend money this way as long as it doesn't have anything to do with the religion I guess I just would um encourage the CPC to understand the other houses of worship in town and whether or not they would ever be um uh you know accorded afforded the same consideration and if not that's that's a good answer to have in your pocket for town meeting when this goes in front of the voters because there are other houses of worship in the downtown great structures and um you know better to know in advance what the answer is rather than get asked and not know the answer I think the Jones point I understand it's just it's house of worship but it's more no I I get it but I'm just trying to prepare the team coming from the harbor right right it's about preparing them to answer questions that they may get asked that's if I may an certainly Becky um I would just uh reiterate what Jan said which is that it it was originally the meeting house and along those lines that's why it's a friendship tree and not a Christmas tree um I don't know if that has any bearing um on what Kathy's saying yes it is currently used as a house of worship but its Origins um were that it was a meeting house or our meet a meeting house for Town and therefore certainly merits Community preservation support thank you yeah it's it's it's a it's much about the structure as well as its role in 17 well actually built 1809 so the first half of that Century but equally important it's a historic register building it's a historic building and this is all about historic restoration now the other buildings in town that fall in that category they get cons but that that's really the driving force here because historic totally agree I just think they need to do their inventory and have those answers yeah agree Kathy I hear what you're saying and we'll discuss it at the next meeting absolutely there any other comments from the board on anything on the CPC list I think I just had a question on the affordable housing line what what um wasn't just clear what what that was I'm sorry can you ask the question again I can't hear the affordable housing trust yeah uh $200,000 for that initiative sounds great but are there any more specifics around that what are you doing with the money so the affordable housing trust has been very um happy to have the generous um contributions from the CPC for the last seven years or whatever it is is that we've been working um we've accumulated over a million dollars we have it invested in some CDs and um you know not longterm but we can get to the money if we need the money um it's important for us to have a substantial amount of money to be able to offer to a developer or to be able to purchase a piece of land in town um so that if the situation arises and we do see a project that's viable we'll be able to jump on so um we meet almost monthly this um the affordable housing trust which I know you all know but um we're constantly talking to other um to Residents and um homeowners land owners that might have opportunities for us so um it is a lot of money but it's it's adding to the greater good to the you're building a nest egg that may be used to purchase land other property for affordable housing I'm sorry I can't I can't Joan has covered it perfectly just you're building a nest egg yeah we're looking for a project and when we have a project have some right oh thank you m one question Joan I think it's really pretty much been a couple hundred, every year hasn't it isn't that is that the number pretty much all of the money that they've accumulated has has come through CPC uh allocations and a private donations oh there've been private donations as well there have been private donations yes good are there any questions from the audience here are there is there anyone online who is in that um if I may say one more thing we met with the U finance committee a couple weeks ago went through all the projects and they gave a thumbs up for everything so they're on board with everything thank you your Sarah melish yes to in full disclosure I am a member of the finance committee and the affordable housing trust and one of the things we've learned is we've worked with poap with respect to redeveloping um the mha sites if we're going to attract a developer we need approximately five to 10% of the value of a de development in order to encourage somebody to come in um so a $35 million project you'll see we're just barely squeaking by thanks thank you Sarah okay okay I'll make a motion would you make a motion okay I'll make a motion that we approve the list of community preservation projects as presented as presented second any further discussion Becky Becky said yes Brian yes Kathy yes and says yes John says yes okay thank you very much Joan um thank you sorry interogation but that's what we're here for I know that's all right that's good see you later thank you okay the next item on our agenda is the harbor discussion and the first part of that is the management plan task force and um I see Pirates pirat B on here is Greg who he's a friendly pirate yes so yeah I think B can certainly start us off okay and go from there yes I can only see half my screen good evening everybody um the harbor man management task force uh has held several meetings so far there was a site visit with Urban Harbor's Institute back in the fall uh we took them on the boat with the members of the task force and took them up and down the coast they had a lot of questions we spent about four hours with them um sub subsequent meetings were uh sharing of maps and uh that uh were provided by the urban Harvest Institute and the development of relevant issues in the harbor to include obious navigation I say first yourself oh my um all right so navigation um sea level rise which is very uh much a big deal in plans these days uh resources which include fisheries and um eeld grass uh chapter 90 uh the chapter 91 was discussed quite a bit because of the the amount of um Phil tidelands uh real estate we have in Manchester so after pulling together all the different uh pieces that should be in the plan from these discussions the the uh group decided that tomorrow night and hopefully everyone's seen all the literature that they'll be a public uh breakout table session up at the high school from 7: to 8:30 uh with tables with all all of the different topics that the groups come up with to date and to listen to the public and see if there's anything that's been missed or if any of those need to become uh more of a focus with that information the contractor will go back and uh compile that data discussions will continue uh at task force meetings and uh there will be I'm guessing at least two more public uh sess sessions before a draft document is put forward that's at the high school cafeteria yes y 7 to 8:30 T8 7 6:30 or 7 8:30 yes 6:30 I got 6:30 here on the okay 6:30 6:30 we'll be setting up at 6 between 600 and 6:30 um the flyer that was distributed should say seven it says 7 to 8:30 flyer well if someone ures up early they can help you set up um Becky do you have any comments on that report okay Ryan know what she said just overall timeline I'm a little fuzzy talked about you know the public forum tomorrow night probably two other public meeting what's the overall timeline so the overall timeline from uh when the uh contract was brought on board uh could be a year uh to 18 months if if the town had gone with the state plan which it looks like it looks like at this time that won't be proposed could be up to two years so probably another year which is standard when can we expect to hear from the task force again I guess to give us an update on on the work and the time I would recommend that they uh certainly reach out after the comp all the data is compiled from tomorrow night's meeting and um there I I would guess probably two or three more meetings before uh the discussion reaches a point where they they would want to share but that's up to them that's uh that's their decision to make and certainly I'll take that back to them and um confusing me is we've signed a contract with these people Greg yes okay usually in a contract of this nature there would be intermediate Milestones by which there would need to be a report so that's kind of all I'm asking for is shouldn't have to wait a year or two for information what are those intermediate Milestones yeah I'll dig out the contract I don't have it from yes so could we put that on the action list just to get us what are the inter what are the intermediate mileston sounds on that contract when can we expect to hear back from um you know from the contractor or bio whatever the progress Milestones are sure that' be great thank you I'm looking forward to tomorrow night okay yes great thank you um the next part of the harbor discussion is the launch service and um we have if oh perhaps I should back off is there anyone here who wants to talk about the harbor management Harbor management um study Tas for there anyone online Okay um the next is the launch service um and um there is a the packet is online it's a little late to tell you that now um but there's a long description of the launch surface and the parameters around it um in our packet so we know quite a lot um and thank you Kathy for helping put together that um so B on um just can you just briefly lay out for um those people who haven't read it what this project is well uh you're right first of all to thank Kathy Kathy and um Peter Peter Twining Peter Twining did Yan's work with all of the information to pull together the business plan uh for this uh basically uh if this is forwarded so at this point if if the uh select board and the finance committee both approve for this to go to the warrant uh one of the Milestones required is that I identify and get a verbal commitment from enough uh voters that number being 70 to make the launch self sustaining so uh just waiting to hear on that and then the the next piece uh if at town meeting this is approved and this is U not not for a uh water taxi or a harbor tour this is just straight up launch service for moing holders uh will be to get those people who've made a verbal commitment to make a payment the fee will go up to 57 5 for the season for the voters um and I've committed that we have appropriate Staffing to operate the launch for the full season I have since uh discussions with the finance committee heard from all of the launch drivers who are uh interested in coming back as well I don't so I think we might want to just back up minute yeah um so the lawn service has been operated by a private entity that private entity U no longer wishes to to offer the lawn service um P Baker who is operating law service approach approached Bion to see if the town would be interested in operating the lawn service instead of instead of Tom through his his Manchester moing service operation um so since that time we have been working on the business plan to develop um a proposal that would uh pay for itself be self-sufficient that was a primary goal that that I think you and the finance committee both have had from from the get-go and um as SP indicated he and Peter and Kathy have been working on that and have developed the plan obviously is dependent on people signing up um to make it make it a go um I think Bayan is optimistic that um those subscribers will will materialize um but it would be contingent on getting sufficient numbers to sign it I just wanted to provide that little bit of background we would we would buy the launches from um Tom Baker and and that's 120 125,000 was the 45,000 and um that would come from the harbor fund well it would it would it would technically come from our our fund balance but it would be repaid over time it comes from the town's fund balance right there's not sufficient money in the harbor fund balance okay U but um so it would come from the town's fund balance free cash in the old you speak yes um and and would be repaid and repayment would start on year three year two year two um I would like to recommend one small change which it makes not is that a firm commitment to use to pay for launch service be a check in the treasurer's hand the check that's part of the plan is that Bion if Bion gets the go-ahead here tonight yes he's ready to send an email to all theing holders and get as many checks in hand okay prior to not a verbal commitment no no no no it's it's a it's a commitment commit people would have to pay for this service in advance I think the key thing for the board to understand is that we're making a an you know an honest estimate as to how much we can charge for the service it's a little bit of a guess because the price has been pretty standard for three years and we're raising it to 575 um so we are in the in the plan we're we were allowing for three years to break even before we say this is not going to work sell the boats okay so that's that's something we hadn't discussed before and whether or not that's agreeable to you um is is up for discussion um but the this launch service signing up for the service means paying um this year we're getting a little bit of a late start because people probably have been I don't know if they've sent their bills already for the moing fees and everything but normally you when you get your invoice for the moing you could sign up with a opportunity to pay for the launch service in advance but the the idea is not that you get a verbal commitment but no these this is money in hand okay by April 15th that was that that was my understanding yep okay yeah then it would be up to the voters yeah we're talking full payment or deposit no full payment everything voting you know you pay up front for the season and the would be no different Becky do you have any [Music] comments loser okay did loser I just one point of information Greg I just noticed um I do think we need to just tweak the business plan here so the verbal discussion we had with fincom was that the service would be in the offseason would be operating not just on the weekends but every day but we wouldn't need the extra staff during the week so I just I think there's some verbal discussion we had with fincom that did not get into the updated document you know what I'm saying okay how are you operating how does l service operate without staff so additional staff I said so Buy on is bringing on additional staff but when there's um low demand his plan was correct me if I'm wrong Bion to use your Harbor Master staff Monday through Friday or during those low periods you can clarify um but the additional staff that you're bringing on for the summer is is is inseason and maybe a little bit on the shoulder season you had outlined a staffing plan for Greg correct correct um starting uh the first second Monday in May and going through the third week and October uh we would have dedicated launch staff now uh if a launch service is running uh in May and large parts of June uh later September and into October going to be days when uh there won't be a need for a launch driver in the middle of October on Monday Tuesday and Wednesday launch the harbor staff will be on duty U for those as you said Kathy the shoulders or the first hour of the morning or the last hour of the afternoon um but I did I did fully staff uh the launch for the season starting the second week in May through the third week in October with dedicated staff So the plan is to use cwn employees to drive the launch Town Harbor employees well they the uh launch drivers will be employees of the the harbor staff um if at 8:00 in the morning or uh 8 o00 in the evening um there's one more correctly is um will the funding that you bring in allow you to reimburse the town for time that assistant hyber Masters use driving launches right well the the harbor Masters already be on duty if there's one launch customer left out on their boat at 8:00 in the evening I would be inclined to let the launch driver go and then the Harbor Master who's already on duty being paid as a Harbor Master I would be more than capable of of covering that you know we're not talking about a Saturday or Sunday when there's uh a half dozen boers still out during our operational hours this is uh during the the slowest parts of the season season on the slowest days are there other questions from the board Yeah by B on I've I've got a couple if I can ask um sure I'm trying to get my my head around what the potential Market is here I see in your in your uh paperwork here you say about 360 moing holders that don't have access to a launch service through a private club membership and how many of those 360 have dinging because if you got a dingy you wouldn't necessarily need a launch service you use your dinghy right and that was the same situation before there was uh any before Manchester moing started uh their business so you know uh people who sign up uh some of them have actually kept their dingy spot at the dock not all have surrendered so you know they'll if they want to keep a dingy at the dock I don't know why we would discourage that I think uh we would certainly let people pay to keep their dinghy there um and if they don't want to then that certainly would be their choice well I mean it's more of the point you know who's got a motivation to join you've got what 57 or 60 last year that joined and would be people that don't have a dinghy if you do have a dinghy I would think could' be probably inclined to use it how many dingies are in the in the um in the harbor right now or not right now but on an and last summer say oh uh between Town Hall tux uh and Reed Park 20050 all right so I'm looking at that the people that have access to a private private service most of them don't have dingies and so you've got 360 of which at least a half of those probably have dingies so the potential Market might be 100 to 150 people and I don't know how they were getting to their boats last year cuz they didn't have a dinghy but yeah boat club members some are boat club members you're right some some do share but uh you know I don't I don't think the fact that they already have dingies uh means that they wouldn't be interested in the service um the the 60 people who have launched service now had dingies in the harbor too uh certainly some of them some were boat club members so they made the choice that they'd reach the point where uh showing up at the dock stepping on a boat and be being delivered to their boat with all their gear was preferable than uh preferable to uh dealing with the dinghy so I I can't predict what number will my goal is to reach uh that number that satisfies the uh break even number for all of the folks who really want this launch service so that it can continue to remain so I don't I don't know can't predict that's fine I understand the numbers are a little soft but there are people that have own dingies that still want the launch service second question um what can you I assume that you've spoken with the uh Gloucester folks who have a system that's working like this yeah assumtion or that's correct they uh told me this winner they just purchased their second launch all right so that's been successful so tell they they say their price Point's too low they're at 350 and they they feel that 500's more the number so so that's one of the things I think we we need to learn if we move forward is what's the right price point um because I just learned Marble Head charges on so there's a lot of Wiggle between we kind of went conservative with the 575 not jumping up too much um but we'll see if that attracts people and if not does does gler off offer a per per trip uh moing service or does Marblehead or is it hey you got to buy in for the whole deal Gloucester does offer a per ride I mean that's kind of a dangerous thing people start to do the math and you can't do that at least not out of the shoot but got to figure it out so I was curious about that any other observations from Gloucester how long have they been in business and it's grown every year or has not or what uh well so the numbers have increased what what increased what they they actually have a number of people that actually use that as a shuttle to cross the harbor and people who don't even own boats who use it to get from point A to point B uh and pay some pay the annual uh membership fee and some pay a pride fee depending on their pleasure going to the restaurants yep yep exactly understood IDE Harbor Uber yeah okay um are there you're running a little bit late actually we talk the schedule at this point but running later than I would wish is there anyone in the room who would like to make a short comment okay is there one anyone online who would like to make a short comment uh yes I I and supportive of the I think tell us your name we have your name in front of us but give us your address as well I've live in on 11 Jersey Lane and I've lived here for 47 years what is your name my name is gar moris thank you very much go ahead welcome so I'm I I am 100% supportive of using our Harbor and making it available to people other than people who have to be members of the Manchester yach club or the boat club for that matter um so that we we are an open Harbor and I think that's a that's a very good thing on the other hand that's the other part um I think that the taxpayers of Manchester should not be subsidizing yachtsmen uh if you got a boat uh you shouldn't ask how much it cost to keep it up that that's I don't know who who that quote is from but um so I would say that the the it is critical that this service be self-supporting and if it is not self-supporting uh I think that the folks running it need to come back to the select board and say you know we got a problem here um that that's and that's my comment so but but I think in in general I'm I'm in fav thank you okay I think we I think I am looking for a motion to support the um launch service um as described in the extensive business plan there any is Becky still absent yes okay yeah any further discussion no I just want to point out that the John recreational voting starts now instead of it's kind of like flying first class as opposed to uh coach now you get to start joining the voting when they get on the launch as opposed to R up yeah particularly in area seven yes rowing to area seven is okay um ready to vote Brian yes Kathy yes an say yes John yes very good thank you Bion thank you everybody very much I've got work to do I'll see you around okay the next item on the agenda is the Parks and Recreation committee pickle board pickle ball court sound mitigation and maybe Greg you could outline what the situation was sure um so bigle ball court opened up last year um new a new um new service for the town a new amenity um I think it's fair to say that there are concern certainly by some neighbors that the noise that It produced was um disruptive and that uh desire to mitigate that noise um became a strong request um finding a solution to that has been slow and coming um the americ folks have been working to try to come up with solutions that will would work um and started off with some sound measurements reached out to the pickleball USA Association for some assistance they hired a sound expert to do an analysis of the courts and what kind of noise production we can expect without any sort of mitigation and what we might expect with some mitigation um that report recommended um a number of possible steps from um requiring um different equipment that is less uh impactful in terms of noise to pursuing um sound barriers on on the courts and recommended if we were to pursue sound barriers that the the fencing should be higher um so the fencing was low on the two sides and 8T on the front or 10t on the is 10 10 recommended going to 12 feet for a height so that's one of the first steps that parking Mar pursued then was securing vendors to try to um raise that fencing in order to accommodate um the eventual barriers um like a lot of things it took a lot longer to secure a vendor and make that happen um I understand I think that vendor is finally ready to go sometime this month right um to install the new fencing um and in the meantime during that time pursue different options for sound barriers we had P folks brought in some vendors to try out some barriers to put them up on the wall of the fence to see what they look like and to try to get a sense of what sort of attenuation they would provide um so fast forward to today um the we do have three formal quotes from free vendors to install um barriers soundproofing barriers on the U on the quarts obviously it won't eliminate the noise it will attenuate it um the goal I think is to get it to 55 debel reading on the outside of the ports um today it's probably in the 80 80 range I'm might a little high on that yeah that's inside outside yeah depending depending on where you are of course in terms of that noise so I think U this evening um the select board is wanting to um discuss with with parking recck the possible next steps in putting up uh sound barriers look at those three quotes and see to those three if any you want to move forward with and if there are other measures that might be pursued as well so I think that's a clear summary mostly sh can fill in some details that I have left out yeah oh that's that's a fair summary and I don't think we need to uh beat it anymore so that's enough um as you can see if you guys had a chance to look at those estimates they're all very different very um try to include actually visuals this is actually sorry hand in this around the last company on there didn't have any picture pictures but this was the best they could said it was their fact sheet um it does include some pictures of their product um well no we haven't even discussed this at a pocket rent committee meeting yet so we don't have a recommendation um so I was unsure exactly what you looking for just to see where we're at or if you're looking to kind of take from here um John the chair may want speak to the yeah I mean overall yeah I guess it's the case of watch you know we're here sharing uh where we are right now as far as we've been working on this um you know since last summer um as you know it takes a while to get bids and and move forward with projects um and yeah there have been a number of meetings that the park and wreck has obviously meeting once a month um and there's been a lot of uh Town input on the ball cours in general I mean I would say as far as overall it's the vast majority of the town if I were to say we've had a number of meetings there have been four people uh that were opposed to it I would say there was 50 people that came that were for the park and I would say just my my personal opinion if you if you took a vat of the 5,000 people in town or so 4,996 would be for the park um that's one of the problems with democracy because it kind of walks over the minority and I and there have been but besides the sound bearers there have been numerous con sessions that are that are unique compared to the other parks in town meaning as far as the start time is 8: a.m. every other Park is sunrise you can be in uh it closes at Sunrise uh there are cameras that are in the park there are police that Patrol by there to make sure the rules are follow there is the park and wreck and the director who has come on weekends when issues have arose uh there's also a private citizen that shows up there before 8:00 to make sure no one even goes not nothing even to play but no one even goes on the park to just stretch out or put their sneakers on or what have you so I would say I understand what you're saying about the minority uh but I think the the committee so far has done a number of things um to understand the challenges that some of the minority have um also another thing as a private citizen I live on that street I'm right up the street from that I work from home I have my windows open I can hear it uh there were three individuals who are obviously opposed to the park or have concerns with the noise there are more people in that neighborhood uh that enjoy the park and are for the park it's just unfortunately um they're not as vocal and as you know sometimes rightly or wrongly the squeeky wheel gets the oils um so that's that's where par rck is yeah I've got a a couple of questions the testing that was done was the testing done with any of these products at all or was it just general sound dampening yeah some of these products were used okay yeah so like prototypes of of um the the bottom one this slncr okay a prototype of that was used and I see the picture here the other pictures tend to be fairly complete and covering the whole wall that seems to be kind of in the middle of the fence it's got a foot or so below and space above the ones we would get would be 12 feet we go from the top of the fence to the bottom because it is better the more coverage there is all right so are you making a a suggestion or a recommendation with regard to one of these well I mean you've got a fence That's goes pretty high right um I have not had a chance to go over them all with the committee so they've kind of heard pieces as we've gone along like seen some of the pictures we' had bits and pieces but you know to be honest with you until last week there was no deadline we need to make we are moving along We are following the process we have another meeting scheduled this week as we normally do once a month uh but we haven't had time to go through as a committee to go through all of these options and really take a look because of uh the information that just Cheryl just got recently we've had an idea of what it looks like uh but we haven't had a full discussion as a committee and I can't really order it until I know we have the 12 foot fence so the fence isn't they I don't want to order 12ft panels until I'm 100% sure we have a 12ft fence she has been about us I at this point I think I would like to hear from one of the neighbors yes first I would like to say the courts didn't open last year they opened in July of 2022 address excuse me name and I'm sorry Kim log 142 Summer Street um the courts opened in July of 2022 apparently they were voted on in 2018 to turn that park into a pickleball court so why this has taken this long with we're like working backwards a sound study should have been done before they even went in um there was a sound study that was paid for by the town that suggested the 12T fence um use of different equipment but there's no one there that can monitor that um and I just feel like it's not being taken the the neighborhood concerns un being taken seriously we you had USA pickle ball come and do a sound study which in my opinion is biased and they put up these panels and we waited months for that report no because I kept asking for that report and you said you know the Silver Bullet wasn't there that you wanted and it really doesn't tell you much more than the first one did I think we're ignoring what the first one said was just the way to correct the sound is to put a a bubble over it which is not cost effective and if that can't be done it should be moved and I think in all fairness it should be moved and I don't think they should open on April 1 if none of this is done because it's been far too long far too long I know you're working on it but it's still a noise problem that goes on from April to December October November not not as bad but for six months seven days a week it's a good eight hours during a day that it goes on and it travels to my second floor and third floor so you're going to spend money on this and I don't think it's going to bring it down to 55 DB so what do you do at that point when it doesn't correct it you've already spent money why not spend the money to move it it was suggested that the to replace my windows why would I want that if I did it for me you have to do it for other people that are Ed by the sound and I don't want to keep my windows closed all summer what what what good does that do for me and it's a great sport but it's just not in the right location K Schmid who did that second report said it shouldn't be within 200 feet of a home it's in 100t of mine but really the the um it should not be between be I'm sorry 500 ft than home it's according to the first report but we're ignoring that one for some reason I don't know why so it's very frustrating thank you just one point of clarification again I live up that street I drive by that every day yes it's open 7 days a week from April 1st to December for the weather it is not seven days 12 hours a day I by there plenty of times where it's empty during the day primarily the busy hours are 8:00 a.m. in the morning and probably I don't know 4:00 afterwards as people get off work to play until sunset so I don't agree with you I I leave 140 Oh wait we're not going to I I offered you the courtesy of letting you so but um you are welcome to speak just identify yourself and give us your address that is ramz I live in 147 street right across to the court I agree with him you know I love to work in the summer outside my house my garden and it's just so annoying you know with all that noise and people who bring music and the language you know it's it's horrible I don't I wish that never happened it's a as Kim said it's a great sport I have nothing against the sport is the all the commotion that goes that thank you um yes U Mari Ellen ederon 6 Forest Street so I live right there I'm the second house in um it's very very close um I would say 90% of the time no one's there in the middle of the day people are there at 8:00 in the morning for sure and then when work gets out there might be a few people but all courts are not being used all the time my kids play all the time I'm con I have two concerns one putting up this wall spending a lot of money to do it if the neighbors that are upset with it are not going to be happy with that and just want it moved I understand your points but if you're if they if this will not stop and the complaints will go on why are we going to spend this much money when they're saying they're only going to be happy if it's moved so I'm concerned about that's a lot of money to spend also how the sound um is dispersed is it going to the sound of Summer Street is much louder than pickle ball like I have my windows open it doesn't bother me at all I don't even hear it anymore but if that sound from summer is going to then bounce back up the street on Forest then that'll be a problem that'll be much louder than pickle ball um I also have a concern about harassment so some of the neighbors will one of the neighbors harasses people on the courts so my children's friends were on the court at 8:00 coming off the court and they were followed being recorded to their car followed them around the car these are like teenage kids they were scared to death not knowing what they're doing so it's there's got to be respect in what's going on too everyone has their opinion but let's be respectful of the situation the majority of people in town love playing I don't play I'm injured but I'm not opposed to it and I look across the street too thank you welome there any reaction from the board question yes what is the decision we're looking for this evening because it sounds like the park and wreck committee hasn't even discussed this amongst themselves to advise us if I understood that correctly that is true I ask for an update okay and and we not making decision My Hope was that we would find some way to bring the mitigation forward so we can at least try it um as quickly as possible the courts are opening in two weeks and as said they have been annoying for two and a half years for over years they annoying to some means what is the uh I ask what is the lead time once the once we decide on court or or um a solution of addressing the issue uh from the time the order is placed till the time that we're going to see these do you have an idea what we a couple of months so the top one is um a couple of months the bottom two are closer to six weeks from when contract signed Greg do we have the money in hand to pay for any of these so there couple of options so there's about roughly 10,000 left in the original funding once we pay for the F fence um and then there you could tap um some of the um dollars in the revolving P revolving fund there's also some dollars in just general field maintenance par maintenance account um so between the three those three sources um we pull together the dollars necessary um alternatively you could seek additional dollars from from voters out town meeting obviously delays everything September well delays everything until um April 25th April 25th plus the two months to plus the order yeah my concern man is that we went before the town for these funds once we set the president that uh we weren't going to pay for it out of revolving fund uh was it last year two years ago I lost at this point I think that we should be going I think there's another question we have to ask the voters if they're prepared to pay additional monies also taking another evolving point we made the commitment to the voters two years ago I think we have to continue that that course of action my opinion I recognize that it delays a lot of things but I think it's only PID to the the voters I I it I don't feel comfortable making a purchase decision just us without the committee that's been looking at this for months advising us so I would not be in favor of saying just go ahead and buy the stuff um you bring up a good point that it's the town's money um unfortunately if we gave the go-ahead to go byy the sound groing we're still looking at a couple of months before it's installed anyway I think the question is what do we do in the meantime you know um yes please yeah Lauren Coons 5 Ocean Street U this the board there what about setting up the campaign responding on that Ian that's something we can look at I just have a follow-up question if it's if we if the the neighbors that It's upsetting the most are saying it's not it's not going the walls are not going to stop it so it's still going to be a problem why would we spend $40,000 or however much an end to put it up if it's not going to solve the problem I'm going to suggest that perhaps the neighbors are not the best experts on the on successful sound management and I think before we spend you $200,000 to move cours we beh us to try um sound mitigation I I agree with that I I don't think it makes we would have to spend money to move them right um it makes sense to at least try the sound mitigation I'm just not comfortable in picking I don't feel expert enough to look at these options here you guys have been looking at this in a lot more detail than than I have I just want come picking an option another alternative sure um I'm trying really hard to not have an opinion although I probably have studied this more than anyone um because part of me does think money's going to get spent and it's it's not going to be enough so I don't want to be the one who wastes the money but I also think that the the bottom company of the one that is the cheapest I don't want to go with them because they're the cheapest but they are 100% focused on pickle ball right now and um they are supported by USA pickle ball who obviously their goal is to keep people playing pickleball which to be honest is my goal too wherever it may be that's the goal that's Park and R committee that's what we do we want people out plan so their product although it is brand new so we don't have good pictures we don't have um a lot of testing um they do a 90-day full money back guarantee so that we do have plenty of time to run some sound tests they do have the highest claims for for lowering deciel level um as Kim stated it it will be still no matter what we get it's going to be on a 12T fence it's probably not going to help the third floor or even the second floor I don't know is it going to help in general all the decibel readings it will but we won't be doing the test from from her bedrooms either so if it's not I mean like Marana keeps saying what like whatever it could end up money that's not so well spent 0 yeah what's what's what's what's being guaranteed here that they'll take the decibels down not that the neighbors will be happy do they have a bench going so bring it down well because it's so different in different spots he says they can take it down by 17 decimal all right from wherever it is to wherever it's going and wherever whatever that 17 number is that's where they end up right okay and we do well we would know where we're starting do they agree with the Baseline of where we're starting or do would they have to take their own measurements um they would test before and after and what if the initial Baseline measurement didn't match what we think the decb are there's a million other things like that that you well this about a contract signing with a contract you know you know it's we think we know based on the USA pickall tests and other tests what the decel level is you know I just I think they do it right on site here they're not yeah oh for sure they're not GNA there that mam chair are we looking at Aesthetics as well is that being taken into consideration sorry Aesthetics and Aesthetics is one of the things on the list so this new company um yeah we haven't really seen exactly what they have we've seen the top one because it's in Bev and then the second one has done a lot of sound mitigation for um not as much for pickle ball but for constru construction sites and stuff so see that in the pictures um but this one you don't have good pictures of it so we don't even know if they can get green right now it's black with some clear just to add to that about the Aesthetics it's full as far as some of the meetings we've had where there's been residents and Neighbors in there there are people that obviously some concerned about cost but then there's also people that you're going to have a contingency that are going to be concerned about the Aesthetics looks of that so kind of you're solving you may be solving one issue but then you're going to have I'm making this up four or five other people that are going to be coming to you saying they don't like the look of this green or that color or whatever so that is that is part of the process here to see Aesthetics is part of that obviously sound proofing is number one right just to let you know wasn't there supposed to be a meeting in the fall sorry okay now you may go but you really do need to put your hand up I'm sorry there was when those panels went up there was going to be a meeting neighborhood meeting about those panels with the neighbors that never happened no there really wasn't enough information from that so that's kind of the information we've been Gathering to try to do this meeting tonight not back and forth between you then that maybe should have been communicated to the neighbor because we're just been left in limbo and now it's March there was not enough information to have a meeting with us right well that's what this is and what Wednesday medeia is you to um another possibility is while we're waiting for S mitigation to Res restrict these not not and one possibility is we don't open the courts until um there's mitigation another is to restrict the use to town residents because I as I understand there are a lot of there's a lot of use of those courts by people who are not from town and just um by not having people from Hamilton or wherever um using it it's going to cut down on the hours that that um the neighbors have to put up the noise um I just think that that's somewhat Draconian I think that uh I don't know how you monitor that oh that's easy you put a you put a lock on it you put a f right okay uh rather than restrict residents i' think about restricting hours just start offer right 10:00 a.m. to 7 P.M or 6PM that uh I I would be more in favor restricting hours than restricting because then we're looking at setting a precedent for every other uh facility playground in town so I I actually I like the idea of a key entrance with a fog the reason is because it gives us flexibility to adapt after we learn we could restrict to either residents or ours using that type of system system and if we find that oops we made a mistake and that first approach wasn't the right approach we could easily flex and do something different um so from that perspective that sounds good as even a temporary measure because no matter if we pick one of these systems it's going to take months to get them installed is there anything we can do in the meantime now that begs the question how long would it take to get you know this keed entrance this fob based entrance criteria added is that you know a two-month process too CU then that my argument just goes right out the window did you have Sarah melish with her hand up okay um I'm going to take Sarah melish because she is a town official and then I will get to Sarah thank you uh Sarah melish 11 Bennett Street chair of the finance committee um I'm not sure whether this project ever came before the finance committee or whether it was a CPC project but it seems to me that it's now financially becoming out of control and to the best of my knowledge we have zero dollars in the current Year's budget which is pressing dollars to the limit to pay for any type of remediation and and you know I question whether it's worth the town's money to have pickle ball courts if we have to pay so much money for remediation thank you yes please Elizabeth 11 Milwood Avenue just on the point of restricting hours as somebody who works full-time it really disadvantages full-time employees from um being able to [Music] play Mr SK um muffin Driscoll um 33 Bridge Street and also member of parks and red Kathy to the suggestion of the KE the fob and the access and the I to ANS Point how long will that take to put all of that into process what would it cost how would it be managed um I I I think we're more prudent to be heading in the direction of sound mitigation um I I'm not we're not suggesting are alternative I know and to Brian's Point um closing it to just residents only um do I feel would set a major precedent for all our other open spaces and park spaces would your street residents come in and ask for the Brook Street tennis courts to be resident only I I I just that that would concern me greatly if that was a direction that we took I I don't think that's who Manchester is yeah done yeah so I'm in favor of um Brian's suggestion about maybe shortening the hours a little bit not on the back end but on the front end maybe things start at the datea clock maybe they should start at 9ine but I would be in favor of certainly having it go a little bit later on Beyond work hours in the afternoon so that people have an opportunity I don't know if people are playing at 8 and then going to work I suppose they are today but um uh I'd be in favor of that I'm not in favor of the fob sort of thing I think that's going to be that'll run up some bucks trying to put a system like that together second I play a lot of Racket Sports and let me tell you I have Partners all over the NorthShore and when you put that in there you're saying it's just one person okay the other people on the court can be from anywhere and and by the way I don't play pickle ball I play all the other Pi sports but um you know I don't think the fob is is is so practical because most groups there'll be somebody in town it's not going to shorten things a whole lot so I I I I think that uh the time area is something we can look at to try and shorten things at least in the short term um from a money perspective I feel uncomfortable spending any money unless the town knows we're spending money starting with the finance committee and I think Sarah is correct in in voicing comments there we're not talking about 500 or a th000 bucks here we're talking about a lot of money I don't know where the money has gone for these this revolving fund and what was the other fund that you said where there might be money that that could be used they have a general maintenance account yeah I don't know that that's the objective to use this for what essentially is capital investment or another question to ask is if we did use that money for this what are we not doing correct yeah I mean that money is coming from somewhere that from user us for something else from the beach people to go to the beach or something I I don't know revolving fund is is is some excess fees fees collected um that more than covered the cost of the program so okay you know over the years that accumulates over some sort of a sound dampening system I think seems to be the way to go I'm a little concerned about how you're going to how we're going to finance that question how do we determine which parks and re programs collect fees and which ones don't because pickle ball is free other things are free but we charge for other things so I'm trying to understand what's the rationale we use to charge for some things versus others we don't staff pick a up so that's really so it's staff so if we staff something then we recover the cost of the staff through a user fee not just staff whatever other costs there are to the program but well so that's what I'm getting at though if sound proofing is a cost to the program so should we charge a user fee for those who are using the court to pay for the sound proofing is that in alignment with how we do other parks and Rex programs I don't know that's why I'm asking I see this more as help do recreational space more than a program but does have more you start talking $40,000 every 10 years or so I mean I that's why I'm asking like the beach I can't it's outdoors but we charge for that sta right well we're people are spending time monitoring the hours or locking or unlocking the gate they're doing something that they're not just it's not unstaffed doesn't sound unstaffed maybe a misunderstanding something but there's volunteers for that okay just as long as I I understand what you're saying but there's a cost of everything Sweeney Park gets paved over is a cost we don't charge for the basketball courts tennis courts get redone every once in a while there's no charge there so I understand the beach but there's a lot of Staffing going on but most of these sporting the the baseball fields and the softball fields in back where soccer however we want to say that there's use there there's cost there that you have to pay every so often or every year or maintenance that we don't charge also Brook Street playground field on Sunday mornings there's a bunch of people playing soccer over there all right and I'm sure there's not that many soccer players in town so they're coming from all over and are they paying of the field that that's why I asked for the rationale because if I add up the hours that this board alone has spent discussing this issue it's quite more than we discuss soccer baseball basketball tennis or any other sport that I can think of so I'm just I I think whatever we wind up doing we should have clear rationale of charging or not charging and it's still a little unclear um to me what our rationale is go ahead please K there was some Lauren said something about raising funds for maybe the panels or whatever and and if it got moved that there could be a fundraising campaign for that and take what is already there as far as the fencing and um the Nets and you wouldn't if put it in the right place you wouldn't even need the panel thank you um I beginning to hear some consensus from the board one is that we shouldn't use take money that this is something that should be put in front of the Lo certainly in front of the finance committee and another um um I guess what I'm trying to say is is is that the neighbors can just suffer until the the parks and wreck gets around to making a decision about um of how to spend whatever money the Town decides to allocate in April I don't know about that I think that even if we told Cheryl today go bu X there's going to be some suffering if we allow the courts to be opened was it April 1 so to me the question is is there anything we can do to alleviate any suffering until something is done whether it's after town meeting before town meeting I think if we're saying that courts can open there's going to be some period of discomfort could could we perhaps ask the town um staff to find out what the cost would be for a lock and fob system and how quickly it could be inol and charge Town members Town residents fors is that something you could come up here yes um and alternative is just to say that those courts are public nuisance well I I think we my my feeling is we have been spending time trying to learn what our options are we have options in front of us to try and make it better but unfortunately it's not fast enough to get it done before the season open personally I would like to see us move forward with some sound proofing before we have any discussion of moving boards um because I until we put sound proofing in I don't really think we know how successful it'll be but my concern is you know can we do something in the meantime to alleviate as much suffering as possible so if it's not the you know Bobs might maybe they'll work out is there anything else temporary that we can do I think you should proceed with the sound barrier and I think you could um truncate the hours until that is in those are two concrete steps forward but you go ahead I the sense I have is is that we have a tight um that taking money from the parks and Rex revolving fund um means that something else won't happen we would work to regain some of that money through running programs at the pick ofall courts so through lessons or possibly a fundraiser tournament um to kind of replenish that money and the PO system if that makes sense do you charge yeah a reasonable you know 1015 but if we had people send up for lessons or a tournament or something like that then it would be paid yes so if we we have some money left over from the initi from the I think it was the CPC it the CPC funding the 20 right 10 of that has been spent for the higher fents so there remains round numbers another 10 left so if you went with this slm's CR product at 25,000 I don't know if there're sharpening the pencil anymore but um you would need 15,000 more and I think the revolving fund could could handle that without too much upside excuse me just a quick question on this and that their pictures is is this a 12 fo cover um I think they just that's just for their picture yeah I understand yeah yeah so it's not but the the number they have provided for provided to us is prices for 12 okay fine um does that change anyone's mind about using the roling fund to supply those so similar to the discussion we just had on the Harbor launch we wanted that to be self- sustaining right if what Cheryl is suggesting is that the sound proofing here could be self- sustaining based on program fees or whatever and not involve tax dollars I I I would be okay with um saying yeah let's go buy it and try it um it's the additional tax dollars you know to Brian's point I I have a problem with um saying yes to without the town weighing in so from the revolving fund not from um so the 10,000 that was already approved by rers I think but that's yes that's fair game because it was already approved by the voters for this purpose so that additional 15 again round numbers um that would I I think it is fair to say that we could do that all of revolving which is not tax based I my only so that sounds good I would be cautious about introducing additional noise on the pickle boards in order to collect money to soundproof the pickle B so I like the thought the specifics give me the beginners that you're teaching are a lot quieter than people out there who are really good at it are having a really aggressive game there's a big difference in noise between skill levels I would say you could educate people on the quiet paddles and all of that as part of it were there any programs educational programs or teaching programs that went on this past summer U we've done some learn to play pickle ball programs yeah I think the first summer and then um minimal last year more of community Play Type threee these were tuition types of things yeah okay so you have a anal those programs then we kind of stopped it for a little while just to Ed down okay so are we generally okay with the idea that put on great suggested that that we um encourage the um Pro Recreation committee to go ahead as quickly as possible with sound mitigation um and use the existing funds um rather than waiting for the town meeting to approve funds okay I move that we what about hours of operation let's let's one at a time one at a time um that um we encourage the Parks and Recreation committee to go ahead as quickly as possible with sound mitigation using the funds that are currently available from the CDC Grant and 15 whatever is required from the revolving fund to expedite the purchase second um the amendment discussion the we're looking at additional 15,000 if we go with this one what's going to stop us from saying okay we have a 90day uh window we don't like it we want to go to the next one which is $35,000 okay $25,000 back to the drawing voice yeah I just want to make sure that it's not we're not opening the spigot and you can do what you want there up to and that's it or this particular solution to buy this particular and that's it I'm okay I will acques to that okay uh but I just don't want this to become just a you know a damn with a hole you know um I might propose a friendly Amendment sure the funds from the revolving Parks fund to be refunded through various programs associated with the pickle ball qus I second all right John yes answer is yes yes and Brian reluctantly yes okay the next question is in the interim um should we restrict the hours of yes please Sir Jeff s um before you get into that what Greg had said about the beginner level Advanced beginner level being a little bit quieter on the Forts and the more advanced being louder perhaps um if if you had a program where the beginners would be playing from say 8 to 10 and then the more advanced players play after that it would be quieter in the morning I don't know if that's what you're driving at or you just want to limit the hours guine how so it will it definitely is a difference in the noise the beginners would have somebody from Parks and W there Sho try well it's just the nature of the Beast be honest with you it's that's the way it is I think not quite as aggressive um as far as the language goes we've tried to uh take care of that last year and I think we did a pretty good job um from where we started with some of the language that was on the courts and music also and I'm looking at the Little League the loudspeakers the music between Innings the announcing of players so forth so on so you've got that you're dealing with also so the pickle ball noise from players is not anything like that every once in a while somebody gets a little excited um but again again if you want it to if it's a noise you're worried about early in the morning you can have open play for beginner and advanced beginners and then the more advanced players playing later in the day perhaps just a thought question yes yeah if I may ask Cheryl so Cheryl in the in the programs that you ran last summer where there instances and any program you run takes precedence and I don't know how many courts you're using have you had to displace players that were out there because hey we're having okay yeah and then and well those those programs said were the paid programs and we did it actually the first summer so or the first fall so not so much last summer but then last summer we did have our volunteer group who were in community play in the morning um and that was the beginner more of the beginner people so it's not necessarily something that um people are paying for and we're hiring someone to be down there but we have volunteers volunteer group need to be monitoring that okay so just as as Jeff made the point there by definition if those programs are going right the level of noise is going to be down right right a bit this is more think money was coming in just because we were having big interest there yeah but to that point we can't guarantee there's going to be seven days a week that kind of play so I think we still have to look at restricting hours I I think you if you said a president and say this is the way it's going to be from 8 to 10 beginners only it that will happen it will happen if there's somebody monitoring that it will happen the uh perhaps after the sound attenuation is in place but until that happens we have to look at uh restric the hours until those okay that's my opion I I I I hear you and okay so shall we pass that back to how much would you like to restrict the hours well I think uh as a courtesy and to show good faith uh at least nine o'clock I wouldn't start at 8 o'clock at least 9 o' UM and then a cut off date of maybe time maybe 7 o' so maybe it's we're talking you know 9 to 7 until everything's in place and then we can revisit the hours and go back to the posted hours we've had in the past that's a fine I think that's a good compromise yeah and Cheryl I assume the programs you're running are in the summer right so so I mean April May chck of jun is not relevant for program um yes I'm I'm going to take people who haven't spoken yes um Caroline darsh I'm 177 Cano um I just want to tell you how enjoyable it's been for so many hundreds of people to enjoy this um facility that you have provided for the town and it would be a real um it would be really a bad situation if you started like trying to get people not to play as much um I also want to remind you that that summer street is a state road I'm sure you all know it and you don't need a reminder but when we're there and the construction vehicles go by the emergency vehicles go by the emergency the the um ambulances go by it's probably up to 20 very loud very loud it's very loud yes I think we're conflating uh in convenience with hardship okay and I think that a compromise of limiting early morning hours and late hours until we have the uh the sound attenuation in place I think I think if everyone hurts a little bit I think we've all we're all in have not done yet I wanted to add that if we if you um want to restrict some hours as we've heard from the neighbors that it's loud 8 hours a day and you know impossible to live there um that you would rest strict maybe in the middle of the day when it's really hot maybe from 12: to 2 when it's very hot and people usually don't play as much but you know that's another thought to consider to that point they're not going to play so there is no noise okay and we've there is noise we've discovered I think that uh re will will speak to this that the the bulk of the play is morning and afternoon early evening and there's not a lot there's the the the sound is not as major an issue midday so I think we gotta I think we have to look at the shoulder hours to begin with and then revisit this after everything's in place my opinion thank you the other comment that I have heard often is that there's something particularly un Pleasant about the sound of pickle ball it's not traffic ambulances don't come by constantly um it's just the irregular po that drives causes people not to want to be there unless they're I that's so John thought clots on restricting hours I'm I'm I'm good with the 9 to7 time period I think Brian first brought that up that window until mitigation in place I just wanted to say is from the board and also as a resident I understand what's going on I'm a little I no I am disappointed that we're talking about this now pickleball court has been open for a year and a half they've got there have been numerous the people that are complaining have been well known since that time that you're giving us little time to solve the solve this solution or get this solution when this has been known also it's been known that the board the board was looking at or the committee was looking at sound mitigation to come in and see Ken of saying you know October 1st let's let's talk about dogs on the beach and then October 15th we're going to only let half the dogs on or whatever the case may be I just I understand but I just think for I also believe personally I understand some hardship but there are more people enabled that like that that two or three people people that because they are vocal can change this that you're opening up a precedent FL I don't there's number of people that don't like the fireworks we go down that path we have been waiting very patiently a year and a half for some progress now we have the 12 foot fence I hear you but I disagree so um you want a motion yes please okay so motion with regard to the uh hours of operation I make a motion that we set the hours from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. until sound mitigation is in place second I I yes Kim I'm sorry the first set recommendation was 10 to six I think that's what you originally said but I think someone changed I think that's a better time frame 10 to six but just sit down every night to dinner just to hear that so if it goes to S that's what I hear then we but thank you okay we have we have a motion and a second um is there further discussion in report only thing I would say is the operating hours are easily changed at another select board meeting we find that we want to be considered yes this is the motion is 9 to7 Captain yes and says yes yes um are there do we think we have dealt with this as well as we can tonight just one question so Greg you're following up on this Bob concept correct yes we we'll get some cost system some time okay fine yes sorry uh is this 9 to7 until the sound mitigation is completed correct and what if it doesn't get done start problem again okay I just wanted to add one piece that the hours have already been shortened so this was already in consideration it was until Dusk and it was earlier and so they already did Li limit the time so that's all just so that you know the background it's already been confessed thank you I think we're done with this discussion um thank you all for coming if I'm sorry that most of you didn't get exactly none of you got exactly what you want um but I appreciate all of the comments thank you [Music] page of the GL we're not alone you read the paper only this he somewhere [Music] Beach what's next is Ocean Street which is going also going to be actually the Ocean Street issues been going on since 2007 so I'm going to try and we have a proposal right tet iset um to um do a a study of the Ocean Street area um and uh it's like studies you um they meet with people they study the area um and the the goal is to find a way um to keep from having to replace Ocean Street that meets the desires of the of the neighbors as well um this is a $75,000 study we're looking for a grant I I think yeah we we've had some conversations with Folks at czm cast's own management they have encouraged us to pursue this proposal through the funding ground um it's I think it just opened up um not going to recall the deadline for submitting the proposal it's in in a few weeks probably would know from late summer and an award probably in the falltime TR and we're also looking for for a quote from b p and O'Neal um would also be interested in this yes and so they um they've been looking at a at a potential scope of work as well the um the proposal is in our packet and our packet is online so if you want to comment on if you want to understand what what that's and this is a the long ter there is there are a couple of short-term problems um one of them is non-residents parking at White Beach yes and Greg I think he said the police no police is yeah they're assuming that they are successful in the hiring he's a little more encouraged he's got a a couple couple three candidates um so that would be part of their routine it would not be somebody there all day but somebody who would come by from time to time and leave a trail of $50 parking tickets which should be discouraging to people who think that they've got a free beach and parks and wi bless them not everything in town has to be free to everybody um the other um situation is that that is an absolutely lovely Street for walking it's one of the probably the nicest walking area and we've currently got some a section of sidewalk that's in passive and I think yeah bpw's just been waiting for this winter storm season to to come to an end and then they um they will do some patching um it's it's almost April so it's very close to time to do that they will make that passable by um yeah it'll be a compacted uh but something that you you could drive a drive a stroller across correct y um I think this is actually I assume that the CPW ordinarily filled poot holes right right so they'll be doing the same on the on the RO Pat it yes BR Fong 19 Ocean Street um are there any um uh permits required because I continue to hear from Chuck Dam that one of the issues here is um a very lengthy process to get uh regulatory permits to do these kinds of Works uh can we do the sidewalk without those kinds of permits simply cing repairing what's there we can do uh K will probably have to sign off but that's a scheme of things that's not as owner as as others well it's a very dangerous area right there when you go east of pro Island because the road bends and it's just at the juncture where you have pedestrians with strollers and dogs and toddlers jumping off the sidewalk into the street and there's a lot of concern that somebody will be put this I I asked that this be put on the because we had it on our activities on our for for today and we this is just a progress report um and yes pleas yes hi Maran five Ocean Street um so I in January I had said that I from it seems to me Ocean Street is a will it's going to be a long process and I'm just wondering if any kind of Advisory Board would be put together or advisory committee to to help the town you know with go through this process and I would very much like to be part of that advisory committee or not offer my services to be part of that advisory committee because I think it's I think it's something something that it's not just the residents of Ocean Street that use that everyone it's I mean I went high school here and probably had my first drink down there no the first drink at that point no my first joint no but anyway it's a memorable place it's memorable oh I'm being reported sorry anyway um all I'm just saying is I think it's going to be a touchy subject the further we get down down and it is going to be a long process and I think advisory committee should be something that maybe should be developed and I would offer my services he did that as an advisory committee to to Chuck yes so that it's not something but yes that's that's a that's a good idea so chuck could set that up himself and just you could post for volunteers to join that committee and that way would not involve open meeting laws and a lot of bureaucracy and we just advised Chuck just have a a a quick question so Chuck is soliciting proposals for feasibility I guess it is from a couple of engineering firms is that correct Greg right okay and they're aware of all of the regulatory hurdles shall I say they of recommend don't make recommendations that are this will not happen in a million years well they'll probably evaluate different options and and comment about the feasibility including the permit permability primarily interested in all of that what right so so the idea is to look at a wide range of of options and to and to evaluate the viability of each of those options okay I hope they focus on the ones that realistic or yes please uh Becky B S Victoria wrote I have Jason O uh just curious as to how we can get information on this because I hadn't heard any of this was even happening until I saw a discussion on Ocean Street and I started asking questions so is there a way I can and other people in the area especially neighbors find out what what is happening with the research and information gathering so so certainly if if we get a grant or or funding of one short of another and we get a study underway then there'll be regular reportings advisory committee would be formed that would be part of the advisory is that would be that that would be part of our job is to you could do so your neighbors exactly would be my role make sure everyone knew what was going on I know yeah I I I know that the DPW on their on their page on the website has a list of projects I don't know if this one is done it's not there now but we would create a page okay so and you know the the top 10 at least the top and this is in the top 10 for sure would be uh you know put a little paragraph and update it as something new comes up sah melish has your hand up S melish please yes I'm hoping that the town has a master plan regarding which streets and sidewalks they consider rather than going primarily on uh a Butter's complaint I live on Bennett Street sidewalk is impassible the street is almost impassible and I think there are a lot of areas in town in that same situation and you you should not be just considering areas where where residents are complain thank you thank you Lauren Co 5 Street um so Greg there you're applying for a grant for 75,000 say that correct thereabouts I mean don't lock in on that number quite yet but town meeting Town vote no oh okay so at this point we're trying to pursue outside funding um if we weren't s if we were not successful then we have to revisit this discussion just I'm getting that if if it's not accepted whatever you can't get the fund um just status quo for Ocean Street the way it is now DPW comes in and does it thing every once in a while okay yes I guess I guess Mar and Coon's five ocean stre I guess our biggest one of my concerns is here again making sure everyone is informed and I just don't want all a sudden wake up one day and say oh we're not going to fix the road and guess what you can't go you can't drive the full one end to the other end of ocean that's what I just want to avoid that happening coming to that point without everyone knowing everyone making it a an educated decision and acceptance of whatever Chuck has his hand are you ready for me an can you hear me yeah I I just wanted to you know kind of give a little bit of additional information or background whatever but you know we annually do maintenance in the spring on Ocean Street and I don't suspect this year or any year in the future will be differing uh kind of getting to one of Brenda's points about timing and permitting and all that there is a much bigger difference between what we can do in terms of Maintenance versus what we can do to remedy the situation and I think what we're looking for in these grants in any Town funds even let alone grants going towards Ocean Street in this capacity is to find out what the final long-term solution is because it it certainly is on my mind every storm and every year how much that maintenance will be and where it comes out of our budget um to Sarah's point we do have a list and we you know generally make it to all the streets uh where we do pipe work and uh other infrastructure improvements Ocean Street is one that we actually did the water main a few years ago and we did do a uh repaving project however we stopped at White Beach and black Beach because of this situation where the road becomes inundated every year and there is nothing that I can do as DPW director of the town can do throwing money at this situation that we will be able to accomplish uh you know all of our stated goals uh without doing this kind of preliminary analysis where we will do the feasibility but also look very uh long-term and also you know there there is an is element here of permitting and I I mean I just want to be very honest with people on the call and in the room there is it is very unlikely that we will get a 100% Hardscape solution the uh last uh project and I think you said the last uh uh topic on the agenda tonight that nobody in the room was happy I think this is very likely going to be a scenario where nobody is happy but that is the best solution to a bunch of bad Solutions so I just want to make everybody aware that that's what we're up against and that's what we're going to be working towards and it will be a long process uh in the meantime we will do everything we can to make the road pass from one way to the other with no injuries and as safe and accommodating as possible but it is very tall water and it gets taller every day so uh if there's any specific questions I'm happy to you know go into detail or you know talk about something else but I just want to make that clear that sound so good thank you check um okay again that's what I just said just we will make every effort to keep people ined um and and um it's just it's a more heavily used pedestrian area than many others in and I'm sorry if if I have have interfered with somebody's long-term plan which street should be handled first to that end want to just put that action item just move it down another three months and I was going to ask what when do we when can we expect to get another update can we change the date would we compl certainely share the final Grant proposal as a as a sort of next Milestone um post that on the website as well take look at it um um so I really but beyond that it's it's sort of a wait situation until until we hear from the grant of wood so probably going to be end of su so I guess though um as far as when that might be posted you mentioned spring I think later this spring I mean can we put it June date it's it'll be in a i g to say six weeks or so it's in that time FR okay that we be can we just change the date to you get a quick update the town administrators report out a couple months out um I guess my other question would be if we learn later in the fall that we didn't get the grant would an option be to go before town meeting in the fall to request money for that analysis that is an option yes okay so I think I know we probably going to be talking zoning um at the btwn meeting but if we do we I'm trying to work back a schedule and put a date to follow up so we don't miss a window of opportunity to to talk about this again so if we wanted to put when are we going to start working on the warrant for the fall town meeting I guess September or yeah that'll be September okay all right got plan ahead otherwise Things fall through the cracks ch's go the same Chuck thanks well just one last thing uh you know anybody in the room once they review the scope um or online I guess uh and they if they have any comments or if they think we're missing the point or missing something I'm happy to take those comments directly and see if we can make uh make some some changes before we submit it to the grant uh I will just say keep in mind the grant will be looking for uh you know solutions that are endorsed by the abutter but you know also the community at large so to the extent that you have friends that aren't on Ocean Street or uh just you know other interested parties around town or community members or organizations uh they would be welcome participants as well okay great thank you thank you for your comments that sign we don't have any more controversial topics oh War out one way the other okay um the next thing is Theon updates uh me okay uh only thing I have is I guess Council on Aging seniors um Greg and I went to the golden agers luncheon last Saturday and uh there some minor fireworks nothing that Greg hasn't seen before in his robust discussion I think is the word 40 years of experience the ring there their name now there's several ring leaders they they tag team you Saturday a big solid front of her okay and and anyway uh they're involved and we did have an opportunity to show them with a prel show them a preliminary um layout of what things might look like they had opinions about that nothing I think that was dramatically different from what was presented but things would be altered a little bit so they're engaged they're interested and they're also generally they are they are happy that things are moving along I would say that's it was a it was a good venue to get uh everything really out the HX and wreck [Laughter] done um let's see uh there was a downtown Improvement committee meeting this morning we spent most of the meeting actually getting an update from Chris only on the MBTA zoning task force um progress um we also discussed I didn't take notes because I thought Becky was going to give an update on the wayfinding project so um they showed a timeline of what that that looked like the how they I guess the next meeting is is meeting with the consultant who's going to show options on on possible way find then we got on a discussion on well what happened with the public there's also a placemaking um sub project what happened with the discussion on public bathrooms so um I spoke to Greg about that today and I I think we as a town got a little um distracted when we thought we could use the community center um so I'm just here to remind us that since that is not on the table um right now we still have a community that looking for a public bathroom solution um so I just think we need to come up with something it they feel like that part of the project kind of just went into a black hole and I just think we need a little followup so if we could just take an action to talk about H Master office and and public back we got to revisit bring that full circle again um we we need to do that um last thing I will mention is I think that was that that was that oh actually I'm sorry go back last time we met we we talked about um we had voted to close down certain committees and change others to advisory um and we also implemented that new policy on the um reappointments I haven't heard that that communication went out to anybody so I'm just wondering um I think we need to communicate to the the board chairs at least on the new policy about the reappointments not sure when that's going to happen but I I hope it's not a something that happens late in June as we're about to revisit appointment so I think that needs to be done sooner rather than later if we could just get an update on that by the department had the committee heads and those people who need to be apply right yeah but I think yeah I think just all committees need to know that there is a new policy so they're not caught by surprise even if they don't have somebody in that situation right now think sooner rather than later and then um Greg I think you were planning to speak to the or have some communication around the committee changes I just not sure when you plan to have that happen but again I think we didn't discuss timing around that so I didn't know if the plan was to um you know let some of those committees know that there's a change and have it take effect in you know as of the next fiscal year we really didn't discuss timing it can happen that was my assumption we would let play up this the rest of this year July all right so I think that's but nonetheless it's time to get that was it thank you um the seems to have um agreement that that from Essex that their budget even though it's a 1.8% increase um something that um so they are starting feasibility study um for the S Elementary School this is a long Pro process um and it involves hiring some people and then doing some studies of of whether to um renovate in place replace in the same location replace in another location um and the cost of a feasibility study is on the order of 1.5 million came in at a very late point in our budget processes some pickups um the way that's div it's divided the Fe um charge is divided in three with the school picking up a third and Essex picking up a third of the remaining two3 and Manchester getting the rest um it's it's an interesting process um it involves picking a building committee at which point of the building committee is more or less in charge and um anyone who's interested in being on a building committee it's a very timec consuming effort but it's very rewarding um at least I've never been on one I watched the high school one in great detail and and they they get the form what the new school is going like it's it's a very interesting process um uh the MVP zoning um we we had we have a list of principles um and in applying them we came to the conclusion that um the damage to the town um both in terms of increased population and um General change is much greater in large Lots than it is in small Lots um and that has L us led to to to concentrate on areas I'm sure I've talked about this before running from powderhouse Lane across behind powderhouse Hill um missing Central Street going out Pine Street all the way to um Newport Park um and then looking at another section going from approximately the Richdale gas station um including the uh the cot buildings um behind laping go um and the and the lovely 1963 um building there and picking up Valentine's MERS um none of these flood um that gives us about 30 Acres inside the half mile circle um I'm sure there'll be lots of people who have lots of prop that but um if you replace a one family with a three family you're adding two families if you replace a one family on a one acre you're adding 14 families excuse me got watch out oh um that's led us to look at um the storage areas um on beaverdam road as the only part out in the LCD um that may in fact be quite n that's almost s acres and still that's pretty much everything I'm doing um guess we can go on [Music] to well if you like I can just sort of quickly run through does that make sense um so articles one two three standard language article four is the town operating budget um shows up very Cur turly here in terms of the language obviously the finance book will will detail that out for everyone um article is the capital budget um I listed in fear the bond but that those will be pulled out as a separate article so we would do that outside of outside of Article Five and we can reduce um the bonds a bit because of the recent award we received to office for help with the past studies so that's that can help reduce that and also we're able to reduce it a bit by um going with an in-house Clerk of the works since we have so many capital projects over the next five years or so um it would be cost effective to bring that inhouse where I've been always Contracting that out that's you're going to hire somebody who'll be a master Clerk of the works for yes exactly so you'll see that U obviously boost the U DPW budget to do that but it it is a call Savings in the long run I on Article Five number two the DPW facility design work I thought we were just testing School Street location for viability that's Geotech work Geotech right CH that having yeah because I l a little ODOT yeah no that's a good suggestion 13 and 14 that uh that's a equipment replacement fund per the schedule that we have looked at from time to time yes it does show the the full funding for the new ambulance that second ambulance U nothing going into the replacement fund itself the request was for that yeah one of the items that we we cut since we're fully funding that second that's a bigger kick this year yes yes it is I would like to see that schedule again then with that updated assumption at some point yes so we have that so yes I'll get that to you so then article um uh talks about the launch service so there be three elements to this vote there' be basically 9500 to to fund the operating expenses for for May and June with this fiscal year so it's a supplement to the current fiscal year budget there would be the capital request to purchase the boats um which which would be in this article and then there would also be the operating budget a little over 40,000 for fy2 so so this wording makes it look like the launch service would be operated using taxation is there any way to let people know that you know we we would be reimb it be reimbursed by user something to the language here at add to make yeah supported by user fees there 9500 fiscal year 24 and was it 4,000 40,000 four okay R not Pi that up oh it wouldn't be quite it wouldn't be well yes it does because it has to be the full year yeah even though it straddled the fiscal years and then article seven would be the bond language about seven playing with the numbers a little bit trying to bring it down some about 7.3 million the bonding rather than the 9.25 meeting with the Sarah and Peter T finance committee and finance committee will be meeting again on Thursday doing some fine tuning of that amount that we can pay from uh Taxation and and use of the fund balance or free cash um so that number we hope to bring in just over 7 million as a new Bond it's most likely we won't experience the needing The Debt Service on that until a couple years from now so we would um depending on how much gets done in the next couple years perhaps do a bond anticipation note but then you you start paying a year after you receive the money so um with any luck we will be seeing the new tax revenues from CST to help offset the new Bond payments and then um article 8 is the purchase of the Mason building part a portion of that building and the seeking voter authorization then for you to finalize those negotiations and authorize the dollars so in talking again talking with um with Sarah and Peter we're thinking that half of this would come from fund balance and the other half from taxation about 500,000 from each Source in article 9 is a sort of a TR up we have received um relatively modest amount of opioid settlement funds as part of the whole national settlement and um the funds came in and the state hadn't given us permission to set up special accounts for it yet so it flowed back into the free cash account so we want voters to approve setting up the special account now that we have authorization to do so from the state and then do transfer the money back from free cash into the special account you get to explain that one and then and the monies are used to uh working with police and the health department on some special programming um making sure there's Naran available in public spaces that sort of thing uh article 10 is U the school budget General operating budget for the school operating and and capital and article 11 would be for the feasibility study the thinking is that that feasibility study again we can use in part some um some revenues some taxation revenues or or local receipt revenues uh and then the other portion would be for Capital exclusion so it's it's a one time um bump to the tax rate you about a 1% bump to the tax rate to fund this the portion that isn't coming from other sources and so this money is to be used for what this is for the feasibility study for the SX Elementary okay all right so it starts that the 600,000 but 660 is our share of that 1.5 million and that would be spent over coup years two and a half years probably but the state wants us to put it all up front right because they want to show they want the commitment yeah yeah I I kept trying to think of a way we could stretch it out we could borrow the money to stretch it out but then that's that's yeah it's in current more CL it didn't seem worth it um and then uh 12 is the final piece for the turf fields our our final share originally we were bonding this through the school Essex didn't want to do that and so we went ahead and and paid basically two-thirds of our amounts but we held off on this final share until the project was finished and so it actually is lower than we anticipated um it's roughly 2 $50,000 more that we owe towards the replacement of the turf fields so that's what item 12 was for and then 13 uh is the CPC projects the 14 is for authorization to acquire a new access easement through the Housing Authority's property basically using the existing driveway so we currently have an easement that runs along the southern border of the property but some of the um units that were built infringe on that easement and so in talking to the Housing Authority board they um they've agreed that we could move forward with acquiring an easement using the driveway and then building a couple or three parking spaces um right at the entrance to the trail up to P house and that there's also some funding for that in the CPC Pro projects you'll see that in the CPC list Article 15 is the standard um allocation to our OPB obligation or other post employment benefits primarily basically health insurance for retirees and we continue to put money into that fund um eventually we won't have to be doing that once that fund grows Gaga we have another half a dozen years to go on that tax the stock market doesn't assuming yeah assuming we don't get clobbered in the crash and then we have uh number of bylaw changes proposed uh article 16 talks about um uh taking out the actual fines in the bylaw since that tracks the state statutes and regulations which often change so it's just it's just removing it from our bylaws and relying on other regulations to set those fees uh 17 is the standard revolving fund approval or the parks and wreck department and 18 U some minor fine-tuning of our current stormwater management bylaw uh we followed the state template and putting that together EPA has told the state we wanted to make some changes to your template so now we need to make some changes fairly minor changes um in 19 the new driveway bylaw C cut bylaw that we adopted did not include the op option of of having two curb cuts to a property and so we want to the planning board would like to put that back in it'd be subject to a special a special permit review which is how it was in the past they got lost in the the push to put the bylaw as a general bylaw instead of in the zoning and then in 20 is a citizen petition for the U for off Prem signs for the town and school property so these are for the Banners at the at the play fields and then 21 is the standard uh if we have approved more than we anticipated to to take some additional funds out of the fund balance so that's how it's shaping up obviously um this is s pretty rough form we need to uh make it more legal founding and and add some uh no language but it it gives you the basis of what is being proposed obviously if you have desires for something else the time now is to speak we we need to finalize this at your next evening I'm sorry you can think about the order obvious if you have a suggestion from the order yeah I guess ior I remember asking mentioning that the school immediately following the town operating in capital and the school operating in capital and and then go into the special that's that's bit on traditional pattern I I did put those I did put the launch and the bonding before the school cuz I was following the capital budget your choice you can you can think about that piure of the conversation on the as possible I think they've been vocal on that yeah well that's article eight I I i' still like to think I have a feeling we may lose part of our audience after that I'm you want to hold the senior hostage I want to hold the senior's Hostage to getting at least the school oh yeah the school but I I would do the same right after yeah the laun yeah launch in Thea I have two relatively well one relatively small change in um February 20th in the voter check-in op use of driving licenses um in the second to last line um in fact the primary had more people than ordinarily show up for a town meeting it's it's the duration of the checkin yes that's true um and and the other one is in the um March 4th um on page three farking discussion I thought that the stickers were good until the date printed on them rather than for a year right um so if we want to change the date when the stickers expire we can do it I agree with that oh I should right yeah I also have a cons page five where um item 9 C where it talks about the resident parking streets um so there the very last line of that paragraph where it talks about noted exceptions that Pine Street will be resident parking both sides from Central to Pleasant and School Street resident only from Central to 128 there are no parking zones on the lower part of those streets so it's not like on Pine Street I guess the west side or southern side whatever you call it where the gas station is there's no parking on that side of the street up to certain stretch right it was that 1600 yes right so this gives the impression that for both Pine and school you can do Resident parking all the way up and that's not true so those lines need to be adjusted to account for the no parking zones yep yep um other that um those cor approve I move this approve the consent second okay and I second are we ready to vote I am we are Brian yes Kathy yes and say Yes John yes excellent um administrator's report so the um deadline for filing for elections it's coming up two weeks away April 1 so there is still interest out there there's still time to submit papers the deadline in two weeks time and then we have elections in third week of third Tuesday in May um so I mentioned briefly earlier we um have received a congressional um designated spending that known as earmarks so we were beneficiary of that um and uh I was made an ER with with Congressman in terms of his attendance he's coming next Monday instead of today and so we will receive him next week at tulip at the at the water plant and thank him for his efforts and getting us that 950,000 so we can advance our Tass mitigation design work and testing and and give them a tool to of the plant so that that'll be next Monday and then lastly um some work organized around some climate efforts uh two two different uh sessions are coming up one will be April 2nd where we will give an introduction to some of the work that uh that we that Harvard has been doing for capan and looking at us the impact of a category 3 hurricane on the area and some discussions on some efforts to to try to mitigate some of that effort um and sort of setting the stage for a specific project and as part of our village vulnerability plan there was this the suggestion to look at Mascoma Park and how that perhaps gets reconfigured to better accommodate flooding and still be usable as a as a public space and public park um so after the beginning of a April when we have this first session which will be on zoom and then the second follow to that will be at the end of April April 30th um where we will have an inperson meeting to talk about specifically a Masco and um a design charet for that for that Park and that'll happen over those three days the 30th the 1st and the 2nd and there'll be a couple of opportunities for the public to engage with with the designers and give some feedback on what they think might make sense for the future of that area so I think that'd be very interesting and and hopefully we'll get some folks to come out and we'll certainly be publicizing that as as the time gets closer and I see that Sarah has her hand up yes so my issue goes back to parking sorry yep that when I look at the street alignment it's my understanding that on Benner Street there's parking on the South Side from Pine to Forester but beyond Forester there is parking on both sides and that's not reflecting reflected in the parking streets guide sorry we can revisit that yeah so that's what I have for my report I was I was finished in that case um we have an executive session and I believe that I move that we enter into exe executive session for mgl chapter 3A section 21 A3 to discuss strategy respect to collectives bargaining if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the public body and the chair s um will also have you included in that executive session will be executive session for MTL chapter 38 section 2186 to consider the purchase exchange lease or value of real property if the chair declares an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on negotiating position of the public body and not to return to open session second all in favor John yes yes yes yes thank you very much Debby [Music] thanks can I have you guys sign this bring it back SE not alcohol and the national grd order I will send them ch finish