this government meeting is brought to you by eastw works and our local cable subscribers okay you st to Media perfect okay everybody good evening I'm going to call to order the meeting of the Southampton select board for March 12th at 6:00 and if we could please stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you all right perfect we will have a have our Quorum tonight uh Joy's coming back and she said she'd be a little bit late so we have a quorum now but we'll hopefully have a full board here so all right do we have any open time for the public Robert yes Robert then Lucy Robert Floyd uh College Highway speaking as Town moderator just want to review some dates make sure we're all on the same page I will be leaving town tomorrow uh going to Alligator country I will be back in four weeks on April 14th I will be looking at the meetings um live you know online virtual and if there's any need to have me by Zoom I'm available or phone or whatever so the town meeting is eight weeks away don't remind me with your Tuesday schedule you would sign the warrant on Tuesday April 23rd or if you're going to be meeting that week on a Thursday you be signing on April 25th and the warrant needs to be posted no later than Monday April 29th hopefully it would be the week before Y and Tuesday April 30th at noon all presentation materials need to be in a town clerk's office okay and the town moderator annual town meeting uh information session will be Thursday May 2nd right here in this room at 7:00 and the meeting's on May 7th and I need to leave now because I'm conducting a class in a little bit all right we're all set perfect thanks Robert all right thank you very much have a good trip hope we won't call on you in Florida so yes enjoy take care yeah Lucy I'll be Lucy D Tom click I just wanted to um give a quick update about the elections um it was a very yucky rainy day um we didn't have a very good turnout um we had 1,565 ballots cast um I'm going to be putting up the minutes um tomorrow uh we have 4,000 over 4 4570 registered voters um it was a you know primary uh there wasn't a lot on ballot for candidates so um I think people were a little disoriented because there was so many names but a lot of the candidates had withdrawn so um a lot of the ballots were mail in so there wasn't a big turnout for in person that came that day but I wanted to just remind people that if you're getting mail and ballots to get them back by the night of the election by 8:00 pm. please and um uh we are not we are having mail and voting for the local election the local election is May 21st that's the next election um we're going to be talking to the select board about maybe opting out of in-person voting early inperson voting for the local election because the turnout was not good for this one we had probably 15 people for early inperson voting really I know stepen did come but um uh so just wanted to let you know how it was so and for the town elections remind us when the papers for nomination papers have to be turned back they need to be in by April 2nd and that is the night of the caucus so it's going to be a very busy night at night April 2 you can do it I know I can yep so okay and that is 7 to9 in here and we have to have 25 people for a quorum we have to elect a chairman the chairman will run off the nominations and um CH chairperson sorry chairperson I apologize I'm sorry I apologize chairperson we can all learn okay and uh so that'll be on April 2D April 2N yes perfect lots of openings still not a lot of papers taken out yeah so people that are interested please go to Lucy's office and pull your papers for finance committee now that no no papers taken out for finance committee just so okay well hopefully no no all right so I just wanted to give you an update on the elections good no thanks at least that many turned out it's not not a great showing as you say but at least with the weather had it's not not terrible okay seemed like there were more people wandering in though I know it did seem like it was busy at times so but yeah okay thank you good thanks thanks to you and all your team and everybody for doing all the counting Etc so okay anybody else open time all right if not I see if we don't mind um I see two candidates in the audience that are two of our appointees so I'm going to make a a move to just put that a little bit ahead of the agenda here to do the appointments before we do the reports it won't take us too long and then if you have to leave I know you're juggling many things so if you have to leave um we can do that so I'm going to turn it over to let's see where we got it here hold on minut somewhere it's in my package wrong package so we have two appointments before us I'll I'll take one and I'll I'll turn on to Dan for the other one so first one Reggie green um is putting in his hat to uh be part of both the cost efficiencies committee and the finance committee and uh these would be shortterm uh the finance committee is an elected position so this would get you only until the election and then we have to take it from there and then the cost efficiencies committee itself actually right now it's termed goes until June but we hope to continue that but that until the term is ended that's that's what it is so regie why don't you come on up and just give us a couple words of your background and uh tell us why you're kind of interested and how you how you got to here so so we just moved to Southampton in September you live actually just give your name so we live h 8 gilf Farm Road okay so if anybody even knows there is a Gil Farm Road and we're the only house on it right now you're the first house on it first house another house is being built so there will be eight houses by the time we're done great so um we've lived in Vermont and New Hampshire for the past 35 years and uh I've retired from my career in banking in June sold our house in may actually and couldn't find anything until we bought this house in September it was that hard it was crazy um so I'm retired so I have I have time um I was a banker all those years my last uh stint was at as CEO of a bank in Claremont New Hampshire which is just up 91h uh we moved here because my wife's family is in hoio so her parents are still doing well and her two brothers live there and she and I met at UMass a long long time ago very good so great well thank you welcome thank you thank you for stepping up much appreciate it thank you yeah all right so with that uh we have um the appointment for two committees for finance and for cost efficiencies if someone would like to make a motion please I'll move the motion okay second all right so this is uh uh finance committee until May 21 2024 and cost efficiencies until June 30th 2024 okay all right all those in favor I I all right hearing no opposition motion approved welcome thank you all right I'll turn it over to you thank you uh we have Hazel Ortiz she's she's uh got the appointment from the Conservation Commission we had the opportunity as a Conservation Commission okay sorry oh yeah I always do that my apologies get it closer to you I'll just eat it start over yeah sorry starting over so um uh Hazel Ortiz um met with us part of the Conservation Commission she's she's um looking to join um the Conservation Commission uh was fully in support of her joining based on her experience and background we think we are more than lucky to have her um willing to to participate and help our to out so um with that um hazel would you like to say hi introduce yourself please great it's always good just to meet meet people and put names and faces together so great thank you both for coming I know you've had other schedules there so yeah thanks um hi thanks for having me my name is Hazel I live on 11 Cold Spring Road we just moved to Southampton last March from eastampton before that I lived in um EAS Massachusetts Lowel close to Boston um I'm very happy to be here this town is very much my speed it's beautiful and I given my work as a biologist and some of the thesis work I've done at UMass Amherst I think that the Conservation Commission would be a good fit mhm and you're currently at Fish and Wildlife yes yep I'm a fish and wildlife biologist I am not here representing them but I will use that experience to help uh conservation in this town as much as I can and one of your strong suits is invasives which we have many of them in South invasive plants invasive plants exactly we have many of them in town so yes I'm sure kcom will be pleased to uh have you help them out on various Trails Etc yeah very excited to tackle those I'm sure you will yeah okay right you absolutely all right and so Dan the appointment if I could have the honor to make the appointment of Hazel Ortiz the conservation commit uh commission uh for term to expire June 30th 2026 second all right all those in favor I all right hearing no opposition motion is approved have both of you and welcome and thank you especially both relative newcomers to town so thank you very very much for finding out about town Town business and willing to step up so thank you a lot so Chris just just they may want to know the pro the next steps yeah just one yeah 30 seconds have to do 30 seconds we want to put you right to work if Lucy is around the corner at the town clerk's office you just have to swear in before you can actually be at a meeting and and vote so that would be your next step so normally they get a communication from Judy yeah they would so but you'd have to come back in yeah once you get a communication but if Lucy happens to be there she might swear you tonight is right next door so you go take the old not yeah see if she's there if not you'll we'll send you a note from the Town administrator's office and then you can pop in next week sometime thank you guys all right thank you thank you for reminding me of that John um that's what I'm here for let's god let's move on all right so now to reports okay first one up Christina Council on Aging good evening everyone even though it's disconcerting because it's still light out so you don't realize it's evening um I haven't actually had the privilege of meeting a few of you in person so nice to meet you there um just a back a little background I started at the beginning of August so I'm still in my first year here um so were you guys able to get the report I this in our packages and I think probably you can just go through the highlights I mean don't don't read the all all of it please but give us the summary highlights and the various things that you'd like to bring to our attention that would be great okay um I will mention um more so for any public listening um that since August when I began we did change our hours that were open Monday through Thursday 8:30 to 4: it used to be 3:00 um but we are open um to 4: and our wheelchair lift van is still running Monday through Friday so um so there's been you know many changes um in the last 8 months um first of of course I became director um cuz Joan lenan retired ired the end of June um so it was a little break um and then I began um Kate Danto who was our previous volunteer coordinator actually took on the new role of Outreach worker that was a newly developed role um that was the decision was made to be funded by an the arpa fund so um she became our much needed Outreach worker um along the lines of Kate um she also went through long extensive training to become a shine counselor um which basically means she can she can counsel and help people with their Medicare questions and it's great to have someone inhouse that can do this and she's already met with at least 50 different people um so there clearly was a great need out in the community um Pam conet was also hired in October she's our new program coordinator um she has you know assisted in bringing new programming in and and really um you know became part of the team really quickly um and then finally our team our office team became complete in November when Amy sugahara began and she took over for the volunteer coordinator position that Kate was um and I'd be remiss to not mention we also have um an administrative assistant Darlene um mioca um um but to speak to Amy she's also succeeded in growing our volunteer pool um and it really did need to be looked at again um a lot of Corey checks going out because we do not recommend anyone without running that background check um and these are volunteers to help seniors at home so when I say volunteers um a portion of them volunteer straight at the center you know when we have events or vers and things but we also um are looking for volunteers that help older adults you know on a wide variety of you know homemaking tasks electrical you know outdoor work um and it's not cons and it's not under the assumption that there would be no cost to these services but it would be someone that we can at least say you know we ran a Corey check they've been they're licensed they're vetted and um they they have availability in their schedules to work with said people whether what they charge ultimately is or don't charge is ultimately up to them the business um so um the other big news um in November for um our senior center was we started a grab and go meal so we now serve Wednesday lunches um the lunch is Ser is provided by Highland Valley Elder Services um you know I would say it's about half of half and half that people stay at the center and eat and the other half maybe take it and you know go home and eat um we average about 40 people a week for that and it continues to grow and um it's great because we're seeing faces that we have not seen in the past and of course that's always a goal is to you know grow services to more people um so we have a lot going on um you know going on in the center a lot of different programming includ and we also have Hearing in foot clinics um Tex support appointments we have bus trips that we run um through actually this year will be Landmark travel um as well as monthly MGM van trips um we have a um let's see what else did I want to mention Senator someone from Senator vas's office or himself um but I will say I've not seen him so yet but someone from his office at least comes monthly um to our um Wednesday coffee hour and Michelle Murdoch who I believe is also speaking tonight um so she can speak to this of course um who's our she's our new veteran services agent has also begun a monthly veterans um coffee hour and that was very well received as well um on average we're looking at about 160 people uh a month and that's just capturing the people that sign into our system so that's not necessarily capturing all the Outreach appointments Kate has um um or people that are just coming in for one reason but don't officially sign up as a member but in terms of people that are actually kind of signing in there's a they get a little card and sign in at the door we're seeing about 160 um Unique Individuals for various classes and right for classes and programming and such um and then again um in addition to shine health insurance services we also offer help with housing fuel assistance snap applications we're involved in the Triad lockbox and house number programs um and as well as sand for seniors and I don't have the exact numbers but um all those programs have grown this past year when we've run them so um so just and then just to go over um we do rely very heavily on grants um we do have multiple grants going on um to be clear we don't receive any funding from the town budget that goes towards programming at the senior center so to rely on programing to be able to fund programming and services because we wouldn't be a really good ask Senior Center if we didn't have that part um we do um get money through the formula fund Grant through the Massachusetts executive office of Elder Affairs so we rely heavily on that um as I mentioned the Outreach worker is all is funded by an arpa Grant it's only due to cover her position for maybe another two years so that is an issue of we'll need to find another funding source because it's been made very clear that she's you know a necessity um and we've reached a lot of you know additional people um we've also received two service incentive grants this year which is also through that Massachusetts um office of Elder Affairs um one was given to fund six um memory caf we've held two of them this year and the other is to expand um Outreach and marketing um and included in the money for that Grant we were able to purchase a laptop for Kate our Outreach worker because she had previously been having to use her personal laptop which I'm sure we can all agree is is not an ideal situation um and then finally just we also received three cultural Southampton cultural Council grants um this year that will go towards special programming so we're um always appreciative of that because I know they get many more requests than they have funding so um the biggest news of the last six months um was of course that the Council on Aging received um $2.4 million check from the state of David red Parsons um who you know for those not aware who generously left in his will money to go towards building a new Senior Center um and a senior center building committee has been formed and and hopefully in in this year land will be purchased and we all recognize this will be a a long you know a multi-year process but we are um trying to get started and and that was huge news that we at least received that money um I just wanted to mention um really quickly not in the sense to complain so do not misunderstand um but just to explain that two of our difficulties and the past few months have been technology and the lack of programming space um now the the technology part is starting to get much better so we've made some progress in just the last week so I will say that um but we have not had computers for everyone that work Works in our department um many of them do not have profiles to log into a computer so even if they went to someone else's computer they can't log in under themselves so they're having to use again not to go into too much detail but they're having to use other people's profiles which defeats the purpose of the security um and then a few people are still waiting for email addresses so I mention that cuz it has affected our work and what we can accomplish but um we are starting to attack some of those issues and then the space issue um is just an on is just an ongoing um you know well an ongoing issue that we we have more programming and services we want to offer and we just don't have the space and we're already at that this we're not even talking a year in the future we're talking now um there's disruption there's overlapping there's there's a lot of things we can't hold that we would absolutely want to be holding and a lot of services we don't have space to meet with people that we'd absolutely want to you know meet with so and part of that is because you've got one large room so that's a huge part of it right right so the space even it would actually be great if there was even just a wall where it made it two rooms but um it's it's a nice big one room if you just need but you can't have multiple things going on so um so and then so the goals um for 2024 which are going to remain our goals um is to increase overall membership which as I just said does start to contradict because of some of the is space issues but we still want to increase overall membership and most importantly the number of older adults that we are reaching out to um and that doesn't mean people that necessarily come in to the senior center but that we are helping and assisting in some way so that is our goals um and I just wanted to thank the select board they have always been very um um supportive of the COA and me in particular as a new employee here um and even Scott who's only been here a couple weeks I can say that he he has been a driving force actually about getting us some IT issues so he gets a special shout out so thank you um very much anybody have any questions comments nope just yeah Dan yeah I was going to bring up you mentioned the technology and the liais on to the technology committee so I wanted to kind of probe that a little bit more and see if there's some ways that we can help Okay um so it sounds like you need more computers right um have you filed a capital request for that we didn't for technology we went a different route in what we applied for that for you have enough computers now with a grant right so with the new laptop that we were able to purchase yes it's been a matter of getting everything Ed because there's been nothing right the typical situation with novice and getting everything set up for new new employees right but the the infrastructure is there we just need to get it all set up but at least it's made some Headway yes yes which I which I said from the beginning we're definitely making progress but um yeah it it's just B you know I very much appreciate that at this point it it it basically relies on Novis getting all of this set up up M we do have that contract in place with them now so should be supporting us y yes no we we we had someone to ourselves for half a day last week and it was glorious of course there was we never could get everything done in a half a day but we made a big chunk so good just one clarification for people that may be listening you mentioned the arpa grant just the Outreach worker funded by that just for people knowing that that's not the arpa money that we've all been talking about at select board but this was special money that was an ear Mark through Senator Ellis's office that correct right okay you're right yes thank you so that's where that's getting used from so that's great that's what has a limit to it so we need to think ahead about how we're going to I think it's all got to be spent probably by 26 I think yeah right somewhere in there so yeah good all right and in terms of the other one was programming space you brought that up the other one was programming space that you brought up yes um is there what I guess is it is particularly for events or is it more for like meeting one-on-one meetings like what kind of space honestly both but I guess at this point I'd say events affects the most people for sure um because there's overlap and then they're not quiet the next group and so even when we we don't book things at the same time if they're stacked um it also causes a lot of trouble um and then there's just things we have to say no to that for any for not for any I mean we would be able to do it otherwise but we just don't have the space um I will say that there there's times that we overflow into this room assuming of course it's not booked um I'm not sure how all of you feel about the use of that cuz I understand it's not the senior center but um especially if we're holding like a special oneof event there but we don't want to have to cancel everything else we try to have it held had like Spanish class or something for example right I see no problem with using any space in the town building maybe we can set up a way for you to reserve the space like uh some type of Outlook based um room be wonderful system and so you can know when other groups are planning on using those no that would be Absolut yeah that would be great only able to do that through my.gov to see what what rooms are booked you know between here's conference room but maybe we can work out a better calendar somehow to make it that would be great we should use it good thanks Christina much appr all right thank you very much all right all right next up Johanna in the library please hi good evening good evening Johanna Rodriguez Douglas I am the director at the Edwards public library and I'm ay accompanied by Jessica huffnagle and Pax huffnagle future select board member and Christen Deano also a member of our trustees great uh thank you for the opportunity to discuss the Edward Edwards public libraries work in 2023 24 and our plans for the future um I've been the director since November of 2022 and before that I was the youth librarian for 8 and a half years and there are folks who may wonder do we need a library when access to everything is at our fingertips didn't the pandemic change our world to a purely digital one aren't libraries just for small children and the answer to these questions is yes no and oh no no in fact we need libraries more than ever to vet information to provide access and Equity to all members of the community and indeed to create Community we pride ourselves in this work and in our ability to adapt to Changing Times and needs the use of the Edwards public library and its circulation far from decreasing is rising our statistics show that we are averaging 168 more circulations each month this year from last year our meeting room is in high demand and we host a slew of weekly programs for all ages from story times to craft clubs to book clubs author events inspirational speeches paint Nights wine tasting we are more than a building we are a Vibrant Community Resource just ask our patrons volunteers and staff so budget spending and concerns we have to answer to our patrons the town the select board but we also have to answer to the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners the mblc as many of you know we have a mandate from the state of Massachusetts to maintain the municipal appropriation requirement called the M um I have a letter here that explains it do you mind if I approach and give you all a coffee we should yeah have yeah I think it's be it's a complicated thing is the Mr thank you thank you thanks thank [Music] you thanks sorry Scott not for familiar with so you have that and so we don't have to sort of go over the issues about it unless you want to ask me anything so in response to the town's laudable desire to bring our salaries in line with other municipalities I have presented a budget with an increase of 3% for staff this brings our budget up by just over $5,000 we went from 19043 to 195 433 in order to keep the M stable I chose to freeze or even decrease other lines in my initial proposal our maintenance and expense lines are based on how much we actually spent last year in my current proposal however due to Rising price and inflationary pressures I would ask that our maintenance and expense stay level funded and that our actual budget be 195 933 um which I can talk to you more about due to the increases in our circulation I have also added more time for substitute Librarians on Saturdays we are swamped a typical Saturday we're open for 3 and 1/2 hours and have over 500 circulations and 62 patrons a long-term goal so imagine some people are taking out 50 items at a time Steven so a long-term goal is to fund another Saturday position so that three Librarians would be present and plus it's just safer safer uh priorities activities there are pressing maintenance priorities which I presented as capital expenditures earlier this year so for example pump two of our septic system needs to be replaced we were fortunate that when pump one was hit by lightning the repair was covered by insurance but for pump to we may not be so lucky our conference room is in constant use and last year the conference room was used 156 times this year will be more so after 30 years the room needs a Fresh coat of paint and the rug is worn and soiled we are not presenting our best face to the Committees and boards that use this room so I presented details about that capital expenditure request also in the cic packet I met with the ad hoc Tech committee about the purchase of a media center that would make our room more userfriendly and modern so how do we the library show our good faith to the citizens last July we received $10,000 to update the lights in the fac facility unfortunately that process has been delayed and Chris can give few details about that process but per the terms of the Grant I need to use that money by May 31st our interior and exterior lights are inefficient and add to the cost of our utilities our youth librarian Andrea laclair also just received another $10,000 grant for a sensory garden for children and adults who have sensory processing autism and developmental delays but also for everyone who would benefit from such a garden including those with Dementia or Alzheimer's our friends group works hard with fundraising events like our big book sale and bake sale in May and they provide the friends provide free or discounted passes to local museums internet service including the Wi-Fi and the library and they also host interesting and fun events for the library so in short we do work to use our resources wisely and to find money in 2026 the building will be 30 years old I appreciate the effort that Southampton has made to maintain the facility and hope that we can continue to preserve it the Youth Department continues to work with the collaborative to bring educational story times and play times to our youngest patrons we host Lego clubs and special events like the Halloween party the Valentine's Day tea this year 42 children came to tea to enjoy the mermaid princess the special guest and in June our summer reading program will kick off with an interactive African drumming Circle last year's program uh broke records by registering 220 children so Personnel Staffing updates we are fortunate to have a Brain Trust of staff and volunteers who love the library I am grateful to have met and hired Andrea lir last April and for my many many years of working with Lisa Shay and Emily mska we added Gina Terell to our substitute librarian list this year as I noted earlier I am delighted that Southampton is actively trying to raise staff salaries our dedicated staff deserves it in January our longtime cataloger and friend I call her librarian emerita Carol goule completed her Grant to upload and preserve southampton's historical documents the library pays for and maintains the historical resources of Southampton website and the physical documents that tell southampton's story plans and events for the next four to 6 months so along with facilitating our monthly book club I will continue to work on our long range plan and this will enable us to compete for more grants I'm also working with Barbara golden on her author event March 26th with the friends on the community donation day April 20th with meline Hunter on her Memoir writing Workshop in May and with Scott Maloney on his LCC sponsored event I am on May 30th I've also been in contact with the Norris school about starting an English conversation Circle for parents and caregivers of elll students at Norris School the goals of the program would be better cultural understanding of events greater understanding of material andent home and greater ability to assist children with their homework I am also working with all Hampton's Reed on a series of events in support of the amazing book Master Slave husband wife by Ilan woo we will be hosting how it worked here an evening of Underground Railroad history focusing on Western Massachusetts the special event will be April 4th the 56th anniversary of Dr King's assassination then we will launch into summer reading the library has a total of 39365 total Holdings downloadable ebooks and audio circulated 29,40 times in 2023 we received 6,942 items from other libraries we lent out 5,923 items to other libraries and along with accessing that historical resources of Southampton from our website a user can go to the find it tab on our website and there they have access to a world of information about history art science a vast Trove of Articles uh many specially vetted for children I often sent children there in 2022 the system added legal forms to the site I had a call just today about um landlord tenant issue to look at the site these forms uh include real estate Wills health care and have been used and accepted in Massachusetts in 2023 Heritage Quest was added to the site so that patrons can do free genealogical research and all these resources are available free of charge thank you great thank you thank you all right questions thank you any questions yeah very impressive yeah oh thank you no and I I one thing just back on your lighting so just just for Scott so one of the four projects we presented through the green communities is um some upgrading of the lighting um and so hopefully we'll get some answers from the Department of Revenue soon because there are four projects that we've presented through that program uh that are showing from eversource's point of view that we would meet some Energy savings and and uh they're sitting with do to approve and hopefully we can push a couple buttons and make that happen sooner so that we can get that done but one of the projects one of the four is for the library and then just to say thanks for this this thing on the M I know every year we go through budget it's always a confusion as to where you have to be per you know state regulations in terms of percentage of of your budget Visa the the State Association so we will keep this paper handy right that that has that little um that little box gives the summary of it thanks again I think actually well I have both of you here what we're planning on so far you can jot it down on March hello what day are we may maybe that could be May no March March 21 I think uh John right is our next uh finance committee meeting I believe we set we would try to do fincom on March 21 which is a Thursday and so we're planning on trying to do a joint meeting and then have COA and um library and probably Board of Health if you would like to come and present your budgets to both the finance and select board at the same time so you wouldn't have to do two separate meetings so we we'll get a note out about that get yeah not but March 21st is the date we have penciled in right now Jessica just reminded me and just for the record I just wanted to thank Lucy Dalton um I had forgotten to thank Lucy she included uh library card applications in the census mailing and we um were able to make I think about 95 new library cards over the past month very good thank you all right good thank you appreciate it all right very good okay I don't think Mich Michelle is here did you get any written thing from Michelle okay all right so right now we don't have our veterans agent report but if she should show up we'll we'll fit her in okay thank you guys all right much appreciated very thorough reports okay so with that let's go on down to Scott and a Town Administrator report your very first one so take it away tell us what you'd like thank you um so it is the first one but if there's any changes or suggestions or formats that you'd like to see in the future just let me know and I can I can adjust accordingly so I do want to try maybe a few new things going forward and see um see how it goes so um I'd also like a opportunity to meet with everyone individually um depending on what your schedule is so I don't know if I can reach out to you and um email you and or maybe after the meeting I can just get a few dates and and times what's what's best for everybody yeah would be great yeah sure um the town accountant and I we were able to attend the financial forecast on February 29th that was prevented by presented by do and the DLS um that was actually a pretty uh intensive training um about going over the spreadsheets and Cherry sheets and 10 years of data and inputting it so um Bradley knows a little bit more about it than me uh but it was still a good training so but it was it was worthwhile oh yeah AB that's great I think that's the first time they've actually offered that to my knowledge in quite a quite a long time if ever I'm not sure but I'm glad we the timing was just just right even though it was your for your very first week here but yeah uh we did have a little bit of issues with the phones from March 1st to the 4th so in case you got any complaints or anything um they are back and operational um thankfully but after the phones were put back online uh we did have some Network and ethernet access problems for a couple of days uh I was able to kind of get everyone at least back online um just by logging into our spotty Wi-Fi network um so that was a temporary fix but eventually I was able to um get novas out and they corrected the problem so um we were kind of it was kind of um down for a couple days so it was a little bit touch and go and part of that was due to our old server kind of getting toward the end of its life right y yeah uh so that brings me to the good point is uh Novis is going to be out this weekend to do a transfer of our old server to the new server and that's going to include um changing to Microsoft 365 uh all the accounts everyone's going to have access to that um I've been working with art Art's been able to send out a lot of advisory uh notices and we're going to really have to do maybe some in-person training uh for 365 uh coming up but they're going to be um initially the file transfer is going to be this weekend and they're going to be in town hall um all day mon in case anyone can't access their files or emails get deleted or whatever happens so printer support is another big one um so it should be an interesting Monday uh but I think everything will go pretty smoothly they've done hundreds and thousands of of the transition so um I was able to attend the MMA legislative breakfast in hoyo on Friday uh it was a good meet and greet with our state delegation as well as a lot of the uh local Town administrators and SE board members and town manager so uh that was worthwhile um I did meet with um our town moderator Robert Floyd uh on Monday just to go over uh an introduction and and go over town meeting and get a little bit of History um so that was very helpful uh KP law was able to send over the purchase and sale for 89 Clark Street as well as some of the draft language for the warrant and article it was circulated to the um Senior Center building committee so we received some feedback for that um also talk to Amanda Lewis who's Mass Trails director and she was able to give me uh overview of all the grants that South Anthem has received and the necessary steps for an extension which I'll be drafting a letter and coming back to select board for it's a relatively simple um thing um I was able to go to the parks meeting Senior Center building commiss committee public safety building committee Conservation Commission uh Greenway committee Community preservation and the Council on Aging and I still need to um go to the library Board of Trustees uh planning board I believe is next week and there's a couple others I I are still outstanding Board of Health and Board of Health y couple of others probably I did missed the um ad hoc last night techology um the other meeting went a little bit long but I I did try to log on but um and then I did attach the property list of um taxes um that was from last meeting yeah um in the packet and I'll try to get it out earlier along with the um rest of the information but um uh did just include a invitation to pardon me this is rural in western Mass conflex thank you I lost my copy um thank you uh so if anyone's interested in registering please let me know um I also included just some updated language for the uh the charter language U the original um language that was in your package for Section 626 um was missing just a few sections and I transcribed it so that's the whole uh the whole um Telecommunications Act okay we'll probably get get to that when we get to that agenda item yeah I think on the rural and western Mass conference this is not until April 27th but it's here in Northampton and an goby is the new um uh director of rural Affairs uh out of the governor's office and she would be a good person to get to know a little bit I've met her only once um but somebody we can look toward for Grant support and various other things so uh there is a little bit of cost to it so we should put in our names via Scott and then uh Judy can work on registering whoever wants to go as a group so um not a problem anybody that would like to go just get your name in and we will get it done sounds great okay any other comments questions no but no nope no okay I I think the one thing yeah we'll we'll go back on the um that tax list and just see what we really wanted to get there there may be some other information we might need to get from that just to understand that in terms of uh delinquent taxes and whatever there might be out there for collection okay good thank you Scott appreciate it we will take that as a first one and keep on moving all right any uh just some select board reports does anybody had any particular meetings this week Dan yeah the so I the technology committee has been mentioned a number of times tonight um we did have a meeting yesterday um one of the things that was brought up is we now have novice as our it provider for the town so we have that contract in place which should help as we encounter these issues in the future um also we discussed the phone system in town and getting a more direct access and contact list for probably for you Scott so that if an event were to occur again it can be addressed more quickly um we we also talked about the Municipal Light plant that um those requests for information have gone out to both the South Hadley hoolio fiber provider as well as Westfield so we had they have until the end of the month to provide a response at which point the technology committee will review those and provide uh a u a guidance to the select board who will make the final decision as to which one we move forward so okay good and have about K oh yeah you're there now sorry one I I thought I was done I apologize uh so yes we we were able to um get hazel teas was able to meet with us which was great um we we had a number of discussions about um the uh projects in town um one thing that's interesting that's coming up is we have a project to clear out invasives coming up so um that is forward progress and also at the Clark house the uh Clark property um there's there was a proposal to put in a um a stream crossing bridge so that that's moving forward um and uh yeah I think that's about all I need to report out on that good just a quick question on know do you know anything about the um there's the bridge over at manhatt Meadows that's got to be that was part of the one of the mass Trails grants that may be running toward an end I think it goes until December the grant does from what I understood from Diana fedman but that one got delayed forever because of waiting for a river permit which finally came so is there progress so that was something uh was a topic back when I first started on the Conservation Commission for a while M yeah so is that can you hear me okay is that is that getting Eclipse between my two favorite Ladies sorry table I don't know what we can do it's more we just yeah we need especially interested and anxious about this topic so the bridge right is that what you're talking about because they had a design I believe done on it and so forth and everything had just been delayed but yes they do have a grant from Mass trails that needs to be used by a certain amount of time and there's a certain season where they can actually get down there absolutely so summer sure that they're on top would be prime time for that um so speak about the state of the contract for technical design on the bridge that we can put out to RFP no I don't know enough to talk about that at this point it's something I can look into miscommunications between our temporary revolving staff yeah and the yeah no this in this case uh the engineers and I think somebody needs to be persistent yeah it was an issue was the Consultants was it a topic on the agenda it it was but this is obviously my first meeting in attendance and um just trying to get up to speed with everything else so um I I'll definitely um I would check with the the chair to make sure she's aware that the and I know um Grant is coming yeah what little I had heard I got from the associate member Diana fedman uh who had been managing the grant part of it um so but I assume a conservation agent is dealing with some of this as well good all right well Diana's inquiry and and mine as well prompted a brief exchange that re clarified where we were stuck okay and that's the better part 6 weeks ago okay all right well now we will have some new energy here and we can keep things moving forward EXC all right thanks yeah I'll have a fuller report next time just see what what we know about it yeah just a little bit of back back storye an exact date for when it's that Grant is oh the grant date exact date yeah I'm fairly sure it's December I I thought it might be June and that was what what was worrying me cuz a lot of the pay attention right yes the homework is due there's another sticky Wicked the work can only be performed During certain season so you have to have the bridge so they can't put out to bid ordered delivered sounds like a a timeline would be a nice thing to have or to put in place so we'll get that right yeah and I think the um yeah that's fine I think the the issue with mass Trails is that this particular Grant had already gotten an extension because of the delay with the river's permit so yeah whether Mass Trails would be we make it move amable to another one might be questionable so the need to be moving on it would be great it's going happen good thank you Joy assume you may not have had anything or am I assuming wrong oh you are assuming correctly I am back now thank you for everyone for filling in the gaps I appreciate welcome back welcome back all right Stephen uh I don't think I have anything to add planning board anything nothing no planning board will be meeting later this week okay um that's the cycle you mentioned Board of Health coming up assessors we've heard and will speak more about a key and tax title um i' I'd add for the assessment is that uh I sure hope we have several good candidates running for those positions because um I think we presently have three members and one is not the chair is not running for reelection and mo your mic is hiding behind your that's fine yeah so yeah is three members and would be down to two with a expiration so okay that's really important yep uh next time we meet I'll have a lot more all right sounds good all right John so like stepen most of my meetings are kicking off tomorrow and running till the next one but I continue to meet uh bi-weekly or I'm sorry weekly with the um all district committee subcommittee that sole focus is to U direct and oversee any oversight of central office within the school district that needs to be done and implemented given and all the changes that are happening and meeting the budget uh guidelines secondly um that's coupled with a meet with a by every Friday every other Friday meeting with Desi to make sure that we are on task um I'll just again Desi Department of Education y sorry um with Desi and the representative that's assigned to us is is one of their Deputy directors Jay Sullivan who is um a plain spoken individual which I appreciate uh when someone ask the question well if we don't have a business administrator um in place and overlapped what are you going to do are you going to come in and take over the district financially and his answer was I'll answer that by telling you I'm going to turn around the mirror and say what are you going to do because if you don't have an answer we're going to tell you what you're going to do and you're going to pay for it so you know we have in theory March 18th is our line mhm to get the get the regional budget done and then we have our own bylaw that says Norris's budget needs to be done submitted by April 1st okay yeah next tomorrow night school committee is meeting to in theory approve their final budget I have yet to see it okay so I have very low hopes that there is a budget and I think we're still quick me if I'm wrong Scott but I think we're still waiting on dialogue between Mickey and Bradley to be able to close you know to reconcile some of the deficiencies with the school budget yeah I think I think in the best interest is if Bradley has detail needs that he needs that he should be sending um me as chair of the subcommittee not as select board member but so use my school committee address um a list of that so that I can get them into the system and get them to the right folks okay I um not to go too far into it but Mickey is currently on um emergency leave for a family member issue s so we lot of ples going yeah I mean I know we had gotten our extension to be able to close our books but we definitely don't want to go to the nth degree to you know I'd rather close them early rather than wait till the last minute if we can but we're waiting on some reconciliations I think and I don't know that we need to talk about tonight but actually on the 21st when we meet with the finance in a joint session we should probably without having the school in here we should probably spend 10 minutes talking about what exactly a 112th yeah budget is under State statue and MH y understanding that so that we can collectively be on the same page right okay good perfect thank you all right um nothing in particular on the grant committee at the present time so um we'll leave it at that the we'll be talking a little bit on the public safety and the Senior Center building committee's uh updates uh as we go along so I'll forego any further detail on that until we get to the points and Scott and I can share information on both of those committees since uh in his first week he managed to attend a number of committee meetings which is which is great I mean it's a good maybe a little bit of an overload but it was at least a chance to be able to meet people and just get a sense of what kind of issues the various committees are discussing so much appreciate you're making the time to to hang out and do that many of them were like six o' meetings and a couple of them I know went a little bit late so uh anyway all right let's uh move on to new business action kinds of item items um some of the same old ones that are there we kind of keep them on here to keep them on till we kind of finish them I guess really so not sure if they're new business or they're pending business but we will call them what they are Colin Center classification update so the update on what's going on with our job descriptions and so forth so turn I'll turn over to Scott yeah so we over the last couple days we were able to kind of consolidate everything that we've had back from the department heads uh we able to send over uh most of the job descriptions to the Colin Center still you know a couple that are are left over that we're trying to track down um I did have some contact with Lindsey Katz who's the uh the Colin senate representative and uh I'm going to have to follow up with her make sure she's got all everything that she needs for job descriptions and hopefully um push her to get it done as soon as possible so they should have everything um that they need to do their report and we just have to be waiting for their final report yeah well and even you know even I think if we don't have their final report yet but at least at least if we have some level of the the understanding I think of the compensation scale and you know per the different grades and so forth so you know as we proceed with budget meetings we can be able to plug in some of those those figures and just understand where we are with our current wages and I wonder if a wa because part of this is is I'm assuming the chair has it but maybe the chair has but if chair has none the rest of us have seen any of these drafts and the tables that have been alluded to so giving that whatever product is finally developed is going to cause us to be subject to uh bargaining with non-union members can't can't we have an executive session to see what a draft at least get an update without it being public of the of the what of the job descriptions or the well cuz what I heard at the last meeting is that the pay SC the draft scales are already available to us I have not seen them no but Ed made reference to when the question came up of a water technician what was the range of that he gave out a what he thought was a range I assume it was coming from that report I don't know and I didn't want to ask the question in a public session I don't know I don't know that okay but um if if a draft of the scales does exist or when it does exist I I think we and if you want to check with KP law but I I think we could have an executive session to look at it pending its release yeah okay yeah and we we'll get to that in terms of you know future meetings here right and that might just help us when we get to the whole budget process yeah I'm thinking we're going to need to have a an executive session probably our next meeting two weeks out for a couple of other reasons anyway so we may just add it to that agenda but yeah so at this point in time I have not seen any kind of a compensation scale uh at all but that's you know while we're waiting for the full report of how the process went and what their recommendations are you know hopefully we'll be able to get something from Lindsay or whomever's on our case over there okay thanks appreciate you sticking on that one Scott it's been a long process and we're all anxiously waiting as our the town employees um okay uh assessor principal assessor and assistant up um admin assistant update I think all I know is that those positions were posted and the timing should be just about finished if it's not already finished I think they were posted around the 26th of February something like that so their their posting time is up and then should there be candidates um or if not they need to still come back before pqb I think John and I think they plan on meeting Thursday night okay right uh there's an assessor meeting I think I saw that on the 14th there's an assessor meeting I believe so in theory if they took it up we could then PPP could take it up on Wednesday the 20th okay um that would there's still time to it's probably if it's not on the agenda there's time to get it on the agenda though yeah um assessors is meeting at 9:00 in the morning on March 14th so hello y according to this anyway so yes so if they can manage to do whatever they need to do with any other candidates that have come in or whatever if there haven't been but they basically have to update at least the PCF so we need pcfs to go to pqb pqb all these wonderful acronyms we need Personnel change forms to go to the Personnel policies procedures board um to sign off on again so if there's hopefully they've got the right number of hours and whatever they're going be recommending for for a salary um QB is what they need to produce no that's the committee that's the committee what is the document PCF PCF for the individual hire for for both the assessor and the admin assist yeah right because the prf is the requisition right the sees the charge yeah so if if they have their chosen candidates then they just have to I think we had a PCF at one point in time but it had all the you know the hours were yeah Etc so just to do a good clean one that we all know what we're talking about um for that meeting um so that if assessors meet on the 14th and can get that done that's good timing for pqb on the 20th and then that can move very speedily thereafter us on the 26th yeah yep that would be good timing okay or potentially we could we could take it up on the 21st during the special meeting if it's one those things sure yep okay all right uh Senior Center building committee update so so Scott I think uh you mentioned a couple things but I'll I'll just mention a couple things that I know we the perk test was done over at 89 Clark Street that's the property that they've been looking at for a long time that seems to have gone quite well from what we know and the Board of Health as far as I know the health agent um was okay with all of that um there is an appraisal ongoing which should be back by next week early next week I think uh from the uh from the appraisers and then we had uh Scott had already reached out to KP law to try and draft a an article for the town meeting Warren about the acquisition of the property but then also they've done a draft of a purchase and sale you said which has just come in so the SE the building committee hasn't seen it yet it just came in this afternoon right so fantastic okay so that's moving along so there may be some some things that we have to still look at obviously but it's still in draft form but at least things are moving I think in in good shape and then there will be a at some point there'll need to be a title search and all that kind of thing but that's you know not not immediate before we get to town meeting can you refresh my memory what are we planning to use as the funding source the estate for David Parsons so that's just the acquisition that's all they're talking about now is the acquisition of the property and then it's the whole building thing is not yet on on the table so it's just getting the the properties right no I'm I'm just checking we're not we're not looking for a debt exclusion over by just the property that money is coming from the from the will from the estate yep so all of that you know per you know guidance from KP law and mgl process in terms of land acquisition uh Scott's come up with a a bit of a checklist I guess of the various things that we need to follow and get done so I think we're moving along fairly well um on that one so there's a lot of things kind of in draft that the Senior Center building committee needs to to take a look at and um you know make some decisions I make sure that's all that they're talking about too um but I don't know if there's anything else you want to add to that okay all right some of the chapter 30 intergovernmental notice Provisions have extremely long timelines MH U this is 30-year-old information when I did Acquisitions for the state of Massachusetts and um it beveled our schedules because it was statuto and if you sought a waiver you could sometimes get the body to wave the complete clock uh but um often times people forgot to ask oh yeah good to know yeah no I think I think so far this seems one like it's this is a little bit easier one y it's not as time pressure compared to the other one 30b we can seek a waiver for all that because it's specific land so yeah okay Public Safety building committee um Scott you want to take that one a little bit um well that one's changing by the hour that one's changing by the hour yeah um so yeah the um public safety building committee they met and they were reviewing some of the um the information that they wanted to distribute going over the videos that uh video tours uh so I guess that's on track um one of the big questions is the acquisition of land um so we do have an raisal out for the land um and the owner of the U the zero College Highway has committed to doing a survey of that I guess the the sliver or the um the carve out of the donation plus the commercial property and that's going to be um hopefully by the 20th of this month um so it's getting very close to town meeting so if um you know we have to have conversations about whether our due diligence is going to be complet by a town meeting or not and um and I think the other thing that that that survey will do is to then um have them bring it to planning board for an anr cuz that parcel if it's cut out that way it's got to come for an anr y um so that will be a matter of you know whenever the timing is for planning board on that but that's at least starting to move forward I think our challenge is more do we go for you know given the group meeting that we had where we were all pretty much interested on the bigger bigger parcel you know what makes sense in terms of how we proceed um we know that there's a lot more to do if we get the bigger parcel and whether we can pull that off by the the regular town meeting I think personally I think is a bit questionable um and it may be better to have it for a special town meeting a couple months later when we've got all of our ducks in a row on that one and just understand what El involved because that really will require more more work I think to can you can you um can you have a vote to acquire land only at a special town meeting I thought there was I thought that was one of the things that were you were excluded from doing a special town meeting not to have it at special town meeting yet well there are certain things that you can only do at town meeting because you you can't like post a nose and sneak something in it's got to be at the end and I thought land acquisition was one of them but maybe not we will certainly double check that with KP we haven't heard otherwise yet but we'll double check that because I think you know part of our challenge is what we were debating along with the public engagement strategies that the committee is going through by the way Quiz 2 is out on the website so if anybody hasn't taken the quiz yet uh take quiz too uh but they're working on a video uh they're working on a flyer uh and a FAQ that will be on the website so they're trying to get some data together and and get that out we'll be doing some tours at the police and the fire station too and make those dates known once we get a little bit more um precise on that the challenge I think is is trying to figure out you know do we go ahead and carve out the donated property and this Frontage commercial lot which is the excess which is what we need because we don't want to accept a landlock parcel and that would allow us to keep on moving independently irrespective of whatever happens with the bigger parcel because what we've faced in many cases is we might have something that goes well at town meeting but then fails at The Ballot Box so if we all you know if we went for the bigger ball black shall we say to go for only the the big parcel have a good town meeting on it but it may not pass The Ballot Box Public Safety complex is sitting there with nothing yet again so we've decided to have a two-prong strategy and kind of parallel um both of these things um to make them happen so we'll have two separate articles at some point we just have to figure out if we can get everything we need that's sufficient enough to make some decisions on by the May town meeting it's going to be a push um but we'll see how much we can get done so we'll have more on that next week but that was probably one of the things that I think public safety building committee has requested that we have a joint meeting with them and so that's why I'd like to do that on the 26 we'd probably have an executive session with them to go through some of this um on the 26th March 26 yeah our regular meeting will just add an exact session on that okay Madam chair yes please you've done an excellent job setting out the rationale from from the perspective of the public safety building um Mission uh and the considerations about how to approach the land owner um given what they've expressed and what the town knows its needs but um I think it's a policy choice not a question of can we have enough information um because I think that having enough information You could argue it both ways which is the simple acquisition buy the whole thing or have a custom cut that still has to be permitted and made legally available be that as it may I think that the policy discussion really needs to be joined and I ask who's speaking for the nonpublic safety interest in that parcel since you say they're running parallel who's speaking for those well basically the the bigger partial is up to select board at this point in time and after we had that joint sorry after we had that joint meeting I hate these tables after we had that joint meeting the idea was that there was no real opposition from the various committees and commissions that were present at that that we should try to pursue that so that's why that's certainly still on the table um so yeah I mean it's select board that needs to weigh in in terms of what we think that's going to mean and we need to have a good discussion and talk about financial implications all sorts of things that go with that and so that's why I'd like to bring that up on the 26th as part of a discussion with with Public Safety but also adding on select board's perspective for the pros and cons of the bigger the bigger thing and the timing of that how would you like the select board to get up to speed to engage on the 26th good question do you have some thoughts I mean we've got some some documents that we would probably have to get ready to show people I don't know that we would have we haven't uh we would have the I would volunteer to work with the Town Administrator on this channel in as much as you've got obligations on the public safety building committee okay and that policy choice will inevitably be intention yeah we would have so by then we should have may or may not have the appraisal on that one it's going to be close always subject to appraisal tight on that always subject so all you know as we put together articles for the town meeting a lot of things can be you know subject to contingent upon however we word that I think we can do the technical stuff what we need to do is get it distilled to a point where we can communicate to the public what correct it is true that is true so we we'll have a couple of pieces of documentation by by that meeting but um the survey and maybe the anr we should have but other than that we may not have a lot of other stuff yet we wouldn't have done well we need to decide if we're going to go forward then do we do a purchase and sale get that ready now you know all those kinds of things it takes a bit of time because right now that's a a lengthier process I mean this one moved pretty quickly on uh College um sorry Clark Street but this other one you know does require a bit more detail I think so so yeah I think Stephen we'll take you up on your offer and we'll we'll work together with Scott and figure out how we can pull something together on that okay great thank you so all right that's about all we know right now but just to say we're the public safety building committee is working diligently we're meeting weekly uh trying to work on public engagement strategies so there will be things to uh to listen and hear about and uh visit on our website so all right next up Scott uh Charter Spectrum contract renewal I think you handed out something that was an addendum to just we're not ready to act on this yet it was just informational anyway it was just informational it's just the um the the um it was section 626 that they reference in their library and their letters you're just aware of it so there is a process um that we can take either formal informal um okay so this researching that so this defined the the mjl section yeah more clearly okay for for us yeah since none of us knew what that was all about so thank you for researching that so this will'll have to put I don't know when um when we have to make a decision on this I'm forgetting what was the um I think we have 6 months to start engaging Charter okay so we go out put this up to bid no we can't hear you down here I mean just talk louder how do we put this up to bid to other companies besides Charter um the process is a little bit different than that so it's it's essentially I I still have to research it there's a lot more research but there's not trying to put you on spot you have to go through a process where we evaluate their customer service and technology and whether or not they've upheld their part of the agreement then we could move forward with canceling the agreement and they have an appeals right to that so uh sounds good let's do it it's a pretty yeah and it may be that we would have to have a public hearing not sure in terms of you know getting the Public's you know input in terms of their service with with Charter Etc so that would there's a bit more that probably has to be done there but as long as we're not under the gun to get something done within the next month or so that's that's fine we just know that we have to keep it on the list so we'll we'll keep it under the old business line or something going forward so that we you know we know we've got to act on it but so for what it's worth I I for one would support going in a completely different direction uh now that we've create done the process of creating our own Municipal Light plant I say we actually take over M the whole process and then award a franchise to one of our abing Municipal power companies mhm which then does require the purchasing of all the wires and telephone poles and all that section but I think we need to take it over and put it back on at least explore the idea put it back under our control and looking just at the rates of what hoyo does and Westfield does um I I got to think financially it would be worthwhile at some point and if and sorry Chris and if we're going down the we with fiber optics anyways right no and I I think that's where you know that's why I was hoping we didn't have to act too quickly because the the RFI has gone out to both whip City and um hoot Gas and Electric shed um to get some information or proposal in from them in terms of what it would be to to help us move forward in terms of the poll study and all of that kind of stuff and get an you know an idea but it includes electricity or is the scope strictly related to internet right now correct me if I'm wrong Dan is it just Broadband or did it include electricity I mean MLP the MLP is just for fiber for internet I should say Broadband just for fiber right now I guess okay so we'll at least have that we should have that back in before the end of the month thereabouts too so we'll at least have something to work on from that point of view at least as we start thinking about that versus Charter and as we go forward but once we do a charter if we did a charter one I mean this has still got another three years to go I think so yeah this is still got three years on this one it's a 10-year agreement but it take us that long to get ready they know us so yeah so they came out really quickly uh looking for their renewal already in year seven or whatever here but yeah so hopefully we can you know have enough information so that we can figure out whether this makes sense to continue this way or open up competition or control it ourselves or whatever it may be so that it just requires a whole lot more because you'd have to have a Municipal Light uh what is it called committee I forget what there's a term for it there's a Commissioners commission maybe I mean something there's got to be special special people involved in that somehow um so that's another layer of things that we haven't even thought about yet but good we will keep it on the list um John where do we stand with our fire chief Recruitment and so forth so we've continued to make progress on this and our work our way forward um and recently the committee has um if you wanted to ENT entered enter an intersection and needs directions so they've asked me to come back to the select board for discussion and um so I will tee that up with the chair separately to figure out how we okay do that all right all right probably not in a public session okay all right well we can figure that out um comment on the status of the assessment center or is that also that's part of the crossroad part yep okay all right okay and we'll just have to keep track of I forget when we did our interim appointment didn't we finally just bump it out to June 30th or when trying to think when we did the U extension for chief in terms of his appointment we just have to check what how long that went so that we if we have to extend it we have to I think we did put it out a little bit further but I don't remember exactly when it might have been June 30th that's possible okay we will get back on that let's let's assume we'll pick it up maybe at the next agenda next meeting or something so far things are seeming to to work quite well I think uh I know they've been busy putting out fires here and there and dealing with things they've had a busy um there was a thing it came out on I guess it was on Facebook but they put out their monthly runs and all the business you know the the work that they've been doing the number of um calls that they've responded to so they've been quite quite busy i' say the least one of the things that we do probably want to get back on the agenda at some point and it may tie in to with the budget hearings although we've already had the fire chief come before us the interim um is the air quality study over at the fire because trailer wasn't so much terrible but boy just looking at that report if you haven't had a chance do read it because the ceiling tiles alone are just falling in there's mold there's black mold in there I mean this has got to get dealt with so we need to probably um in the building right in the main building itself and we had at at the last at this at the main town meeting annual town meeting in may we had put forth I think it was around $30,000 had been approved by this by the residents to put in I believe it was an extraction 38 system on the fire trucks themselves but from what Chief assol has told us very briefly he doesn't think that that's the right way to go that it's more of a kind of a HEPA filter system within the in the building itself rather than on the firet truck so anyway more discussion to be had on that but hopefully it would fit within the envelope that we've already approved at town meeting so we're waiting to hear a little bit more about that um so that'll be a for issue as we go forward on fire uh but we're trying to make some remediation on that current situation because they'll be there for a while no matter I mean one of the recommendations I you know again going back to Chief Anderson's report is we haven't we haven't done anything on his recommendation to go explore that space behind not Red Rock yeah Red Rock Plaza those buildings in the back that may or may not be us you know finding a temporary location for the fire department now while we wait for the public safety building to be built yeah there's been nothing done on that part all yeah so yeah we have to come back around I think on a couple of those reports and really have a further discussion about action items and what to do I mean certain things have been acted upon from Chief Anderson's report but not not that can ask a question about the the ceiling tiles has anybody costed is that part of the report the cost to repair that or remove that I don't think there was a cost estimate in the it was just an air quality test so they were just noting all the various deficiencies and so but that's something that I don't know if it got put into their Capital request or anything I'm not sure if it ever did so that's something that may be in in the budget as we get going that we have to take take under consideration I failed to mention Capital committee is meeting next Thursday at 300 p.m. oh great okay very good Capital Thursday so not this week but next Thursday next or this Thursday week two days I think you got me confused before on the 14th I did too but um 300 p.m. on to [Music] that would be great so yes on the on the next week 21st on the 21st okay very good great glad to hear that they are meeting then good all right okay uh Scott anything on fy22 audit um that you're aware of I was able to reach out to T Campbell El Markham who's doing the um the audit uh just a couple hours ago I finally got a response from her um it's going to take a little bit more time for her to kind of put everything together one of the questions that she had was regarding her arpa funding um and talking to Ed and doing a little of research uh we think that the reports that she's requesting aren't necessary um but she said it's going to take a couple weeks for her to look at it and respond to us so I'm going to have to email her again tomorrow and kind of see if we can get a little bit sooner than that right yeah I think uh she I think was looking for some sort of reports that were being put into treasury on a regular basis and I think the way we declared ourselves under arpa was under lost Revenue which meant that we had less paperwork to do right Visa V treasury so we may just need to provide a certified copy of those so I think it may just be that she's missing a copy of whatever our report filing was on that and and that decision uh hopefully that will not be a u a big problem to solve but uh all right and then FY 23 close out we're just waiting again mostly on reconciliations with the school and so forth yeah okay okay so I guess I was with you Chris until you slipped that word mostly in there so that tells me there stuff on the town side well no as far as I know I mean I I was confused on something I saw that just showed us um other deficits but I was I was misunderstanding what I what I read so I i' take that back the the note that I understood from Bradley is that there's just um I asked him a couple things about the school and there's a couple of deficit lines that I know he wants Clarity on that were basically related to tuition um school choice and Charter tuition I think are the two that looked like they were running a deficit on his books well did he book the cherry sheet money uh don sorry yeah and then with the with the U the grants that maybe they've gotten to and how they've accounted for all their grant money so I think there were those were the main things that he was trying to reconcile a bit um and then separate Seely and I've asked Scott to work with Jen and just get us a list of whatever our current debt load is and you know what are the next couple things that are be coming off our debt um you know if we're are we getting to the end of paying off something so that we know how many more payments there might be and what's coming off so as we have to maybe substitute something we know what what's out there the the bridge just went on this past year so you can get that by looking at the at the state statement of Ed that the treasurer has to file every year right yeah we've asked for it I haven't seen it I haven't caught up with her but Scott his talk okay because that'll have a summary number and then down below should be all the detail that falls to do that yeah so Scott's going to grab that from Jen so we can have that to work from yeah and we want a complete understanding the entire debt structure is that we retire over potentially 20 years mhm yeah there's some things that are you know when you introduce the topic it sounded like you were looking for subset which I didn't understand well there's some that is long-term borrowing long-term debt and then there's others that have been debt exclusion so there might be some debt exclusion that might be coming up soon I don't I don't know you know looking at the list I'm not sure when they started as being on our on our list of right under the Deb category Debt Service category they're declining payments they level payments there all sorts but if we don't have a comprehensive view yeah we'll end up with more questions right so I think you know whatever we can get get from from Jen's reports that will be great okay all right next Revenue projections Scott this was something that you've uh managed to create a bit with Bradley and maybe Ed's help both or whatever you've tried to tackle here on Revenue projections so let's uh talk it through a little bit so I had sent out uh the spreadsheet in the PDF just on uh what the revenue projections are going to be for FY 25 Ed was able to put together than most of them um before he left uh but I also wanted to kind of show where we were over the last previous two fiscal years um up until this point so we have um the revenue projections uh for all of FY 25 for the estimates um but we also are comparing to see how things are running out so Bradley was kind enough to put together the actuals um for fi23 and FY 24 and where they were at this point of time time um what we have right now for revenues So currently we have our current revenues up until 12:31 uh so we took until 12:31 on the orange column and 12:31 on the red column and then our estimates for fi25 are in the green column so if you look at it most of the revenues are consistent so for example if we look at uh motor vehicle and excise tax so in FY 23 we were at 12% Revenue um for FY 24 we were at 14% um so you know Ed's estimate was um about $20,000 more than last year similarly if you um there's another good one so meals tax as well so initially uh for tax um f 23's estimate was $50,000 and at this point in that year we received 60 66% of the estimated last year we received 60% of the estimated halfway through the year um so Ed had uh up the estimate from 50,000 to 55,000 so just to be clear Scott so the orange column and the green column just for anybody who might be watching this from home represent only 6 months worth it does not represent a full year right so a lot of the the revenues like the local receipts and other available funds um those are a little bit more um dependent on meals tax you know and how you know how many meals people actually go out and eat um you know the Cannabis tax is one thing I do want to point out I'm going to be meeting with Michelle from uh KP law just to kind of talk about that situation she's going to bring me up to speed orange M okay but so far most of it's on track and I think EDS estimates are are pretty pretty reliable where with like ambulance receipts that's one where we keep moving it around a little bit and I think we've gone up on it over time uh ambulance receipts yeah uh this right here there so we have an FY 25 estimate of 50,000 and uh at this point in the last two fiscal oh actually FY 23 is missing but last year uh for FY 24 we already had 107% of our Revenue estimate yeah those are receipts that's money coming is that money coming in to the uh fire department or is that money coming in for char chares of service cuz I thought that was us appropriating from our ambulance receipts into the general fund to support the budget I can double check that for you I I'm pretty sure that's those are the actual receipts that were that we're receiving cuz the two at the bottom the water Enterprise and the transfer station are both monies that would be coming into the general fund from those Enterprise funds right um thought there was an ambul thought there was an illing I'm in expenses maybe not I don't see it anywhere else John well it'd be on the balance sheet yeah um amb ambulance fees that's this is so I'm on page 2012 of Bradley's latest uhhuh revenue report and it's other financing sources ambulance fees estimated to be 125 we added to 134 well that's still never mind that's still with the budget placeholder we put in there that looks like what that line is so the estimate for 25 is 175,000 50,000 more estimated than last year that's what's in the what's being thought about right now um oh other special Revenue funds ambulance fees 244001 and that's showing that there's 181,000 available for appropriation of which they're suggesting they move 175 up there yeah and if that's that's a six-month number and yeah doing okay on that y all right what about um well we had before you came Scott we last year sometime we had our um our investment company come in and talk to us a little bit about what's going on with some of our investment funds um we've got some earnings there but I'm not sure that that is really reflected as much as our markets have been over the last year but again it's up to what 89 for well maybe not FY 24 89,000 is that what I'm reading that's actuals maybe that is better than I thought it was okay all right so this gets us at least some projections of things um to work from so can I ask a question that is somewhat related to this mhm do we know what the holdup is now on why we can't get the timely financials why are we still sitting on in December we're in the second week of March I understand a 30 I understand a one month lag I mean and and we we we we pushed and pushed to get those two departments up to speed and and they did and it seems like we've hit this we always hit this roadblock in December yeah that's true and we go all the way through the budget process half blind mhm yeah I mean we we'd sort of been making an allowance for a 4 we maybe six week maximum lag between expense and revenue but you know to get January's done that would be more than helpful I'm sincerely hoping that whenever we convert over to Vadar that this is going to be a little bit easier and we're going to be able to see these figures more readily than we have been now because that's that's better for frustration where we we don't really know how how well we're spending against our Revenue correct and and I mean the treasures off treasure collector's office is fully staffed and I think it's been 4 months since then so you know you got to allow for training and getting Folks up to speed and you know there's an update later on about our assistant Town accountant you know hopefully there's good news that someone has been identified maybe not it's that's why it's at the end of the agenda but I mean we it's it's hard to make these decisions and choices when you you don't have realtime data in front of you that's all is it is it true that it's the income that's lagging the expenses are more real time expenses are more real time the revenues are two months not recognized the revenues are through December right now yeah which makes it hard like when you look at um not only for us but others that rely on grant money y so for example I mean COA correct until you close 22 the audit you can't do those General entries to load it into 23 and we're we're up in 24 so those revolving accounts haven't been brought forward so you know an example is the transfer station how in the world you don't know what your um un you know unspent cash or right excess funds are so you're Flying Blind you retain earnings in colle thank you I was losing what the words were yeah but I think it is true I mean there's cuz there's so many I mean from Conservation Commission to various others that have got revolving that they rely on you know for some of their their work and they you know it's really hard for them to manage and know where things are so they end up having to you know keep on bugging the accountant to figure out where are we with our spending and so that you know whatever we can do to try and push that uh Revenue getting closer and closer you know on a more regular basis cuz I think and maybe just with with Scott's a fresh shut of ice can can we can we just revisit yeah well you you revisit Scott on what everybody thinks the um what the issue is and what where where are the pain points and can can we resolve those how and when that's a good point I mean it maybe it's just you know having a meeting at you know with treasure collector staff and just sort of say how are how are things delegated who does what in terms of helping do that and just understanding that maybe and if we can help you know shorten the process somehow or you know at least get us whatever they have to do if there's some not to create extra work but if there's some other spreadsheet or something that we can have to see where we are just so we feel more in control of our budget I think would be helpful yeah I mean just looking at the our purchase ordering system and how we track receipts and how we track what's being spent um I I definitely think there's ways that we can modernize that good I think we'd be open to hearing new new ways of doing things so um we kind of get stuck at a rut over time and I think it's time for some fresh eyes and New Perspective so we appreciate that um do you want to do anything with the other two tabs is there anything you can say about those or um those are Bradley's those are bradle I didn't have yeah I try to make it a little bit more user friendly yeah okay um so I didn't have a chance to go through those with Bradley yet but yeah think it's well I think when we have our our budget meeting we should probably have you know Bradley you know be here too and and just kind of help us walk through some of this as well so anybody have any other questions for right now it was more just to give us an idea of what what's been done so far and what we're kind of looking at we we don't have uh much more to say about it at this point but we will definitely pick it back up so thanks for putting that much together so we have a some somewhat of an idea what's going on here here yeah all right next up um 25 budget hearings with the finance committee so I think I mentioned that um we will just have to be sure that fincom is they're the ones that kind of set the date I think of the 21st as the date that they would next be available they did when they were at their meeting the other night yep that was the night that they said they could um and I think it would just be budget excuse me losing my voice is that a call for a motion to adjourn no not quite not quite we're getting there we're getting there I told joy we we'd be on target tonight right so that just to reiterate um I think COA library and Board of Health and then we can pick up a little bit on the school as well but have the budget hearings yeah on the 21st and probably at probably at 6 unless fincom can only meet I don't know what time they do they usually meet at at 600 or at 7 sorry thank you what time do they usually meet John is it I think it's 6 o00 6 okay so we'll aim for six and U try to do that that would be good all right that would probably be the last group of budget hearings I don't know that we'll have others that we I mean we may need to come back and revisit fire police or Highway maybe highway I mean I think we're definitely going to have to have a a discussion on Schools they're just not ready they're not ready yeah exactly right so whenever they're ready yeah exactly all right um okay any other business that can't wait until our next meeting so just to reiterate we've got the 21st joint with fincom the 26th will be our regular meeting um Scott and I were talking about maybe a finance what were we talking about it was a finance meeting on the 19th just if we needed one but we weren't sure whether we needed one or we just follow into the the 21st so 19th wasn't a definitive anything but the 21st and 26th we know block those off if you will and then into April we may as well just note those will be April and the 23rd at this point and there may be some extras in there too but we'll try to keep them organized and you know we'll meet when we've got enough to meet about but it's going to be budget related once we get it going here okay trying to balance the budget is going to be a little bit of a challenge this year I think but we will do our best um well I I would suggest we start off with zeroing out select board wages select board wages yeah that's that sounds good we're all pulling down way too much money I know you've exceeded the overtime budget exactly okay uh anything under old business SC I don't know that there's probably anything really that's happened in the last week since you've been on board yet so no just uh David's been really helpful with the um the vo and um David Rooks David Rooks Y and yeah shout out to David yeah um so we're we're debating who's going to do the voice um or the the town phone the auto attendant yes yep so and then the the Cannabis payments uh again I'm just meeting with uh Michelle from KP law just kind of bring me up this Beyond everything so good okay you know if you if if nobody's really jumping for joy to be The Voice once you throw it out there on the community forum and ask for a resident step forward first vote in come right in I think we've got a person or two maybe identified that just a matter of getting the timing and getting the recording done but okay so we'll keep those on the list um and come back around no licenses signatures no other warrants um we've got a couple of sets of minutes to approve I think for December 5th and December 19th I move we approve select board minutes for December 5th and December 19th 2023 second okay motion by Steve and second by John okay uh just to say I think um Kathy Ingram who does our minutes it just does a great job transcribing our our texts here and these are quite detailed and um she's definitely um going to be working with us going forward so we much appreciate her her efforts on this so comprehensive and yet not overly detailed MH that's a beautiful thing they're not overly detailed they are not too detailed okay they are rather comprehensive they're comprehensive that's the right word okay there we go thank you very good that is the right word okay so motion on the floor all those in favor of approval I I all right motion approved that was for both sets of December 5th and December 19th and Scott I think you've got the card copies that our clerk can sign in the red folder so Dan is our Dan is that was just part of the U that's the list of delinquent properties no discussion no it's just reference all right and then pending items pending items uh I don't know that there was anything else on the East Street you as for claric at all on this there's that's just there so we don't forget about it the um things did move forward a little bit on getting the East Street Road section on the um transportation Improvement plan list down in Boston but we'd heard about that probably about a month or so ago so it's just there for our reminder the big thing the two big things are finding our contact I know uh the person from eversource had come in to at least check in on where we were with the green communities Grant but we they've done their part to my understanding but we need the Department of Revenue person whoever's got them down there to approve these things so we can get these four projects done because there's one for Library I think highway police and town hall or maybe school which agency at the state is holding it up it's a Department of Revenue I'm not sure who it is in I'd have to go back and look it's it's the green communities program it's the green communities program under the Department of Revenue and so they they've they've got them there and they you know they take their time to review them and make sure that we're meeting our our goal of the 20% Energy savings and so forth but we've identified I don't have connections in that department EnV I'm sure we've got a name somewhere we just have to follow it up and then uh I know you've made comments to to Bradley about getting recruiting going again that's kind of had fallen off the radar screen but I think with anything from indeed to zip recruiter to whomever's out there just to get some get our names back out there as well as through the associations again I so I have a a thought on that I wonder if I mean the ad had been up and running right and then well it had been but I think it probably got to the bottom of the list I would no no correct but which would indicate to me that we didn't have an abundance of applications and I wonder giving the backlog that we continually seem to be getting and that is only an office of one and a half people um and I'm not comparing the workloads but when you look at the FTE count in the treasur collector's office maybe we should revisit or review whether or not that really is still a part-time job you know because part-time employment is one thing full-time fully benefited is a different pool of candidates sure yeah you know whether we can afford it is a different question but I would argue we really can't afford not to get that office up in staff we're we're one yeah flew away from not having anybody in that department for a week that's true absolutely think we give Scott a try with his HR background to see how he can help in in getting in someone uh as an assistant so let's give us some time so there may be some other networks and things that we haven't you know explored that you know maybe we could do that but then see what we get for candidates and then you know take it from there but that's not a not an unusual idea to think about that for sure you know we we've had we've had a very fluid situation I think I would say over the last 5 years we went for several months with you know no accountant at all we had a temp agency person who really was just trying to keep her head above water that was and look how much that cost that was about it yeah and the price of the audit doubled yeah exactly so it didn't didn't really do us any favors so okay so slack board meetings we've already talked about that is there anything else am I missing anything here I don't think so I would uh defer to our latest parent to make the honorable motion yes oh I move to a journ you do second all right Joy and then John all those in favor hi hi right at almost 10 of welcome back is that right 10 of8 748 I'll keep coming back if I get out this early get you going early here well e