##VIDEO ID:j9OKK4jKMjM## this government meeting is brought to you by eastw works and our local cable subscribers I'm going to call to order the meeting of the Southampton select board for September 17th at 20 20 uh September 20 September 17th 2024 at 6 p.m. um and we have a quorum tonight with myself Dan LA valy and Cindy Palmer uh let us start just by saying the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to The Republic stand nation under God indivisible liy and Justice all right thank you good so folks watching at home um we have um had a bit of a change of our schedule here um and hopefully you've you've caught up with us um we are doing a just a zoom meeting tonight for a very truncated agenda item uh that is very time sensitive uh we have two of our members that are away on leave on vacation or on business and Dan has been under the weather so we're not going to make him sit through a couple hour meeting uh but he was gracious enough to be able to join us here for this uh important um uh announcement and um a vote so that we do have a quorum okay so uh with that let me just go right down to new business we have one action item and let me say that is a little bit of intro I think most of you realize that we are aiming to close on the acquisition of the property on College Highway next week uh this was uh something that we've been working toward basically for the last several months and it's finally coming to fruition um however in the last couple of months we've also had a very important development and some um very exciting news to share with the town so let me jump right into it okay I'm going to read um a letter and hopefully I will keep my voice all the way through it all right at the May 7th 2024 annual town meeting Southampton voters approved article 11 of the annual town meeting warrant which authorized the acquisition of certain real property located off College Highway containing approximately 52 Acres identified as assessor Parcels map 19-1 141 map 19-1 144 and map 24-15 being the property described in a deed recorded with the Hampshire registry of deeds in book 14641 page 304 for General Municipal purposes this approval authorized the town borrowing the sum of $2.2 million to fund the purchase contingent upon the town's voters approve approving a so-called proposition 2 and A2 debt exclusion question as a result the the town has authorized borrowing in the full amount of 2.2 million to fund the acquisition and related an incidental costs in an effort to alleviate the financial impacts on the town and its taxpayers of this property acquisition Richard R Bo here in after known as the donor has pledged to donate to the town a gift in the form of a mutual fund to be held by the town for the sole purpose of this property acquisition upon acceptance of the gift the town agrees not to borrow more than $1.2 million for the purpose of the land located on College Highway and further agrees to utilize the gift for the sole purpose of reducing the borrowing amount thereby relieving the burden on Southampton taxpayers although authorized to borrow up to 2.2 million the town agrees to follow all the wishes and intent of the donor to reduce the borrowing for the PCH purchase of the land to $1.2 million it is the donor's intent that the town be able to liquidate this mutual fund at a time it deems most advantageous but no later than the date of purchase of the real estate in order to fund the property acquisition if at the time the mutual fund is liquidated the proceeds to be distributed to the town are less than $1 million the donor will make a cash donation to the town to make up the difference between the proceeds of the mutual fund liquidation and $1 million the the donor Wishes the gift be known as coming from the bo family the donor and the town will enter into a donation gift agreement in so far as necessary to effectuate the donor's purpose in making this generous gift the town understands that the gift is to be used solely for the purpose of purchasing the land off College Highway and for the purpose of constructing a public safety building in the future sincerely Richard R Bole 916 2024 and we will take a vote on this in a minute but we will have to accept this gift at the select board level here and uh authorize me to sign this letter accepting the gift um so if I could have a motion to that effect uh basically accepting uh this gift of a million dollars um on behalf of the Town um this is Cindy Palmer I moved to have the select board on behalf of the on behalf of the Town accept this gift of U from Mr Bole with generous thanks s um to uh alleviate the cost of the acquisition of the property and the value of $1 million thank you right could I have a second all right let's have we need a u a roll call vote because we're doing Zoom so all those in favor by roll call please Palmer yes Daniel Val yes vs yes okay very good so with that I will go ahead and sign this uh letter of a gift acceptance so we will get this back to uh Mr Bo's Representatives um tomorrow and allow the the funding transfer to to begin uh and I guess I would just like to say one thing um just that this is just an incredibly generous uh donation very important and I I really do um just want to thank the boil family for their generosity and helping relieve the burden on the town's P Town's taxpayers uh in in acquiring this property uh and just to note too that this property way back when actually when I was a kid growing up in Southampton belonged to the bo family to uh Dick's parents actually um going back as far as about 1947 I believe so it's kind of fitting that they have also stepped forward to to make this generous gift to the town so once again thank you on behalf of the select board and behalf of the town's people for this important U gift um Scott I don't know if you'd like to say anything uh in addition no I I do think that this is a uh very generous and an amazing gift to the uh the citizens of Southampton um obviously we we were going to borrow the $2.2 million and this came after the approval so this really is um helping lower the tax burden for all the taxpayers and citizens in Southampton so it's it's really really amazing right and I would just say that even though the public safety uh building was was mentioned that is that is definitely the the primary use that Mr Bole or the bo family is is interested in um but I believe in our discussions Scott and I have been meeting um with the boil family and representatives over the last two or three months to try and iron out logistics and details and look at options um they are not opposed to other uses but they definitely wanted to be sure that a primary use of this land was for the public safety complex okay so with that um I just have one other thing and that would be um any other business that can't wait until the next uh September 24th what what we would normally have is an October one meeting but because uh we didn't have a a full meeting tonight what I'm proposing and I'll get in touch with all the select board meeting uh members to confirm this is that we'll have an actual meeting next Tuesday on our off week and just pick up the agenda the full agenda um from what it was going to be tonight and there'll be a regular select board meeting uh so we don't get too far out of out of order and out of schedule um so with that though we have a payroll warrant that is due this week um and uh Stephen is our primary signer and Dan is our alternate and so we need uh a temporary emergency signer just to get the payroll signed this week if somebody would like to make a motion I would like to make a motion that we have our select board chairperson Chris Falls be a one-time signer in order to um sign for the payroll warrant um just for this one occasion second second by Dan okay and again roll call vote please all those in favor Palmer i l Valley I BS ey okay thank you I will get down to town hall tomorrow and sign off on that so that everybody can get paid on time we didn't want to hold that off obviously okay I think that's really all we had so our next meeting we're going to aim for the 24th and we'll post that uh and again we'll just go back and pick up the agenda that would have been done in full tonight thank you Dan for joining in I know you've been under the weather we didn't want to hold you too long so the thank you so could I have a motion to adjourn the meeting please motion to adjourn I second all right again all those in favor roll call Palmer yes lavali yes FS yes okay we are adjourned at about 611 thank you very much appreciate it take care Dan bye Chris bye thank you bye bye e