##VIDEO ID:t7X_YD7CbR0## no the not noticing the presence of a quorum I call this meeting to order all right so the first item we have on the agenda is public participation uh thank you uh four years ago in 2020 the town started investigating the feasibility of critical improvements to our Public Works facilities in 2021 there were discussions around possible conceptual designs in 2022 the select board created a study committee which among other things concluded that quote a replacement DPW facility is the highest priority physical infrastructure project for the town in 2023 Town town meeting overwhelmingly approved 1.2 million for design funds by a two by more than a 2 to1 margin at the beginning of this summer the select board created a goal to ask next year's town meeting for approval for a replacement DBW facility at finc com's last couple of meetings members expressed disapproval for debt exclusion next year to finance a new DPW facility in this room on Thursday there will be a second meeting of the D PW facility building committee I strongly encourage fincom members to attend our Department of Public Works provide services that impact every member of our community including construction and maintenance of Roads construction and maintenance of sidewalks construction and maintenance of storm water infrastructure engineering for Town Projects helping residents with emergencies snow plowing of roads and sidewalks tree and Landscaping Maintenance Etc because of climate change there will be proportionately more work in the future it's unreasonable for us to ask our Department of Public Works employees to to continue to perform these tasks for many more years in a wholly inadequate facility one with cracking walls one without a reasonable place to rest between snow plowing shifts one without Locker facilities reasonable Locker facilities for Crews one without um room to properly maintain equipment one that do not mean current safety and air quality standards furthermore a new TP tpw facility has important Financial benefits including improvements in efficiency uh saving time every day by not having to Tetris most equipment into a twoo small Bay increasing the life of hundreds of thousands of dollars of investment by protecting all the equipment from weather increasing the pool of potential employees by having reasonable Locker facilities for For Crews including for women delaying will inevitably cause increased costs and and further design updates at your last meeting you all asked me in the audience if I understood that fincom was against a debt exclusion for next year in turn I ask fincom members to keep in mind the that based on the strong need of the Department of Public Works and strong support from Town's people the select board placed approval of a new DPW facility on its goal list for this year also please note that financing a new DPW facility will not ex not affect tax bills in FY 26 go ahead chrisy uh excuse me Mr Maron um the DPW meeting is during the high schools back to school night I don't know if that affects anyone else here will the meeting be recorded for later viewing I would expect so but I can ask that be recorded and I will definitely be there question if we have more than a quorum in attendance do we need to post a public meeting or can we just attend I I believe um we can actually I won't be there but uh a quorum can attend as long as they do not deliberate as long as they're attending for informational purposes um it's too late to post anyway I think but go ahead Dave um uh you can attend and discuss anything that's on um the agenda of that public meeting so um you cannot discuss something from another fincom meeting but you can discuss uh you're you're under the purview of that open meeting and and you can discuss so if you're talking about fincom tradeoffs um maybe not uh but if you're talking about um whether the facility needs this feature or that feature that is perfect you can even debate it among yourselves if it's if it's a topic of that meeting any other questions any other public comments on that you want get ah head it's probably a good idea um polling fincom uh anybody want to uh say if they're going to be attending on Thursday maybe just show hands I actually to yeah show hands one um that counts as two hands um two three um I'm not sure if I can gu I not sure if the back to school that impacts me as well I'm not sure I have a kid SCH but I don't know I have I saw an email but I haven't checked it yet um I have a question do we know how long the meeting will take and when does it start starts at 7 okay and no idea if it's one hour two hours is it in this room okay sorry no not a it's not a problem um but I I don't really know there's going to be a presid presentation and I would get some discussion but I I I don't I don't know the agenda is posted actually I have not looked at the agenda okay the second meeting the there there was a formation meeting um in uh Steve knows March thank you besides the meeting you said as a presentation do you have some information materials that you can share with us go ahead da um so um the materials will be presented at that meeting um I'll try to make sure that it's recorded and all any materials used during the meeting our public records and so um we can definitely get them to you um thinkk you appreciate that okay any other comments questions thoughts Dave I just to elaborate for you a little bit there's some um um probably the most interesting document would be the roughly 86 page um due diligence report from the consultant that was hired by the town many years ago to evaluate the facility and then um come up with options for how to fit the needs anybody on line have any comments or questions just going to say my comments uh for the DPW part part of the agenda okay all right so if that's if we're finished with that topic this I'm going to give the mic to Christie for crosscutting initiatives um I've confirmed with the town manager that we can form a focus group in which we choose the members and um the idea is that they will periodically attend our meetings and provide us with feedback with what we present to them or want to discuss with them they'll sort of be a sounding board I um encourage us to start working with them after we've had listening sessions have our listening sessions and then as a group choose what we think is the important information out of that to go forward with that point we can work on a survey and also um start working with a focus group in the meantime we can get the application out there um and start putting together a focus group I'm hoping that the makeup we discussed previously of members will still be good that's um I think with membership of two four six eight um plus potentially two renters if we don't end up with any no it would be eight um of two of whom which sorry it's been a long day two of that eight need to be renters um I can go through a bunch of other details if you're interested uh the charge hasn't changed it's shifted to us to do the thinking and create the deliverables as opposed to this committee uh blah blah blah so the listing sessions would require a form of finance committee to be present I still recommend that we do two evenings and two weekends we could maybe alternate a Sunday and a Saturday to avoid I have one suay one Saturday to avoid religious um impact and attendance I ideally think we should do one in October one November one in December and one in January and it would be great to have them be televised ideally remote participation I think that logistically would be hard for of things other than the evening meetings um blah blah so the the main question I think if that all sounds good is how we want to choose members um I'm hoping that our school Committee Member might be willing to provide us with a little input about how um the members are chosen for their budget task force what I heard at last school committee meeting implied that simply a few members of the budget task force went through the applications and chose um but I'm hoping hi I'm sorry could you repeat the last part of the question I'm hoping you have some input on how the budget task force for the school committee chose the members the public of the public oh of the public um I don't personally have the insight about that um but I can definitely it sounded like it was maybe just a few people who went through the application yes that's why I wasn't part of that the way that we divied up um jobs this year um I ended up doing budget and lazing here something else so I'm just wondering because this second you get two people we have to have a subcommittee um which then requires having minutes and logistically this becomes thank you uh challenging so if anyone has any ideas that would be very welcome we can just assign one of us to pick Jason you have ideas generally what do you think on how to pick people yes specifically who would pick people or who will pick people I think it should be you and uh probably you and me because you know you're the chair of this uh you're you're heading up this effort and I'm the chair of the committee so I figure it should be you and me I'm more concerned about being not enough people volunteering then there being too many people volunteering so I don't know that we have to worry about winnowing things down so I'm I think uh I I I'm not concerned about being too many people oh no I was concerned about um whether we then become a subcommittee that requires minutes and posted meetings Etc um I don't I don't suspect that is I mean we're just if you want to do just one person then you or I should do it if you're worried about that but I don't think we should have to worry about that okay then you and I will do it thank you um one second I just have to update my notes all right if if that sounds good oh I'm sorry the other thing for the me meeting logistics for the focus group would be to have them attend in person our finance committee meetings I recommend that we have them come once a month through April um start them at in January after the listening sessions have ended and um with the idea of potentially meeting twice in May after town meeting one to discuss any changes we might have want to make based on town meeting discussions and votes and then another one to provide feedback on our final recommendations and then potentially a final meeting in June we had to answer any questions from the presentation and I can't quite remember this was from our discussion last time I don't remember quite what that meant this would be after we did a presentation to select board and other uh I think it was select bir and school committee who we wanted to present our results to yes and other public audiences is what we said specifically I would say after the select board because that is sort of a formal ending point the focus group would not be necessary after this thoughts ideas changes nothing looks good okay and any other thoughts anybody right I will start if that all sounds good start looking for um dates for when we could do our listing sessions nice job thank you all right so we're going to move on to I have one question I'm sorry so how are you don't you have to have people volunteers before we have listening sessions we are going to just invite the public oh okay okay um any ideas about how to go about doing that I assume we will write some emails and I was going to start by trying to find when we could do it like little dates and locations and then we could all come up with a way to present it and recruit people to attend okay okay thank you any other questions no all right I'm going to move on to the DPW discussion and I think I'm going to ask Jon to chime in to start this discussion thank you yes um as uh as was previewed by uh by uh uh selecton Martin uh there's uh there's there's two competing competing uh comments here two competing desires here that are that came to a head at ALG and so I wanted to make sure that we had a more robust conversation about the DBW building I did reach out with not a lot of notice I will admit I did not give a ton of notice I did reach out to um the town manager uh Cory York and to uh Dean Charter to come and uh uh sort of give us a preview presentation tonight they they demur they would they uh have their their full presentation on Thursday which again I do recommend everybody who can attend please do attend um but I did want us to rather than just have a presentation of what they're planning on building I I do want to sort of take a step back and make sure that we are answering that this building is answering the right questions that uh that we want and that that this is not a case of yes we're I believe we're all in agreement that something has to be done with that facility I I grant the premise that the building is inadequate um what I don't Grant however is the concept that just building a new building doing the things that we've done in the past without truly ident identifying if we are addressing the right needs and so what I've been asking for for a while is not just um write a you know okay great you have a you have a list of list of deficiencies uh that were identified in the uh in the report that uh Mr ndi mentioned prior but I don't believe we've ever stepped back and asked the question do we really need need to have all of the equipment be inside do we really need to have all the equipment that we have do we have a uh a full accounting of all the equipment and what the replacement costs are and has anyone done any basic analysis of what the cost of leaving the equipment outside versus putting it into a very large brand new garage is going to be um if the depreciation costs on the equipment don't even close to the uh the payment of the for for for a super large new building then we need to we need to make sure that we're that we're we have we have an appropriate understanding of what we're buying and why um what exactly are the needs that we're trying to solve and I I do appreciate that select Martin gave a a a couple lists I didn't write them all down at the time I should have been faster than grabbing a pen um yes okay so the building is inadequate it doesn't have facilities for uh appropriate facilities are changing okay do we need the number of service base that they have have we investigated a public private partnership where maybe we have a contract with somebody else to do either a private industry or maybe another town so that we don't have to rebuild a building that has uh the service base so what I'm really hoping for is rather than just saying we started on a path in 2020 to build a new building and we people have asked from the beginning can you please identify exactly what needs you're doing rather than just saying we got got to build a new building we're going to build it just like the one we had before but bigger um I would much prefer that we have a full accounting of what we're doing so that we can turn around and make a recommendation to town meeting that says this is the most efficient this is the best use of our money which is something that I feel is exceptionally important to be able to say right after an override um so to be completely transparent I have I have two problems with this tpw building one is the timing and the timing that's it's just terrible that they're coming with a debt exclusion the year after operating override and while I understand about escalation costs perhaps now is not the time to do this and then my second problem with the building is I don't believe we've ever addressed the base questions of what exactly are we trying to solve and is that the appropriate thing that we should be trying to solve so we've had a couple of conversations as a committee uh and all all three times we've done it it's been unanimous that this is not the year to move forward with it so what I wanted to the reason why I put this on the agenda today and I've already said some of my questions I'm going to let everyone else speak as well I want to make sure that we generate all the questions that we have we we let the select board and the and the DPW build committee know what our what our needs are to be able to turn around and and and recommend something but at the same time not just be a hey you said you needed a new building but you haven't answered the questions of of of exactly the needs um if you go back and you look at the charge of the the um not the the committee that's only having its second meeting now but the previous committee which I believe was the to get my terminology wrong here which I believe was the feasibility study they were tasked with just taking the recommendation to build a new building that that there were three or four options for building a new building which one did you like best um so I I I definitely have an issue with I don't believe we're addressing the root needs uh and I believe that we're on autopilot for just building a new building so uh I've said my my piece I'd like to let other people go around the room and have uh and ask some of the questions um I know at least two of you have uh emailed me with questions so we'll go around the room and uh let everyone chime in I did try and give everyone advanced notice as possible that we were going to have this chitchat and and think up some questions so Scott I'll let you uh leave the discussion in the room there um making sure that everyone has a chance to chime in uh let's just start with people that are actually um called dialed in that would be easier maybe to start there uh Dave or Allison if you're Allison if you're on Dave do you have any thoughts or questions before we go to the room sorry is that me yes Dave do you have any TOS yeah so um you know I I I I'll Echo a few of uh of of Mr Martin's comments that I I know a lot of work has been done up to this point um and there has been some selection committees that have identified you know the the the result of their moving forward with my my challenge with this with this project is I don't I don't want to put a price tag on it right now but I think we've seen some of the estimates that are in the you know the forward-looking capital budget and you know they're they're really large numbers and you know one of the groups of people I I tend to talk to just with with kids that are in the schools are you know a lot of other parents and we've talked a lot about you know the DPW building the facilities and the the the concern that keeps coming around is like what do the residents get for this this this this is looking to be a really large investment um for Town tax dollars and what do these uh uh what does the average resident get out of it and um I I appreciate what Mr Martin had said about you know the the the vehicles being able to be parked better about an updated facility Etc you know just off the cuff without knowing more about it and I haven't looked at at some of the supporting documentation and I certainly need to get more educated is it's just you know my my sense now is the price tag doesn't fit what the benefit is to the average resident is it's going to be a large you know again possibly $40 million project that if I think about you know just the idea that we need to replace it um sure something needs to be done there and it I think we're in in my mind debating the cost of it is it is it should it be $40 million um and yes um there are reports that show you that comparable DPW buildings on a price per square footage basis you know show that this is exactly in line to those numbers or or close to it and that's fine um it's just it doesn't pass a sort of test of hey the town is going to look to invest $40 million okay great what what do Town residents get for it is it $40 million worth and so I I personally need to get more educated on the topic I mean I appreciate a lot of what Jason said um I I do I would would argue that some of what he suggested it can become a little bit of analysis sort of paralysis is where there's like so many ways of looking at this that we could you know we could just run in circles for a while I don't mean any Respect by that comment I just I know taking such a step back could be um could be problematic I'm trying to be practical I do you know concede the building is old we approved the Fuel Depot um there's there's the the the the the design and whatnot going on it's just oh my gosh we're pretty far into this $40 million for you know to use Jason's words a garage is I in my view it's a hard cell to to families I talk to and Town um and I don't know what the alternatives are but I don't believe that there aren't any I don't believe that this is just a path on so I'm I I'm in the really need to be convinced camp at this point Thank you Dave um is anybody else online or just uh Jason and Dave oh she would chime in at this point all right why don't we go to the room um we's start Jones she's shown as a guest oh can you elevate her to our panelist that's probably why she probably came in after I don't know Alison when you if you get elevated to a panelist see if you could just say a word can you hear us all right hi can you all hear me there there we go finally yeah sorry about that I'm not I'm not sure you actually want to listen to me in the state I'm in but um uh I I would um have to agree with Dave this entire conversation both this meeting and previous meetings I just keep thinking I haven't been convinced yet and maybe because I'm new new here I might need more convincing but um I I just need to sit down with the information and really be convinced that it's it's a worthy investment all right thank thank I take Dr gang had a thought first uh thank you I I share the the same sentiment that has been Express in uh those uh several members um discussions I also want to remind us that we just um last time we met here we vote on the point of view and uh we have a strong consensus on not uh asking the uh taxpayers to uh to approve another override without more information a good spending plan and we also want to keep the spending awaiting the inflation rate and that's the something that we have a consensus on and uh and the finance committee's responsibility to uphold this physical discipline when it comes to the capital projects I think um um the members have also mentioned that there are different options there are different there um there always different options and Alternatives and uh and I look forward to learn more information about this the these um causes and benefits of these different options so we will be able to uh to um have a better understanding about uh uh these options uh which makes more sense which is more cost efficiently and uh it's good for the the long-term uh uh uh Financial Outlook of this uh project uh so I think what I want to say is that we we need more information about these different options and some more analysis on this on in terms of the the the cost and benefits of these options will be helpful thank you I will go coren so I agree with what all the comments so far that like needing to understand what the real needs are all that stuff but and I've heard that the building is in very bad shape and an accident waiting to happen all that stuff but I don't know what to compare I don't know as far as uh the like what utility we're getting from it versus like what utility would be from a new building like are we asking for more are we asking do we need what we have whatever all those questions I get my um concerns of course are with another tax override and I don't don't care if it's a debt exclusion it all goes into my one tax bill just like everybody else's um the school district is supposed to be coming up with permanent structural savings um and regardless of the cost of a DPW building I wouldn't support an override unless it could be offset by those permanent savings that we will see from the school district um we can't just keep increasing tax bills on on on on residents so that's where that's where I stand thank you Adam do you have any thoughts I will say that Roland and I were both on the previous DPW committee and I notice that R Roland has his hand up a moment ago so I wanted to give you the chance to speak first if you'd like since you were the official member on the committee and I was the subordinate member on the Adam did a lot of work so I appreciate it's obvious something has to be done we know the buildings inadequate um my take at this point is do we need to have the town engineer and the DPW director and that type of staff at at a new building right we have plenty of office space in town that you probably rent for real cheap so I don't think that that's you know that's one way to cut down on the building size you know I mean I I don't see the benefit of having them there on site you know using office space Etc and and and Jason's comment too is is do if you keep with the mechanics that we have that type of thing do you need four Bas do you need three do you need two what do you really need and can we service all the equipment too you know it doesn't look like you can put the 18-wheeler truck the big cab up on a lift in there doesn't look like it it would fit in there Etc and the equipment's there so I think those are some of the the questions that need to be looked at and addressed you know what efficiency gains that we're going to get out of a new building I mean or design and and and I agree that this year is not the year to be going back to taxpayers and saying hey we want to do a big giant project it's going to be X um the benefit now is that interest rates have come down you know cut 50 basis points in the last go around and talking maybe a couple more cuts by the end of the year so that would help if you did go to bond anything any projects so that's kind of my concern is we need to build at the right size if we do something and not saying well we need to have the all staff should be there when you really don't need the town engineer and Corey and the secretary and things like that actually there in that building so you could build a smaller facility and have them there's plenty of office space in this town that are totally vacant that you can probably get a good deal on I suspect that the best piece of information I can provide will be a bit of a fill in for the four new members to the finance committee who haven't lived through this process um I'll tell you that when we first heard about it I was rabidly ignorant and against the idea um almost immediately upon taking tours of the building I was rabidly for the idea because it is woefully inadequate um I think the concerns that Jason has put forth is that the current plan was advised by a consulting firm whose task was look at the way we currently operate and Define what our needs are based on that I think what Jason pointed out is was the question asked are we operating as efficiently as we can be so now we've designed a building to fit around something that we don't fully know if it's the correct operation or not we suspect and I think in good faith it's okay to assume that it's close um and that there shouldn't be a lot of waste there um I think the pill like sounds to me is hardest to swallow is just the cost right um if we hadn't just faced an override uh this discussion wouldn't be as deep as it's getting I think if you take 30 million at 4.75% for 30 years I think it works out to about 1 $1.9 million a year what can you do with $1.9 million a year in terms of replacing or um fixing equipment um if you amortise that that then over 50 years of depreciation you know gets a little bit cheaper $1 and a half million dollars a year um so I think those are the major issues you know that we're facing on that front but I did want to at least mention for the four new members that in terms of the building and its usefulness and the way that we use it now it is wholly inadequate the committee that Roland and I served on was unanimous in that decision um the only thing the committee didn't do was explore are there other options other than building a new building we didn't do any exploration on that front so that's kind of the synopsis of what youve missed thank you very much for the information uh uh so I I think that's uh some what from what I hear is there just a consensus that something has to be done with the building so we can maintain this level of these Services uh I think uh but with I think what has been also mentioned is that that their options their options and having more information about different options might help us to make more informed decisions and I think this is also something that like I haven't read the reports about as a resident in the town when they look at this project I think those are also the questions that they were they will ask go ahead Steve thank you um I have several points I want to make or questions uh that I'll want to see the answers to um the first is back in 2015 the town did a uh townwide facilities study the conditions of all the buildings um the DPW building was identified as one needing about a million dollars worth of improvements and repairs over the next 20 years but that was the extent of it um I don't know whether we did any of those uh repairs or improvements and now we're faced with having um to replace the whole thing um I don't think that's the case cuz I remember going through the place about five or six years ago and it looked pretty bad then so um that's one thing I'd like to see somebody tell me what the difference this one was done by a firm of Architects um name was learner Lads and Bartles I believe um my second question is um if I look around at construction companies and trucking companies um with similar equipment they don't store them inside garages they leave them outside um if there's a clear Financial reason why you do that I would think somebody would be storing their stuff in um garages so I would like to see a dollars and cents quantification of the benefits that um David uh was mentioning in his opening statement uh somebody must have done a study at some point uh to quantify this uh some towns have engaged the Colin Center at UMass to evaluate their Fleet of vehicles uh in terms of replacement and maintenance Cycles cost of keeping old Vehicles going versus buying new uh I would like to know if we've ever done such a study either with the Colin Center or anybody else for that that matter another thing they mention in that is a best practice is looking at your functions uh on a fully costed basis meaning um if they're doing vehicle maintenance it's not just the amount you pay the um employee per hour it's uh the factor of all their benefits their pension their OPB and um allocating the cost of a new facility if that's what's required to continue to doing the function um now we don't have any numbers on this um looking at um the last study the vehicle maintenance SE section of the building was about 15 16% of the floor space um you know it's easy enough to calculate the um the amount of debt service over the next 20 years um of the building B 15% I think what you're going to find is that your um your rate for your vehicle maintenance employees will probably uh double or triple uh when you add in all that uh Debt Service in that case is it still a viable thing for us to want to do on our own or should we consider a contract to have it done by another company um the other question I have to ask um given that this is acting is has the environmental assessment been done private sector we'd call it a 21e um you know is there a risk uh of encountering something in the construction process um that we don't know is there um happened before years ago we bought the cowat property it was basically farmland and we found that uh no there were problems with it from an environmental standpoint after we bought it uh so that's something before we um would um want to proceed on this I'd want to see somebody tell me that um environmentally we're clean otherwise we're just opening a um a real can of worms and I think that's it Mr chairman Nice List Steve I will go to Greg then Christie I'll finish go ahead Greg sure um I'm in agreement with all the comments that have been made so far by the finance committee members I think this is one of those uh classic situations where what we are asking for is a tradeoff analysis you know instead of looking at the DPW building in and of itself on its own merits we recognize that pardon me if we're going to come up with money to pay for something even something that can be deemed necessary there will be trade-offs and the instant tradeoff that um Karen has identified as taxes go up but the other tradeoffs uh could you know have other impacts on other Town Services we we're if we pay so much money for a DPW building then what what will we not be able to afford in you know you pick it police fire Senior Services I mean you know what are the trade-offs so that's that's one of them the second and this is going to sound odd but it's um I think it's a challenge that all Finance committees um in New England face is uh we do not have um the resources the staff the investigative team to go out and come up with the numbers for us we sort of have to do it on our own and that's um a hard thing to do for volunteers who are donating some of their time um what I would suggest that we do probably have time to at least invest some of our members is there is um the Massachusetts Municipal Association has an association of Finance committees they have a meeting coming up I think in early November they too are wrestling with how do you make the ends meet in today's environment we're not the only town uh in the Commonwealth that is wrestling with making budgets work under pop two and a half and we may find that the answer is there is a town out there that had to wrestle with this problem last year the year before three years ago whatever wouldn't it be nice to know who they are what they did what insights we could bring what alternatives we could suggest so I think a little bit of um recog nition that we may not all have the time and resources to solve this problem by ourself and we may need to reach out to uh other fincom in other places to see who has tackled this particular problem before thanks C go ahead Christie um one of the things that I have heard mentioned is that our debt for the junior high senior high is falling off it ends up that has been $189 on the average tax bill so while that comes off the top that's certainly not a $40 million at current bond rate payment I would love to know from one of our um Bond people an estimate of what that would be just to get my head around how much of a change we're looking at here um problem of going last is a lot people have already asked what I was thinking of um one thing I've curious is whether this could be a stage project U one idea was whether the offices could be done elsewhere if we do need new offices new um locker rooms Etc could that be one project and then similar to how we've built the uh Fuel Depot out into something separate could this be um the garage and the office space be separated um I'm also curious about whether this is in any way Guided by our capital investment plan for equipment coming up has the design been built around the current equipment we have or has there also been a a look towards what we are specifically even in the next five years considering in the future I I imagine some of these are really quite easy for them to answer um and that's what I have on top of everyone else oh and I'm sorry just at this point for me the biggest issue is the timing with that increase last year I recognize this is a project that's been worked on for a long time but we had a sudden increase last year tax override and that does change things um for the taxpayers out there so it's just having worked on it for a long time is not a reason to stay at the same Pace thank you Chrissy go ahead Roland so to piggy back on what Steve was saying we bought the cette property we found out that there used to be it Tannery on the on the property at one point in time and the soil had to be re remediated right so that became an environmental concern the other one too is we ended up buying the Lazaro property I guess there was some things we had deal with that property as well plus we also bought a dam you know I mean I don't think the town want to go and buy a dam but that's what we end up that's what we ended up with and that cost the town money too so I think that we really need to also look at that site really well and have an environmental as steeve said I feel what you call it 12E or something 21 21e assessment done on the property to figure out do we have any environmental contamination going on there and if we do how are we going to address that you know that that's something that's if you do the environmental assessment then you uncover it and you uncover that the whole facility there ISM that has to be remediated first because then you get de involved and EPA and everybody else know to man so I think those are some concerns and I also think to we had take into account the neighbors that but that property on Far Street you know is it going to make their lives any better and I and I don't I don't know the answer to that and I agree with Steve too is when you go by a lot of these big contractors you go by the one over near Martin Street I forget the name of the Road Stow Street where you head over stow and there's um Lazaro but the air equipment is all stored outside you see it big trucks and everything and big pieces of equipment so we get to kind of figure that piece out too now obviously if you keep a vehicle in a garage it's going to last long as it's not exposed to the elements all the time so there are things that to could do with that and what's happening with you going to be building new infrastructure for electrification I would assume but that's not moving as fast as everybody predicted it would be by 2030 we're all be driving electric cars well we obviously know that's not happening so um there are other so just other things that we need to consider as we go along through this process all right thank you everybody uh my own thoughts want to speak again okay I you want to go last you want to go go before me Jason Alison oh Allison sorry I said Allison wants to speak again okay son I was just going to in response to Greg's suggestion at looking at the mass Municipal Association they actually had a session today on Capital planning and there was a gentleman from Arlington who addressed um and I know it's not necessarily a comparable Community but but he did discuss how they navigated their DPW building and some other major expenses and and I think they had multiple overrides to be honest maybe not backto back but um that may be that makes PL partly how they dealt with it but it was um timely they covered a lot of the topics we're discussing here today it will be available on their site later if you want to take a look at the resources and the discussion thank you all right so I'll go to my few thoughts um I think my own from my perspective the the cost is it's not necessarily the number that's presented it's just the fact fact that or maybe not the fact but the suspicion that the number is going to change and due to any uh un unforeseen circumstances and I think I need to get comfortable with the cost myself um to get comfortable with the project I would fear that we would find something or cost structure would change and would be too into the project to stop um because you're not going to stop if you built half a building and you found out it's going to cost you three times the price to finish so that that's kind of where my head's at so if there's any other final thoughts anybody Jason anybody I just going to say there a um it's slipping out of my mind um damn I I definitely don't want us to fall into uh analysis paralysis um but at the same but at the same time um I I definitely believe that just because it it's been the plan of record for four years doesn't doesn't satisfy my my my requirement of knowing if if we're getting the maximum value out of this and then um there was one last thought uh oh yes they spent $1.22 five million in getting to where they're at for this meeting uh the day after tomorrow um I there's only been one meeting on this in this committee uh from back in March so that's a long period of time to not be able to take any public input um but in that 1.22 five million they do the soil samples I'm I'm I'm being hopefully optimistic that what we see on Thursday surprises us and answers a bunch of these questions um but um I'm concerned that it's been 6 months since the the committee was formed and there's been no there has been no Outreach up to now other than to say we're going to present to you a 60% plan on Thursday uh so God I hope they've done the soil sampling with the 1.22 five million they've already spent on this project all right thank you thank you Jason uh Chris Jason I have a recollection when I was um on the Kelly's Corner uh project that 75% designed was really effectively done um for the because I hear 60 I'm like oh they're not that really that far into it but it was actually it's pretty far south or not far north of 60% where a project is effectively locked in for design um do you know about that from your building committee so the the building committee on the school side was done completely differently I mean we had multiple rounds of input on what people wanted uh what the and I I fully grant that a DPW building does not need the same level of input that the school does because there's a lot more of the public that goes through the school that goes through the DPW but um to go directly to a 60% plan even though that's was what was approved last year um yeah I think they're pretty far down the path and I'm a little concerned that they've not addressed the the uh concerns that we've already raised um so in the past on the school side there were plenty rounds of asking what what do people what do people want what are the things that they're concerned about are there other configurations that could be done uh long before we ever got to the point of going getting to a 60% schematic does that answer your question yes thank you I just want to make sure for the sake of people who have not been around this block that it's clear that 60% is actually far along that it it's not just more than halfway right thank you Christie U he Scott hey Dave go ahead yeah Ju Just one request is if if someone in the group or if it's this this other committee's um town website like is there a we can get information that that is available at this point because some of the stuff that I have is a little bit dated um and even if it's just a link to um the separate committee's you know document share or what have you so there is off of the main page if you click on government and then do boards and committees there are two um there are two two entries one's the feasibility group and the other is the building committee the only thing that's under the Department of Public Works building committee is the agenda from the from the March 1st meeting that's the only thing that's there um so you know not to beat a dead horse but six months going by that's halfway to the to the next town meeting um I I understand that this is quote unquote a public process but one meeting does not seem like a a very public process thank you Jason uh any other further thoughts from the finance committee all right are we going to move to the next agenda item we are we are moving to finance committee business uh first things first is to approve the meeting minutes that uh Jason sent around um if there's any edits or changes to any of the minutes so um I recommend we do what we did last time which is go through all of them make our comments and then approve them as edited on mass um the first the first set of meeting minutes is June 25th uh and I read through them I did not see any edits does anybody else have any edits to the June 25th minute uh meeting minutes no I'm saying NOS great the next one is July 23rd but I also did not see any uh edits that I needed to make I'm not seeing any edits or any objections right the August 13 meeting minutes section two uh section to paragraph 6 um I'd like that to be changeed to say that Mr Cole committed commented that the effort should be done from an absolute value perspective not from a comparative community's perspective Greg shaking his head like he remembers me saying it I do yeah very good does anybody else have any other edits for that one although I was on Zoom then and you were here all right just to confirm Jason could you just restate your edit just so it's clear section two paragraph 6 y Mr Cole commented that the effort should be done from an absolute value perspective not from a comparative community's perspective thank you all right so any other edits to the August 13th minutes no other edits okay August 27th uh section three uh um uh let's see something to the effect of well we spent a lot of time discussing on working to achieve fiscal sustainability which did not make it into the uh I we spent over 30 minutes talking about that and that did not make it into the meeting minutes at all so I'd like there in section three I'd like there to be entry about a lot of discussion on working to achieve fiscal sustainability uh we also stated that additional debt exclusions are unaffordable and then on the second to last paragraph um uh the second left paragraph should say something to effective we should stay at 3% unless they are ear earmarked for a specific purpose and that's with regard to the uh debt floor uh sorry the uh uh free cash Reserve policy that should be at 3% unless there's unless uh money's over that are earmarked for a specific purpose I'm not going to ask you to repeat that um any other addit to the August 27th minutes okay and then I think there's one more this September 10th I did not see any edits that jumped out at me any other edits from the group no all right so we vote on this right Mr chairman um it's going to be a roll call vote so I I would say let's make one motion yes so I would um move that we accept the minutes of June 25th July 23rd August 13th as amended August 27th as amended in September 10th second okay so uh voting online Jason I Dave he Allison hi and we'll go Dr gang and we'll come this way does the new associate M to vote on this oh your I good I I okay I I I I'm an i i i not unanimous decision right it is it is it is it is yes what I said said oh no that's what I thought I said I can check the minutes all right uh so from there we move on to Liaison reports uh so uh if you have a leaon report online anybody with Lea on Reports online Allison um so I attended the most recent water district meeting um they had an additional meeting on September 18th mostly to discuss a recent um I think a bond offering um but but I didn't attend that one so this is with regards to the one that occurred yesterday they um they reviewed the audit the annual audit and had some very favorable discussion about that you can review at their um uh the materials they posted for the meeting and then um you know otherwise they uh discussed the um see outdoor water use restrictions um P Kelly's Corner updates um all of this was positive and then a lead and copper uh rule Improvement I think this is to replace or at least identify the pipes at risk for for potentially being lead pipes um and there's an October 16 deadline they're working towards and potentially offering Financial incentives for some of the um properties that have not been responsive but that need to be assessed for possible lead pipes and so that was it thank you Allison uh DAV Jason do either one of you have any leaz on reports I'll say that no no no no all right Greg's raising his hand yeah for the economic development committee um J Pierce has let the committee know that she will be leaving um and their meeting in September was um not held uh they will hold their next meeting in October all right thank you Greg any other liaison reports um I attended the insurance trust meeting uh and probably the main take away uh from that meeting is that they're trying to get uh some guidance on money uh that's been requested from Blue Cross Blue Shield and if uh some of the money can be paid out of the money that's already in the deposit with Blue Cross and if they can use the money that's being kept as a runoff uh which is about half half a million dollars um to cover money without funding additional funds to Blue Cross um there was more than that discussed at the meeting but that was the kind of the main two takeaways from the meeting that's so more to come they're trying to get um some answers from Blue Cross on that all right so any other questions or concerns leaz on report you want to address address it's your call sure if you want to go up to the mic thank you uh Dean sh Vice chair of the select board um Jason had reached out to me and the town manager to invite us to this meeting uh manager and assistant manager both out of town and up until a couple of minutes ago is tied up in a CPC meeting downstairs getting our plan approved and finding out how much money we got to spend for next year or so um I I came in at the uh at the end of uh of Mr Cole's remarks so I'm not sure exactly what was said but let me just give you a very brief um update and an invitation we have a meeting in this room on Thursday night starting at 7 o'clock with the project manager which is PMA Associates and with the architect Weston Samson uh We've advertised it fairly broadly it's going to be a meeting of the uh new Department of Public Works building committee and we have actually sent some mailers out to some of the uh abing neighbors just to try to get as many people in as possible a little bit about the process that we followed as you're aware we had a feasibility study committee they produced a report and the original plan was that once the report was submitted to the select board that Mee that committee would uh Sunset so that report was approved by the committee on October 19th 2022 and that committee basically dealt with reviewing the feasibility study which had been done previously so the new committee uh which was formed is a strictly a building committee it is many of the same members that were on the feasibility study committee uh with some small differences but uh the new building committee is focused more directly on getting the building done the uh the previous committee came to the conclusion that uh it was feasible to replace the existing Public Works building and asked it be moved ahead and the select board approved that funding was approved at uh town meeting in uh May 1st 2023 $1.22 million for design of the new structure the uh in July of 23 formed the new committee and we've actually it's a sort of a circuitous process to go to the next stage of these projects which is why this thing has been hanging fire for so long which I personally find is a very frustrating um because of the size of the construction the town first has to hire an owner project manager before we can even hire an architect so going through the procurement process of hiring uh PM who we've chosen they were the owner project manager for the north Acton fire station we had good results with them once we brought them on board then the next step was to solicit working with the owners's project manager solicit proposals from architectural firms so that process took a couple of months so now we're we've got the pieces in place we did have the one meeting um the minutes from the meeting have not been posted yet because we've not had a second meeting so there was really nothing to discuss so at our meeting on Thursday night as chair I will be asking to uh to get those minutes it's approved and they'll be posted um they're not very substantial frankly it's about a page and a half um I would note in general that the idea of a building new Public Works facility has been on the select board goals generated in 21 22 23 and 24 and in fact our most recent goal uh is bring DPW facilate project town meeting in May of 2025 and that was agreed to by all members of the select board so we are planning on moving ahead with it um obviously it's a huge project um and in my previous role performing project s for the town you know i' I've gone through this before I've had projects approved I've had projects disapproved and come back again U I'm aware of the the political implications certainly it's an expensive project so I would ask that you keep an open mind somewhat and certainly hopefully can come to the meeting uh this Thursday to to hear a full presentation from Weston and Samson and PMA as to what they've been doing and a lot of what they've been doing over the summer is scrubbing through that feasibility study working closely with Public Works folks and Highway Department folks doing some more preliminary drilling preliminary U survey of the site and coming up with a a plan for how we can phase the construction and not have to move all the operations offsite for a period of time during construction PMA is projecting it's going to be a two-year project we are at the same time because you folks know we approved the funding we are going to be moving ahead with building new uh Fuel Depot on the site which is integral to getting this job done get the fuel tanks out of the way keep that operational the plan that has been developed would phase construction over a period of time so that we can keep operations going in the present site at 14 Forest Road um all of that will be displayed we want to get some more input from everyone to look at what we've come up with and the spaces that we need we think that they're compatible with similar facilities in similar size towns um we've not sent it to the estimators yet the idea was to send things off to the estimators after that public meeting that's going to be Thursday I know the town manag has also offered to have a special meeting with all involved and you folks so that you can really focus in on the financial considerations and all of your other concerns and I think they he suggested a date of October 8th for that meeting we' certainly like to hear back from that and that would presumably be here and it would be this the same design team that uh you'll be hearing from on Thursday night so thank you for your consideration giving me the opportunity to speak um would have been here sooner but I got spread a little thin this evening um if you have any questions be happy to answer them um but I think whatever information you could glean at that meeting on Thursday night would be helpful um and I think we can have you know a fuller discussion at that point thank you uh uh uh Mr Charter uh CH select Charter um I must have gotten my signals crossed I believe you had originally said e 8:30 and I said I'd hold it for you till 8:30 and then you came back and said that you wanted to wait until after the uh after the presentation so I apologized that we had the conversation without you being present I was not it was not clear that you were going to be able to show up tonight so I apologize for not holding the conversation until you're able to join I would uh I would request that you please go back and listen to the recording of this because uh while I did speak at the end everyone in everyone on the committee did chime in and give their opinion so I would strongly recommend that you review the 20 minutes of uh worth of questions that were that were passed around and yes I'm looking forward to being pleasantly surprised on Thursday uh when I see the scope of the project and see the see if the um uh environmental uh prerequisites have been met so that we were able to to uh know that we're not going to have uh anywhere near the level of increase in costs that we had on the fire fire station um which was not due to anything uh environmental but um it went from $5.5 million earlier in the year to $1 million at the end of the year and I absolutely we absolutely cannot afford to have anything approaching that level of escalation on a building that starts at this size anyway so please do review our questions so that you uh fully understand where we're coming from as well thank you thank you J uh Christie Mr chter that meeting is unfortunate at the same time as the back to school school night that is important for high school parents to attend will it be recorded or will be the there be another way for us to get the information presented for those of us who cannot be there um I know they have reached out to Acton TV to get it recorded so um hopefully all that will happen um and certainly if if we do the same sort of presentation for you folks if you opt for the uh meeting on the 8th there'll certainly be an opportunity for other members of the public to come as well I just wanted to remind Jason and other members that the October 8th is the first budget task force for the school committee meeting so we will be starting at 8:00 not 7:30 thank you all right any other questions all right Dr gang your time thank you I'll make the motion to J second all right it had to do a roll call all right on the on the zoom call Jason hi Allison hi Dave I I I I sorry I I I I I I all right we are adjourned thank you everybody